No Delay – The 1900s
So, what’s the deal with filibuster-critics and the current Wisconsin stand-off? Presumably people who were angry about obstructionism in the national Congress should be equally critical of these acts, at least if they were espousing genuine principles.
There is something to this. But I want to offer a couple thoughts that insist on a bit more complexity.
The first easy response is: I object to counter-majoritarian elements within legislatures in principle but as long as they exist I’m not willing to unilaterally disarm. This is obviously a self-serving argument, but I don’t think that renders it completely invalid. It is quite possible to be hypocritical at the level of particularity but still retain credibility at the larger scale. The ‘disarmament’ metaphor is perhaps apt here. A truly genuine commitment perhaps should insist on unilateral disarmament but standard practice is to accept that the principle may be sound but the means for reaching it must be more circumspect.
Still, if that was the only argument here, I wouldn’t find it tremendously persuasive. It’s very easy to criticize and even more easy to fall into the same habits once they serve you personally. But it’s very difficult to walk the line of exploiting while remaining critical.
Fortunately, there’s another reason to see a serious difference here. Most people concerned about the filibuster are MUCH more concerned about the routine ease of its use than they are absolutists about the principle of pure majority rule. The principle that Congress ought to have the capacity to gum up the works in extreme cases is reasonably defensible.
An institutionalized filibuster puts zero burden on the party conducting it. It’s up to the other side to either round up 60 votes, or simply move on.
The case in Wisconsin is different. The Democrats have to pay a serious cost. They are shutting down the entire operation of government on spending issues, and are removing themselves from non-spending issues. This is not something they could duplicate on any old piece of legislation. It must be reserved for issues where forcing delay has a genuine purpose. In this case, they thought the public would rally behind them if they had a chance to raise the issue to a significant level of discussion. It seems like they might have been right.
But if the public had, after a week or so, clearly supported the bill they would have absolutely destroyed their own credibility if had they continued to hold out.
There is no definitive right answer to how much power a minority (or what size minority should be required) to block the normal function of majority rule. But if you’re trying to justify a standard, what’s happening in Wisconsin is MUCH easier to defend than the Senate’s filibuster rules.
If you want to find a way to lock down future applications of fleeing to block quorum calls, you might simply impose a rule that the number of people necessary to make quorum should decline after a set period of time. Say, a month?
I certainly don’t think that the Wisconsin 14 should stay away indefinitely, nor that they should employ this tactic with any kind of regularity. But I really have very little concern that this will actually happen. The costs are simply too high. Again, not personal costs (having to live out of state for a while! oh noes!), but institutional and electoral ones (inability to pass other, good laws and the likely growing voter backlash at over-application of the tool).