Elections have to mean something for us to win

[dsc]

and currently for many voters midterms don't mean anything. If we don't get rid of the filibuster, control of the Senate will never really mean control of the Senate. Just look at the period from 2009 to 2011 when we had either 59 or 60 seats out of 100 the entire time. In every other democracy on the planet that would have meant we would get to dictate the policies of the country as long as our majority stuck together. Instead, we had a stimulus that was at least 1/3 geared to GOP priorities, we get a health care plan that was designed to, but failed to, garner any GOP votes, we got tax policy that kept the majority of the tax cuts that the GOP wanted and tanked the one tax cut that was a Democratic invention (admittedly that took until 2012 to be tanked but the groundwork for that was laid in the 2010 lame duck), and we didn't get card check, a union priority, immigration reform, a priority for Hispanics, ENDA, a priority for the LGBT community, or a public option in health care a major liberal priority. In 2010, and for that matter 2012 we had to defend a record that wasn't really ours. We are the only democracy where that happens. In all the rest you vote for party A, party A, if it wins a majority, gets to run the government as it sees fit. If party A makes the electorate mad, party A gets booted for party B, who if it gets a majority gets to run the government as it sees fit. If party B makes the electorate mad, party B gets booted for either party A or party C and so on. Elections in those countries have clear meaning. Vote for me and you will get marriage equality, or tax cuts, or more humane drug policy or tougher criminal sanctions on street crime. Those policies get put into effect, they either work or don't, and the party either wins a new term or gets booted. That is how democracy is supposed to work. Here, we get either no policies which go into effect or we get policies that are so compromised that no one knows who's policies are whose. How are even moderate information voters supposed to come to the conclusion that mid term elections matter when this is the case?

An even worse effect strategically of the filibuster is that it prevents us from enacting popular policies while it prevents our opposition form enacting unpopular policies. The only policies of there which are largely popular are cutting taxes which are also the only policies which get enacted by a simple majority. The rest of their agenda is hugely unpopular but since it gets filibustered people who want the tax cuts can vote for the GOP with impunity since the rest of their agenda never comes to pass. Conversely, our base gets justifiably annoyed when even with full control of the government we can't get even popular parts of our agenda through. That is a recipe for people to decide that mid terms are meaningless elections and the turnout tanks.

Get rid of the filibuster or we never will solve the mid term problem.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. I strongly suspect the Republicans will do just that.

Now that they have the majority in the Senate, I suspect they'll be right onboard with getting rid of the filibuster, or at least with getting rid of the requirement for a 60 vote count to end one, which is what most people mean when they talk about it.

[smokey nj]

2. Not dealing with the filibuster back in 2009 was the Democrats' biggest failure.

They didn't even need to do away with it, just make it less convenient to use and abuse.