December 29, 2012
[VIA E-MAIL]
Senator Charles E. Schumer
322 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington D.C. 20510
Dear Senator Schumer:
Having just read the
details of the proposed filibuster "reform" [sic bill] introduced by you and Senator McCain (and some others), as a New Yorker and as a Democrat, I am absolutely outraged to see ANY Democrat's name (let alone my own Senator's) on such a watered-down, meaningless bill.
For the past four years, despite Democrats having won the White House and having retained a majority in the Senate, a minority party has been able to block bill after bill and nominee after nominee. Democracy has been turned on its ear as the will of the people, as expressed by the majority of their votes, has been subjugated to and overturned by a radical, extreme political party, merely by means of invoking a badly administered parliamentary maneuver. This is not what the nation's founders envisioned, nor is it what virtually every American has learned since he or she was a child about the way a representative democracy is supposed to work. This thwarting of democratic will is the primary problem that needs to be addressed at this juncture.
The bill you have proposed merely adds a few additional burdens to those wishing to filibuster legislation or executive and judicial branch nominees. But the actual ability to filibuster is the thing that needs to be seriously curtailed in the interest of enabling the electorate to express its will while at the same time having a reasonable expectation that such electoral will would be honored.
Any meaningful filibuster reform MUST include ALL of the following if it is to be considered to be at all serious:
(1) Eliminate the ability to filibuster the motion to proceed;
(2) Require that those wishing to block legislation or nominations take the floor and actually filibuster—i.e., mandating “talking filibusters”;
(3) Assert that 41 Senators must affirmatively vote to continue debate rather than forcing 60 Senators to vote to end debate; and,
(4) Streamline the confirmation process for all nominees by eliminating the currently required 30 hours of post cloture debate on a nominee to zero or at a minimum no more than 2 hours.
In short, Senator Schumer, if you want my continued support at the ballot box, and if the party as a whole expects me to remain a loyal Democrat, then you should withdraw this ill-considered, meaningless bill post haste, and get to work on a REAL filibuster reform bill that will actually address the problems with the filibuster as it currently stands, rather than merely trying to paper over certain parts of it and enabling senators to claim to their constituents that they actually _did_ something about filibuster reform. Neither you nor any other Democrat was elected to create legislation in response to a real problem that amounts to nothing more than some cosmetic changes intended to create the [false] impression among voters that something meaningful was done.
Senator Schumer, I respectfully urge you to ditch this legislation and to promptly get back to doing what you were elected to do: that is, to come up with REAL solutions to the real problems we face. What NO voter in this country wants from its elected senators is a senator that signs onto half-measures that do nothing but provide senators with political cover while failing to address the root of the problem.
Sincerely,
Mark P. Kessinger
New York, New York
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