How Did We Get Here?

The Senate has been called “the world’s greatest deliberative body.” Today, it barely functions. That’s a sharp contrast from what the Founding Fathers intended. When they drafted the Constitution, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison were determined to avoid the paralysis of the “supermajority” requirements contained in the Articles of Confederation.

• “[Requiring more than a majority would mean] the fundamental principle of free government would be reversed.”  — James Madison, Federalist Papers Number 58

• “[Requiring more than a majority is] a poison [that] destroy[s] the energy of the government… [If] the sense of the smaller number will overrule that of the greater… [the result will be] continual negotiation and intrigue; contemptible compromise of the public good.”  — Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Papers Number 22

Today, the filibuster has delayed or blocked the confirmation of scores of presidential nominees to top government posts, cabinet positions, and to the courts. Just 43 percent of President Obama’s nominees have been approved. During the Bush administration, the Senate confirmed 87 percent of nominees over the same period. In the Clinton years it was 84 percent, and under President Reagan, 93 percent.

There are still 196 Presidential nominees awaiting confirmation. If every nominee were blocked and filibustered, which virtually has happened, it would take the Senate a full eight months working 24-hour days of doing nothing but confirmations to fill these vacancies.

The warnings by those who framed our Constitution have been totally ignored. Instead, we have a Senate system where obstruction is the rule, not the exception. Recent polls have found that all Americans, no matter what their political affiliation, agree that “Senators should allow a bill to be voted on.” But what we’ve seen over the past few years is that fewer and fewer bills, and fewer and fewer nominations, ever make it through the Senate.