| Ryan Lizza has a dazzling whirlwind tour of the failure of the U.S. Senate to pass climate legislation -- a failure that some of Lizza's sources indicate will set a hard carbon cap back years (huge victory for ice caps yearning to be oceans).
Climate change suffered from a lot of problems: a trio of backers who are possibly uniquely unsuited to passing major legislation, a crowded plate of legislation moving forward, and an issue that uniquely moves the right but moves only a relatively elite segment of the left.
Beyond that, it really suffered from what I'll simply call the U.S. Senate. Coming off of the 2008 elections, voters handed Democrats 60 U.S. Senate seats (one by the narrowest of margins). But unlike most foreign countries, our parties (especially the Dems) are fairly big tents and a number of members feel very little need to follow the party line.
In addition, there is a lot of good reason for minority parties in the U.S. (as elsewhere) to stand against the majority party.
So add all of this up and combine it with the filibuster and the tendency in American politics is to reward the most self-interested, short-sighted, and least competent lawmakers. It was the filibuster that gave us the Cornhusker Kickback in the health care bill - the special package of goodies that Ben Nelson demanded in exchange for his vote. It also resulted in the ridiculous Gang of Six negotiations that resulted in watered-down legislation but no Republican votes for the measure.
There's an important lesson here -- from virtually any policy experts' viewpoint, the health care bill would have been improved by passing a bill that only required 51 votes instead of 60.
The next Congress will have an option to bring back the ability of a Senator to call the question (a rule that existed in the early years of the Senate). There are other reforms that could be considered, some stronger (abolish the Senate), some weaker (water down the cloture, but keep it in place). But the body would be wise to abolish the rules. It is making our nation ungovernable. A nation that cannot solve collective challenges without unanimous consent is a nation that will not long survive. |
