Reid’s Rotten Rules

[Geee]

National Review:

 

As members of Congress fight with the president and each other over the budget impasse, another battle looms. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said he may try — on the very first day of the new Congress — to change the Senate’s rules regarding the filibuster.

Reid wants to severely limit the minority’s ability to filibuster, and his plan for doing so would itself violate the Senate’s rules on rule changes. If successful, he would destroy a critical element of legislative procedure, one designed to prevent the “tyranny of the majority” that the Founders feared above all else.

The Senate’s long tradition of extended debate and an open amendment process is enshrined in Senate Rule 22. It comports with the Founders’ intent that the Senate be a more deliberative body than the inherently raucous House of Representatives. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison saw the Senate as the “great anchor” of the government that would calm the passions of the House. Similarly, George Washington told Jefferson that the Senate was intended to “cool” House legislation in the same way that a saucer was used to cool hot tea.