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Until recently, the filibuster was used sparingly. But as party lines have come to mark this nation's ideological divide, the filibuster has become the roadside bomb of the Senate's minority party.
But as frustrated as each party has been by the other's heavy-handed use of the filibuster, neither has been willing to detonate the "nuclear option" out of fear that such action would harm them, too.
As he spoke in support of ending the filibuster last week on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, former Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean seemed to wish it wouldn't come to that. "Even though having a filibuster would help us in the long run if we get back into the minority, which statistically someday we're likely to do ... I think for the good of the country, we probably have to go forward (and) eliminate the filibuster."
The filibuster is a Faustian bargain that undermines the will of voters. The promise of change that swept Barack Obama into the presidency and padded Democratic majorities in the House and Senate last year has been largely derailed by the Senate's Republican minority, which has kept a broad array of legislation from coming to a vote.
More than outrageous, this legislative tyranny holds hostage our democracy to the whims of a political party that was on the losing end of an election cycle. The voters who gave Democrats control of Congress and the White House in the recent elections expect results, not inaction. They expect Congress to bring bills to a vote, not allow a mean-spirited minority to filibuster them to death.If Democrats won't use the majority voters gave them to end this bad practice, then they deserve to suffer their wrath in November's elections.
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Link:
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2010/02/column-senate-democrats-need-to-use-nuclear-option-against-gop.html#more:woohoo:
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