By PETER FENN

The filibuster fight going on in the Senate is the tragic undoing of majority rule. The sad fact is that Senators, the press and the public have accepted the notion that it takes 60 votes to pass almost any piece of legislation – a super majority.

That is completely contrary to what was envisioned by our founding fathers and what was in place for over 200 years. Only a relatively few cases were established for a super majority: impeachment, eviction of members, votes on treaties, constitutional amendments.

Regular legislation and approval of presidential nominees were done by a vote of the majority. Debate on the Senate floor was part and parcel of the institution and Senators could pull a Wendy Davis or Jimmy Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”

The filibuster rule was established in 1917 to require Senators to talk around the clock before a two-thirds vote stopped debate. The key was you had to hold the floor, you had to actually “filibuster,” you could not just threaten a filibuster as you can today.

[See a collection of political cartoons on Congress.]

In the first 50 years until the late 1970s, the filibuster was used 35 times, mostly during high-visibility civil rights bills, and cots were set up off the Senate floor. This, you can imagine, was rather discouraging to Senators who both wanted to move other legislation and go home to their families and sleep in their own beds.

In less than six years since becoming leader in 2007, Mitch McConnell has led 417 filibusters. That is not a typo – 417.

The result is paralysis, pure and simple. The result is that the passage of legislation of any import needs at least 60 votes. This isn’t even really a filibuster, it’s a fake filibuster, a locked-in super majority. Republicans have abused it, seriously abused it, by even holding up presidential nominees for months. This is what Harry Reid is now dealing with in the Senate.

But the problem is that if this so-called filibuster is accepted as normal and regular order and the way the Senate does business, every party that wants to obstruct will believe they have the right to do so. It is an escalating arms race. Right now, 16 states have required a two-thirds vote in their legislatures to raise taxes and many have other super majority requirements for other bills. This is a bad road to go down that leads to paralysis and inaction and endless frustration.

[VOTE: Do the Senate’s Filibuster Rules Have to Go?]

If a filibuster is to exist, it should be a real filibuster. No other legislation can proceed, the people who believe so strongly in an issue must hold the floor 24/7. The country will focus on the debate just as they did during the civil rights struggle. Members would be held accountable.

By continuing the filibuster charade we have altered the Senate to make it nearly unrecognizable to many of us who worked there in years past. It has devastated the institution and harmed the country. It is way past time for the Senate to get back to majority rule, and jettison super majority rule.

Hopefully, the events of this week can lead to that.

By PETER FENN

President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

It struck me, after the extraordinary week of Supreme Court decisions, that there are real lasting lessons that we may need to take to heart.

When it comes to the striking down of crucial elements of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, memories washed over me. I was a Senate page during the summer of 1965 and stood with other pages in the Capitol Rotunda to watch President Lyndon Johnson sign the law he had worked so hard to pass.

Here is the line he began his speech with:  “Today is a triumph for freedom as huge as any victory that has ever been won on any battlefield.” He then traced the history of slavery and oppression. He spoke eloquently about the American Dream denied to so many. He spoke about the fundamental right to vote as part and parcel of what it meant to achieve equality and basic dignity.

[See a collection of political cartoons on gay marriage.]

But his opening sentence could so easily apply to the striking down of the Defense of Marriage Act or the growing freedom to marry, the freedom to be who you are, the emergence from the shadows of oppression for the LGBT community.

So it is rather ironic that the court affirmed the rapid change in attitudes and culture on gay rights, but undercut the nearly 50 year-old law so critical to civil rights. It isn’t as if these justices are deaf, dumb and blind to the voter suppression laws being proposed and the effort to prevent the poor and minorities from casting their ballots. It isn’t too much to recognize that the startling transformation that society, followed by our politicians, have made on gay marriage in less than a decade resulted in part from civil rights battles that are still being fought.

I am taken aback by the symbolism of admitting that the train has left the station on gay rights and ordering up the green lights on the tracks, while ordering up blinking red lights, or at least flashing yellow,  when it comes to voting rights.

[Weigh in: Was the Supreme Court’s voting rights decision correct?]

These two decisions are linked and many would have preferred consistency, not complacency when it came to civil rights.

I do think that the underlying message of the speech LBJ gave so many years ago could apply to civil rights and gay rights, and indeed, human rights.

Here are LBJ’s closing words that day in 1965:

The central fact of American civilization–one so hard for others to understand–is that freedom and justice and the dignity of man are not just words to us. We believe in them. Under all the growth and the tumult and abundance, we believe. And so, as long as some among us are oppressed–and we are part of that oppression–it must blunt our faith and sap the strength of our high purpose.

Strong words for us and for the Supreme Court to heed, to be sure.

Home > Opinion > Peter Fenn > Wendy Davis Shows the U.S. Senate How to Really Filibuster

Ms. Davis Comes to Austin

June 28, 2013 RSS Feed Print–USNews & World Report Thomas Jefferson Street Blog

• Comment (1)
• inShare

Jimmy Stewart could have taken lessons from Wendy Davis in the Texas State Senate. Or maybe she watched “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” before her marathon, successful filibuster.

Aside from the most important message for many of us – that draconian, turn-the-clock-back laws on a woman’s right to choose won’t be tolerated – there is another lesson. A lesson that many in Washington should learn about the filibuster.

If you are going to do it, you should be Wendy Davis or Jimmy Stewart. No more wimpy filibusters, or threats of filibusters, which is what we have in the current U.S. Senate.

[See a collection of political cartoons on Congress.]

The notion that the press and public have accepted that 60 votes are necessary to move nearly every piece of legislation of any controversy is a democratic (small “d”) disaster. The use of super majorities to pass legislation creates a serious problem and handcuffs legislative bodies. OK, two-thirds to approve a treaty in the Senate or impeach a president or amend the constitution, but really, 60 votes to move legislation of any consequence?

If U.S. Senators care enough about a bill to truly filibuster it, they should filibuster it  – like Wendy Davis – not rely on the wimp filibuster, as they do now.

The scary part of all this is that our country has accepted that 60 votes is standard operating procedure, that this is the regular and right way to legislate, that there is no alternative; suck it up and get used to it!

A number of senators understand the peril of this policy and are trying to fix it.  Maybe that is the other lesson from Wendy Davis.

 

By PETER FENN

Really, who would like to be in John Boehner’s shoes right now? His caucus is harder to deal with than a nest full of angry wasps.

They even started a petition to get the fifty signatures necessary to bring up a hard and fast rule for the Republican caucus that no bill could be brought to the floor without a majority of Republicans supporting it. (So much for bipartisanship!)

Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., is the force behind it and created a nasty furor among Republicans. Even Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., has threatened to stage a coup against the Speaker if he doesn’t agree.

[See a collection of political cartoons on the Republican Party.]

This, of course, would have prevented the passage of the Violence Against Women Act, help for victims of Hurricane Sandy and legislation at the end of 2012 to avoid going over the so-called “fiscal cliff.” None of these bills had a majority of Republicans, but rather needed bipartisan support to pass.

That brings us to immigration. As the Senate discovered long ago, this has to have bipartisan support to go anywhere. It involves compromise and much negotiation among serious legislators, starting with the gang of eight.

House Republicans are clearly another matter. The blowback has forced Speaker Boehner to not only commit to having a majority of his caucus on board with immigration legislation, but also to declare that he doesn’t favor a “comprehensive solution” on immigration, aka the Senate bill.

So, once again, the speaker is in a vice – does he help engineer the passage of immigration reform, enraging much of his caucus, or does he bow to their wishes to do border security and very little else.

[See a collection of political cartoons on immigration.]

As usual, efforts by some to put the speaker in handcuffs create a whole set of political problems for the Republican party. Votes on restricting abortion, abolishing Obamacare and cracking down on immigrants may make some caucus members feel good, but they do little to expand the Republicans’ political tent. In fact, they drive away young people, minorities and moderates from the party.

Boehner now has to thread the needle – pass some legislation on immigration that his party can stomach, go to a conference committee with the Senate and then pass something that will get bipartisan support, but not have a majority of his caucus on board.

Will this be enough to keep his angry wasps from swarming all over him or will it result in another rebellion? Will Boehner and his caucus deep-six immigration reform or will they come to their senses and proceed into the 21st Century? Or, to quote Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., will Republicans continue to fall further into their “demographic death spiral” by refusing to pass a reform bill?

It may well come down to the ability of Boehner to control his troops. Not an easy task.

By PETER FENN

I love spring, and especially the beginning of summer. Who doesn’t?

The steady cascade of color from flowers and trees, the leaves filling in the privacy for backyard barbecues, the advent of wildlife coming alive and the sounds of birds chirping and wind whistling. The warmth of the sun and the anticipation of family vacations and time off have to put a smile on anyone’s face.

As I get older, each coming of spring is more precious. This year maybe more than most. There have been milestones. A father, still vigorous and working, turned 90. Our two children, grown, and getting married to wonderful people this spring and this summer. Alison, my wife, is ten years cancer-free.

So it was that this year, we noticed the building of a nest by robins right by our back porch. We have seen nests before, at our little cabin in the woods in Pennsylvania and in Washington. But this year we watched it all unfold right on the ledge of our picture window.

It started, as it always does, with a mama bird bringing grass and twigs and crafting her home. Shielded from the wind and rain, it gradually took shape over a few days. Careful, consistent, predictable.

[Check out our gallery of political cartoons.]

Then, we thought, let’s take the trash out the front door; let’s take the dog out on the street, not the back yard; let’s put off the barbecuing for a while. Let’s not do it under her nose. Let’s sacrifice just a little and not disturb her. Let’s give her some space, as best we can.

And let’s just watch through that big picture window.

And watch we did over the last two and a half weeks.

Then I read up on birds and birth. I am basically a Washington city boy and not that wise on the ways of the world, certainly not nature.

I found that robins lay just four eggs usually, one a day. And it is not easy. It takes a lot out of a mama robin, as the birth process does for females of all species. The mama bird will sit on those eggs for 12-14 days. Robins usually only leave the nest for five to 10 minutes at a time once the eggs are laid.

The mama bird will rotate the eggs several times a day, keeping the right warmth, using her wings and her 104 degree body temperature to adjust for the weather outside.

It is all a very precise process, but it is all instinctual; it is all natural. It really is quite loving.

The papa bird will be nearby, will hang out, help gather food and respond to any alarm call. He’ll watch over them during the whole two weeks. He will sit on the eggs, too, when needed, keeping them covered and warm.

[Check out our editorial cartoons on President Obama.]

The chicks will break out, pushing through the shell, one bird each day, taking almost the entire day to emerge. It isn’t easy; it takes time and once they are free they need to be fed by the mama and papa birds all the time.

So, we have found over these last two weeks that we have taken great joy in checking in on our little nest, their little home. We even had a shower for our future daughter-in-law with thirty of her “girl” friends, in the living room as mama bird looked down, unconcerned about the celebration below.

To watch this miracle outside our window, we know how blessed we are with our miracles, with our children’s miracles and the joys that come with spring and summer.

We know that the process of a robin giving life, while we only  had a vague sense about all these years, is something quite remarkable, yet quite ordinary. But it doesn’t strike you as so important until you see it up close and read about just how incredible it all is.

Maybe we all need to watch the robins and listen to the birds and smell the flowers just a bit more. Maybe those of us in political battle should spend a little more time on the miracles, and a little less on the mundane. Maybe the simple things in life need just a little more attention. Maybe, just maybe, we all would be a bit better for it.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/Peter-Fenn/2013/06/17/spring-robins-and-family-make-politics-seem-silly

By PETER FENN

USNEWS & WORLD REPORT, THOMAS JEFFERSON STREET BLOG

We get that our intelligence agencies must collect and investigate information on terrorists or suspected terrorists. We get that modern technology and communications provide immense capability to track down these “evil doers,” as President Bush used to call them.

We also understand that there are a whole host of complex and secret relationships with foreign governments, foreign agents, foreign communications companies that come into play here – in addition to U.S. relationships.

This is one big intelligence universe.

But, in my work with the Senate investigation of the National Security Agency back in the mid-1970s we discovered a very disturbing connection between the intelligence community and American communications companies.

Western Union, ITT World International and RCA Global agreed to cooperate in turning over international communications of American citizens, beginning in the late 1940s and after the war-time spy agencies became NSA in the 1950s. (See my Senate colleague and later CIA Inspector General L. Britt Snider’shistory)

This was a wholesale “metadata” program as it might now be called. Every day all the telegrams would be sent to NSA headquarters. The legality was never fully established. The companies were initially somewhat uneasy about turning over all this information. But the program just kept rolling along, codenamed Operation Shamrock, until our investigation for the Church Committee.

[See a Collection of Political Cartoons on the NSA.]

We now forget the problems this caused: no warrants, no oversight of how mail and telegrams were handled, no reporting requirements, no serious legal analysis of the program. This was the “vacuum cleaner” approach to intelligence collection. Get everything.

And the corporations and communications companies were complicit. Surely, they all felt they were battling communism, rooting out spies, contributing to the Cold War efforts. This was done out of patriotism not some nefarious plot to undermine American’s civil liberties.

Yet, once Richard Nixon and his team put in place a list of Americans whom they considered subversive – Jane Fonda, Bobby Seale, Tom Hayden and a full collection of anti-Vietnam activists and civil rights leaders – things went south fast. This was a secret “watch list” of Americans, who they considered dangerous. The line was crossed. And the companies did not know how their data was being used.

Now fast-forward 50 years and we have a similar series of relationships with our phone companies, possibly our Internet and search engine companies. We have a Patriot Act and revised Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act open to serious interpretation.  And we have a technology that collects and stores billions of these interactions a day as opposed to 150,000 telegrams a month during the last century.

[Read the U.S. News Debate: Should Americans Be Worried About the National Security Ageny’s Data Collection?]

We know our Facebook messages are up there for all to see; we know that our Internet searches are stored; our phone calls are archived; our tweets are fair game; our photos are taken on busy street corners; our credit cards are easy pickings; our whereabouts are tracked on our cell phones or in many of our cars.  In short, our personal space isn’t so personal.

As the CEO of Sun Microsytems, Scott McNealy put it sarcastically in 1999:  “You have zero privacy, get over it.”

Well, I don’t buy it. Technology has its price but part of it cannot be that the government has the right to coerce or demand that private companies, who control all this data, hand it over wholesale to NSA. It was not right for Western Union and the other companies in the 1950s; it is not right now when technology is so mind-boggling, so invasive and so ubiquitous.

Congress and President Obama have to take a good hard look at the laws, at the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures, at what the collection, storage and analysis of information on Americans does to our civil liberties.

Secrecy is an aphrodisiac to those in power and so is the collection of information. The cooperation between our government and private data and communications companies like Verizon, AT&T, Facebook and Google, is a very dangerous slippery slope. It has been greased by the Patriot Act and we are sliding faster and faster down it to devastating effect.

It is past time for Congress and President Obama to recalibrate and retreat from invading the privacy of our people.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/Peter-Fenn/2013/06/12/the-cozy-nsa-telecom-surveillance-relationship-has-gone-on-too-long