Harry Reid is the Senate Minority Leader. He is expected in the looming Senate filibuster fight over judicial nominees, to back the standard Democratic line that the filibuster should usable to blog judicial nominees, requiring not just the majority vote the Constitution would require of 50 senators, but an extra-Constitutional supermajority of 60 votes since that is the number needed for invoking cloture and ending a filibuster.
Enter Thomas Reed.
Thomas Reed was the House Majority Leader in 1889, and at that time the House of Representatives had what was known as a "silent filibuster" whereby members who were present would only be marked as present if they spoke up during roll call. As a result, if enough of them kept their yaps shut they could keep a quorum from being recorded and thus keep any business from being done.
Reed was enraged by this and regarded it as a tyranny of the minority who were using parliamentary tricks to thwart the will of the voters.
In a dramatic showdown (which featured cussing, shouting, the brandishing of a Bowie knife, representatives rushing the speaker’s chair, and a last minute outcome-changing arrival) Reed ENDED the silent filibuster and enshrined a new set of rules immortalizing his name. They’re called Reed’s Rules.
When the other party retook the House and chucked out Reed’s Rules, Reed did better than get mad: He got even.
The other party was humiliated into bringing back Reed’s Rules.
It remains to be seen whether, in this year’s looming filibuster fight, the Senate will move more toward Reed or Reid, but in the meantime
GET THE (SOCKDOLOGIZING) STORY!
(Cowboy hat tip to the reader who sent it!)
All manner of invective was tossed about, with various nicknames being chosen for the presiding officer. “Tyrant,” “dictator,” and “monster” were among the printable ones. But somewhere along the line, someone shouted “Czar,” and that was the one that seemed to stick. From that day forward, he was “Czar” Reed.
I guess they didn’t have “Nazi” and “Hitler” to throw around then.
I find this allegation that the Democrats are despicable because they are trying to “thwart the will of the majority” particularly disturbing. While our founding fathers established a representative government it was quite obvious that they were not particularly fond of majority rule as can be ascertained from several facts:
Universal manhood suffrage in this country is a fairly recent phenomenon. Many if not most States (as in the UK) had requirements that voters be men of property, i.e. you had to have something to lose or gain as a result of good or bad governance. Much of the voting rights legislation passed in the 1960’s helped poor whites get the vote just as much as it helped Blacks.
The Senate was an institution designed to be more deliberative and to thwart the will of the majority if necessary. Wyoming and North Dakota have the same number of Senators as New York and California, thus allowing smaller/less populous states to band together to thwart legislation that may have the support of more populous States. The House of Lords once had a similar purpose in the UK, but successive socialist/labor governments since the early 1900’s have watered down their role in the legislative process to the point where it is no more than an honorary social club.
The Electoral College also was designed to protect the rights of the majority against the will of the majority. It does not make it easy for a candidate to win the presidency by merely appealing to a single highly populous area of the country. I find it interesting that most of those complaining about the Senate filibuster of judicial candidates as “thwarting the will of the majority” had no similar complaints during the 2000 presidential elections about the Electoral College.
Do I like the fact that the Democrats are blocking pro-life judicial candidates? No, but I do not like the fact that the Federal Government has become so involved in issues – abortion, marriage, traffic safety laws, etc. – that are best left to the States. Restore these issues to State government and you will have legislation that is more reflective of the will of people of that state. Nor do I like the spade of “knee jerk legislation” that seems to come out of Washington, such as the “Brady” law all the other little Susan’s, Tom’s, Sally’s and Flip’s laws that have come pouring out of Congress to address perceived national crisis’s and merely create a bigger and more omnipresent federal government presence in our lives.
As the Reed Rules story shows be careful of getting rules that protect the minority – for you may be in the minority come the next election.
The 19th Century Nuclear Option
It turns out the nuclear option was successfully deployed in the 19th century.