The Senate quandary trips up liberals again

Readers of the In Box know my longstanding beef with the structure of the U.S. Senate.

It is a wildly biased institution, favoring rural and low-population states by redistributing political power away from urban, high-population states.

(This occurs because states like California, with 36 million people, receive the same number of votes — two — as states like North Dakota, home to roughly 600,000 people.)

The result? A couple of small-state lawmakers from parts of the country where few Americans live can reshape a national bill as important as healthcare reform.

The impact of this power-shift is exaggerated by the introduction of the filibuster, which didn’t become an effective legislative tool in the US Senate until the early 1800s.

Not surprisingly, the filibuster has been used aggressively by rural, small-state lawmakers for decades to block legislation (mostly progressive) that they don’t like.

It was a favorite tool of southern Democrats fighting to block civil rights legislation, and the strategy has become more and more common in recent years.

The result? These days even bills that would pass in the lopsided Senate fail because of the filibuster, meaning that only the most doggedly centrist legislation can pass.

Republicans aren’t hobbled in the same way.

The redistribution of power in the Senate tends to favor conservatives, so that right-leaning legislation has a distinct advantage.

(Small-state Democrats tend to be more conservative and more reluctant to aid in filibusters, which means that its harder for the Democrats to mount filibusters.)

Is this the reform people wanted when they elected Barack Obama? No. Many liberals are furious at Democrats over the watered-down language of the health care bill.

But without the support of lawmakers Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman, the bill would have died. It’s that simple.