It’s time to reconcile

It looks more and more likely that the Democrats will use a parliamentary process known as ‘reconciliation’ to pass major healthcare reform in the US Senate.

In layman’s terms, reconciliation means that a simple majority of Senators have to vote yes.

You don’t need a 60-vote super-majority.

As a frequent critic of the Senate’s clubby, dysfunctional and anachronistic weirdness, I think this is a great development.

It could mark a first death knell for the use of the filibuster, which is a good thing.

The filibuster isn’t a law or a constitutional protection. It’s a rule that senators created to preserve their own fusty prerogatives.

But we live in a democracy, ruled by elected lawmakers and not a gang of clubby elites.

If Republicans want to defeat healthcare, they should mount serious arguments and convince some Democrats to vote against it.

And if that fails, they have an election in less than a year. They should campaign on the issue, promising to repeal the Democratic Party’s plan.

Conservative Senator Barry Goldwater did just that in 1964, assuring voters that he would repeal progressive programs, including the New Deal.

That’s how a healthy republic works.

Not through gridlock and parliamentary tricks, but by elected leaders putting up serious policy proposals and finding out at the ballot box which ones we want.

I want to make one thing clear:

I absolutely think the Republicans should also be allowed to run the Senate with a simple majority when they return to power (and they will).

When Americans give the GOP a mandate to lead, they should be allowed to do so.

And then, in turn, it will be up to the Democrats to try to counter them with good and convincing arguments.

There are big structural problems to the Senate that will likely never be fixed, starting with the fact that different states receive wildly disparate amounts of power per capita.

But canning the filibuster is something that can change. In the long history of our democracy, it might even be more important than healthcare.