How America’s least democratic institution killed a popular public safety bill
US Senators from big urban states, including Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer, generally voted in favor of expanding background checks. (Photo: US Senate Kirsten Gillibrand website)
Yesterday’s series of gun control votes in the US Senate have drawn a lot of ink already, but it’s worth pointing out that once again the country’s least democratic institution has performed in a way that boggles the imagination.
Due to modern interpretations of the Senate’s filibuster rules, measures like the expanded background check for gun purchasers currently require a 60 vote super-majority to prevail.
As a consequence, the measure failed to advance, despite receiving a majority of votes — 54 ayes, including four Republicans — and despite drawing support from 90% of Americans in opinion surveys.
But the situation in the US Senate is even more imbalanced and skewed than those numbers suggest.
As we’ve noted here before, political power in the Senate is allocated not by population — the sacred principle of one-American, one-vote simply doesn’t apply.
Instead, political power is allocated to each state “equally”, giving the same share of clout to California’s 38 million residents that is granted to North Dakota’s half a million residents.
That redistribution of influence bore strange fruit yesterday.
Because the 54 Senators voting in favor of the background check measure generally come from big urban states with big populations, they do in fact already represent more than 60 percent of the American people.
Put another way, the Senate vote on background checks demonstrated support from lawmakers representing a “super-majority” of Americans.
The lawmakers who blocked the bipartisan measure, by contrast, represent roughly 38% of our citizens.
So let’s recap. Ninety percent of Americans support a public safety measure. More than half of the US Senate, representing more than sixty percent of our population, votes in favor of the bill.
Yet by the Senate’s 18th-century rules — both the filibuster and the Constitutional redistribution of voting power — the popular will of the people is thwarted.
Whatever side you take in the gun control debate (and on this particular issue, it appears that 90% of Americans are unified) the bizarre dysfunction of this legislative body must give pause.
This structural imbalance in the Senate has been dangerously exacerbated by population trends and increased urbanization over the last century.
Rural states now wield so much power in the Senate that bills must find support from lawmakers representing roughly 70 percent of the US population in order to advance.
Measures that are particularly unpopular in rural states (like gun control) are generally dead on arrival. It’s a daunting reality that accounts for much of the gridlock and stagnation in Washington.
You are wrong hermit thrush wrong wrong wrong. For example Gov. Cuomo’s hysterical rant about how many bullets it takes to kill a deer is an example of all the accusations I made. Where’s your proof that I’ve done the same?
you just went from “incipient fascism” to accusing others of “[h]ysteria, reactionism, misinformation, blatant appeals to emotion and outright lies,” with only one sentence in between. careful not to get whiplash!
i should add, ok, fair enough larry, you’re not just as guilty as anyone else. hoosier3 helpfully shows that some people are way more hysterical than you. i should have chosen my words more carefully. but when you start dropping the “incipient fascism” talk, you don’t have a lot of standing to complain about others.
There is a powerful statement by Gabby Giffords in the New York Times today A Senate in the Gun Lobby’s Grip.
Hermit Crab, so you believe hysterical is when one stands for freedom, liberty and ones God given rights? Sounds to me like you may enjoy Britain or Canada. Your accusations are unfounded and misguided. Either you love your country or you don’t.
FLUSH THE SYSTEM!
Gabby has lost all standing when she clearly stands with those attempting to strip down our Constitution out of fear. Powerful is our Constitution, Bill of Rights and God given rights. Long live freedom and liberty! FLUSH THE SYSTEM!
“Storms of tyranny and ‘fundamentally changing’ America have uprooted the liberty tree.”
“This has nothing to do with gun control. It has everything to do with control.”
“Elect those that stand for our Constitution not those that prefer to wipe their behinds with it.”
“We have created a government of oppression and tyranny.”
“Either you love your country or you don’t.”
… right, nothing hysterical to see here!
btw, i lived in canada for four years, and a year in germany before that. both are great in their ways, but i strongly prefer the u.s. overall. i’m a proud american, just like you.
Hermit thrush, incipient fascism is my opinion, based on my sensibilities and observations. Disagree with it if you wish, but there’s nothing hysterical, misleading or untrue about it. You have no respect for anyone with a different opinion from you. All you know how to do is twist words and attack when you’re disagreed with.
Maybe this is the downfall of the strategy of using a crisis or tragic event to quickly rally support and pass bills. A better idea would have probably been to do the hard foot work, the political deal making, the consensus building to really get political support (not polls) but real political support as counted in Senators who will vote for your bill. It’s easy in the wake of a tragedy and some high emotion speaking to bend polls one way or the other, polls are fickle, people’s opinions are fickle. What matters is true political support, which takes time. This is something Clinton understood and it is why he passed so many of the bills that this Democratic majority can’t get passed.
I support background checks, but I don’t blame the 38% who support senators who voted against the bill, I blame an inept President for not knowing how to make political deals to really get things done that need to be done.
So they guy loses political battle after battle and then blames the “system” as broken? This is a cop out, the system is the same system we have always had, it’s time people started looking at the real reason we can’t seem to get positive things done politically. It usually starts with the leader.
larry, of course “incipient fascism” is your opinion. and it’s my opinion that that kind of language is way over the top, and that it makes you a hypocrite when turn right around and lecture others about “hysteria,” etc. obviously you don’t agree, but hey, that’s fine!
by the way, i frequently disagree with people like mervel and paul, but i absolutely respect them.
Hypocrite? Thank god that’s also only your opinion. You can claim to respect people but your frequent snide remarks tell otherwise. The only thing you respect is the sound of your own voice.
Mervel,
I think your analysis is spot on. We sometimes forget that Obama had precious little experience in National politics (or anything else, for that matter) when he became President. He hasn’t learned much since then.
OL, Mervel –
Setting aside larger ideological concerns, and theories about trends in American politics, do you think background checks for gun purchasers are a bad idea?
–Brian, NCPR
“Gabby has lost all standing when she clearly stands with those attempting to strip down our Constitution out of fear.”
Larry, Gabby Giffords and her husband are both gun owners. I saw a recent interview with her in which her husband fired off a half a dozen shots ten feet from where she was sitting on the porch, and she never flinched. And the Supreme Court has ruled that gun registration does not “strip down our constitution.”
I’d be interested to see how your opinion on the 2nd Amendment might change after you survived being shot in the head. I’d say it is an experience that gives one decided standing in the question. And the Supreme Court justices have the only standing that counts.
Walker, go back and read the post from Hoosier3. I said nothing abpout Gabby Giffords.
Brian,
I have no problem with the concept of background checks – it’s already the law in many states. That said, I absolutely do not trust anti-gun activists. Their actions, especially in NY, make me deeply suspicious of their motives. Why would I trust people who do not keep their word and who deliberately spread misinformation in pursuit of their agenda? I’ll continue to oppose additional gun control legislation until I see signs that I can trust those who propose it.
OL, if you don’t calm down a little you will seem like someone who can’t pass a background check.
Not knowing you personally, but knowing guys who talk like you, I don’t have a problem with you owning guns for hunting or target shooting or just collecting. I assume you are a decent law abiding person, and I am guessing you handle your weapons carefully and with the respect that an implement meant to kill deserves.
I don’t think you understand that there are people who live in very different circumstances than you, people who live in inner-city neighborhoods who don’t know anyone who owns a gun to hunt with, but who know dozens of people who have access to illegal weapons and have seen children gunned down in the street for no reason at all.
Is it impossible for you to understand their perspective?
Sorry, Larry, misdirected. Hoosier, it’s for you…
KHL,
I undersand their perspective better than you think I do. All those inner city guns you’re talking abput are handguns, which cannot be purchased in NY or NJ (my frame of reference) without a background check and a permit. Somehow, those requirements don’t prevent criminals from illegaly acquiring and possessing them. How can more law prevent that? NY and NJ have arguably the most restrictive gun laws in the nation and it hasn’t slowed the criminals down one bit.
“NY and NJ have arguably the most restrictive gun laws in the nation and it hasn’t slowed the criminals down one bit.”
That’s because it’s so easy to drive to Pennsylvania or Virginia and buy without a background check. That’s why we need them as a Federal requirement.
Yeah, I know Walker. I know. Not every criminal does his shopping out of state, they don’t need to. Neither do drug traffickers, even though every state has laws against heroin, cocaine, et al. Unless you plan on controlling the entire world, the law of supply and demand applies. Hasn’t anyone learned anything from the “war against drugs”?
for larry: http://youtu.be/-fNvi6xG-5Y
“Unless you plan on controlling the entire world, the law of supply and demand applies.”
Larry, what’s easier to buy? Heroin or beer?
OL –
Here’s what concerns me about your argument. You actually don’t oppose the policy. Yet you distrust a group of your fellow Americans so completely that even when they propose an idea that you’re comfortable with, one that has bipartisan support from members of congress with an A-rating from the NRA, you oppose it.
Remember, that these are Americans responding to a savage, brutal assault on children and teachers. They’re looking for solutions, or steps toward a solution. They’re clearly not bad people or nefarious. They’re trying to make the country better and safer. And again, they’ve come up with a plan that you think sounds sort of okay.
It’s hard to know what to do in such a case. What do you do when a certain part of the American community distrusts other members of the American community so utterly that even when an idea is proposed that you’re comfortable with… you oppose it on general principles.
–Brian, NCPR
It is funny that you make reference to illegal drugs like heroine and cocaine, OL. Because, unlike heroine or cocaine the US is the worlds largest supplier of weapons. One would assume that the legal manufacturers and distributers of a legal product – handguns, rifles, shotguns, etc – would have some control over the marketing of their product.
Why do you allow yourself to be used to carry water for them?
what’s more with larry, this seems to be the crux of it for him:
but the pro-gun side is just as bad! he’s kidding himself and the rest of us when he writes things like that.
Here’s my problem with the Senate’s vote: we already have laws saying convicted felons, people who are involuntarily committed and people who a court has ruled dangerous can’t buy a gun. We pretty much all agree these are good laws to have, right?
If you buy a gun at a store, they do a background check for these things. The checks miss a lot because not all states update their records very often, but it’s something. So my problem is, on what planet is it OK to do a background check when you’re buying a gun at Gander Mountain, but it’s some precursor to Stalinism to do the same background check on someone buying a gun through a classified ad?
I am surprised no one has questioned the “90 per cent” that keeps getting tossed around. First of all what was the questions asked? I might be in favor of some aspect of gun control and say yes. I fear politicians are using the results to apply to different aspects of gun control. Also where was the poll conducted? Urban areas would provide more of a yes to gun control than rural areas.
Brian,
It should come as no surprise that I believe in reasonable safety measures and reasonable requirements for gun ownership and use. Gun owners are like every other segment of the population: for the most part they are responsible and reasonable people. Do I need to list the lies, insults and mis-characterizations I’ve heard and read about those of us who own and use guns?
Do I have to catalog the mis-information I hear and read from people who don’t know the difference between a “clip” and a “magazine” or the difference between a semi-automatic firearm and a “machine gun”?
The politcians are another story all together. I heard Cuomo say the SAFE Act wouldn’t impact hunters, but it does. I heard him say it was all about high capcity magazines and assault weapons but it goes much further than that. I hear Obama say there won’t be a National Firearms registry but I’m not so sure. Are these people lying or are they just confused? When I see the way they legislate these things I get alarmed.
All this comes after decades of increasingly restrictive “gun control” activity that has done NOTHING to reduce violence or crime. It looks more and more like the “”war on drugs” except that it’s a war on lawful, constitutionally protected activity. There’s a distinct agenda at work here and I believe it is the eventual outlawing and confiscation of all firearms.
I’m tired of it all and to the extent that I can, I’ll continue to oppose it.
How about this highly unscientific question:
Gary, should people with a history of gun violence or mental instability be allowed to purchase a gun?
Really, hermit thrush? “Just as bad” is a poor defense for lies and misinformation. More of the same from you, I’m afraid.
Larry, you contend that previous gun control laws have “done NOTHING to reduce violence or crime.”
But there is no way for you to prove that statement and in all likelihood it is false. If one person was prevented from committing a crime with a machine gun due to the legislation that was passed back in the ’30’s outlawing fully automatic weapons then your statement is false. I’m sure that people who study gun laws and their effects can find many instances where the laws have reduced violence, crime, and saved lives – just as you can probably show me instances where people with guns have protected their homes and families.
The idea that guns will be completely outlawed and confiscated in this country during the lifetime of anyone alive today seems paranoid and delusional. I know a very few people on the left who would like to see all weapons eliminated in a hypothetical way, as in “I want to see World Peace” and “the lion will lay down with the lamb” – but even they recognize that will never happen.
I’m a knuckleheaded liberal, for cripes sakes, and even I don’t want to take your guns away from you. And get over the fact that people dont use technical terms for weaponry perfectly. No matter what subject you want to talk about technical terms will be misused because life isn’t a doctoral thesis.
90 per cent of the American people may be in favor of background checks but that does not translate to 90 per cent being in favor of a particular piece of legislation, particularly when that legislation goes far beyond its avowed purpose. The sight of Obama throwing a temper tantrum because he wasn’t able to sneak another one past us would have been priceless if it wasn’t so sad. This is what passes for leadership these days?
Obstructing legislation that will save lives seems immoral to me. I don’t know how Senators or NRA members who wont allow meaningful legislation to pass can live with themselves when they read and hear news about people who are killed.
OK, KHL, one issue at a time.
Connecticut has extremely strict guns laws that could easily be seen as models for national legislation. Those laws did nothing to stop the killing at Newtown because that killing was about the man who did it, not how he chose to do it. Guns, bombs and poison letters are only the tools of madmen who plan to kill people. As for the tired old example of 1930s legislation banning machine guns, well, I have to admit that I feel so much better knowing that a latter-day Dillinger won’t be terrorizing the North Country with a “tommy gun”.
Paranoia? When I am told to relax, nobody is going to mess with hunting and then I read the provisions of the NY SAFE Act that directly relate to hunting, then I get worried. Liars cannot be trusted so why would I believe anyone who tells me not to worry about guns being banned? You may think they won’t be but there are plenty of people who are working towards that end.
Technical accuracy is important because many of the objections to certain firearms are based on a misunderstanding of their capabilities and capacities. Semi-automatic shotguns are not “assault rifles” but I have seen them described that way. Many people who have never handled or shot any firearm throw around those “technical terms” like they know something about them.
“Obstructing legislation that will save lives seems immoral to me.”
Immoral? Anybody want to talk about legalizing drugs, euthanasia or abortion? We can have a field day talking about morality.
you’re completely misunderstanding my point. it’s definitely not that i’m defending lies and misinformation on either side. it’s that… well, it’s that you’re full of it.
obviously you think you’re a reasonable, principled guy, larry. but time and again, all it takes is just a little bit of diving in to what you write to see that it all falls apart.
this time you’re greatly exercised about misinformation coming from the gun control side. but there’s just as much coming from the pro-gun, nra side, except for some reason that doesn’t rate with you. whatever it is, it’s not consistent and it’s not principled.
Hey, you know that SUV owner in Boston that was car-jacked by the marathon bombers? What are the odds that he’d be alive today if he’d had a handgun in his glove compartment and tried to use it?
More idiotic comments and psuedo-intellectual sniping. Boring. Hey, didn’t anyone want to talk about morality? I wonder why not.
Brian I support background checks. I support numerous things that are not yet law. But it is not that the system is broke. The system is the same one we have always had. The issue is the ability to politically get things done in that system some leaders are better at this than others. The lack of a gun control bill is the fault of the president
OK, Larry, I think it is immoral to force a woman to carry a child to term that she does not want to bear.
Now, what about that SUV owner?
[Psuedo-intellectual?! What’s psuedo-intellectual about speculating on the odds of survival of any particular good guy with a gun going up against any particular bad guy with a gun?]
Mervel –
The system has indeed changed – profoundly.
When the Senate was created the “rural giveaway” of power was relatively minor, with the largest states “gifting” political power to the smallest states on roughly a 10-to-1 margin. Now the shift is more like 76-to-1.
There are also far, far more “small” and underpopulated states in the South, Midwest and West than there were when the Constitution was written. Many of the founding fathers feared that precisely this change in the system would occur, as underpopulated states gained more and more power in the Senate.
There has also been a profound shift in American demographics, so that geography often determines political sensibility. Which means that the “giveaway” of power in the Senate isn’t merely random static in the system. Rather it systemically redistributes power away from high population urbanized states (and frequently “blue) states, toward low population rural states (frequently red).
Next, I’ll point out that in the last forty years we also have a far, far more polarized US Senate. The percentage of lawmakers willing to vote against their parties on a regular basis as declined substantially over the last half century, long before Barack Obama took office.
An institution that was once designed to mirror the founding fathers’ disapproval of partisanship has become rankly partisan. Far from being the saucer that cools the tea, it is now a cauldron for ideological rancor.
Finally, in modern times lawmakers have adjusted the meaning of the “filibuster” rule, so that a foot-dragging tradition that was once rarely used is now incredibly common — delaying everything from Federal budgets to the confirmation of judges. This shift has had a profound impact on the Senate’s operations.
The notion that this is the same US Senate that existed fifty or a hundred or two hundred years ago – it just doesn’t wash.
–Brian, NCPR
Larry, we talk here about morality all the time, sometimes on one subject sometimes on another. The current subject is about gun control, not about drugs or euthanasia or abortion. Establishing a better system to keep guns out of the hands of people that everyone – EVERYONE – agree should not have access to will save innocent lives, without significantly harming anyone’s right to own legal weapons. That is the morality we are talking about. Let’s fix that one and then we can move on to other questions of morality that are much more difficult to parse.
For those of you who, like me, have been wondering what Arlo was talking about when he mentioned the deported Saudi, I just came across it on Facebook (’cause you just can’t find this stuff on the mainstream media, you know) — Glenn Beck Issues Ultimatum To White House Over Benghazi-Boston ‘Conspiracy’
KHL,
I can readily understand why you want to confine any discussion of morality to the topic of guns. In any case, EVERYONE did not support the Background Check Amendment. It’s poorly written, subject to widely different interpretation and can easily be seen as restricting gun owner’s rights while ostensibly enhancing them. I have read the text of the amendment and a lot of comentary on it and it is certainly no example of transparency in government. Which leads me back to what I have been saying is the central issue: lack of trust. This article in today’s Post-Star neatly explains why many in NY don’t trust government.
http://poststar.com/news/local/governor-s-comment-rubs-some-in-state-the-wrong-way/article_3ae917de-aa2a-11e2-95d8-0019bb2963f4.html
The problem isn’t confined to NY; it’s part of a national trend. We need some transparency if we’re going to get anything done. Obama’s temper tantrum and unfounded charges of lying didn’t to anything to promote that.
Brian,
Yes those changes in our culture and demographics have happened, but the function of the Senate has not, the balance in the Senate based on geography not population; was meant to protect us from these population shifts and it has happened that way, the Senate is doing what it is meant to do; put a break on the massively concentrated population centers. Our country was never meant to be a pure Democracy, where 51% of the voters could dictate to the other 49% of the voters, that is why we have a Senate and a Supreme Court and an Electoral College.
I have no problem with a system which does not allow bills to be passed where representation from 38% of the population disagrees. I think that is a sound system that puts the breaks on randomly veering from one highly charged emotional issue to the next. We all know that bad legislation comes out of knee jerk reaction to highly emotional individual crisis.
The fact is President Clinton was able to operate in this environment without controlling either legislative body and was able to pass an Assault Weapons ban. I find it weak that President Obama blames the Senate for his inability to provide effective political leadership.
Show me the good legislation you are proposing.
That is kind of up to the guy we elected president.
However he should be wooing these guys and cutting deals with them, not just yelling at them. He only needs to get four or five of them to swing over. What can the President offer them? You could put through a background check bill tied to something else they want, its basic politics. Don’t blame the rules of the game when you lose is my point.