This post is a fantasy. I'll explain that later. Let's start with the reality. The reality is that The House of Representatives, legislative body that actually represents the people of the united states (except those unfortunate enough to live in the District of Columbia) passed a comprehensive health reform bill two weeks ago. This bill is not even close to the single payer system I would have wanted and it's a retreat from a robust public option set to medicare rates, but it is a step forward. It includes a national public option that can be built on later. It does include the horrible anti-choice Stupack Amendment, but hopefully that can be dealt with later in the process.
Now debate might possibly begin in the Senate, the legislative body that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever in the 21st century. In the House, every member represents roughly the same amount of people, whether you are Barbara Lee from Berkley CA or Michelle Bachman from MN, you know you have the same mandate. Each representative carries the weight of about 700,ooo people. (We can talk about the pitfalls of winner take all systems vs proportional representation as well of course). Not so in the Senate. Barbara Boxer of CA represents 30 million people. Mike Enzi of Wyoming represents about 500,000. They each have ONE vote. If I was Barbara, any time Mike Enzi questioned me on, let's say global warming, I'd laugh heartily and say "girl, I represent 30 MILLION people", and then run through the halls demanding that Mike Enzi produce 60 of himself before he dared to question me again. That just shows why Ms. Boxer is a way better Senator than I would be. She manages to hold her tongue most of the time.
Not only is the Senate unrepresentative, favoring rural areas over urban and conservative over liberal (The Democratic Party actually won 50% of votes case in 2004 to the Republicans 45% but the Republicans picked up 5 seats). It's undemocratic within itself. It takes 3/5 (60 out of 100) of the membership to even allow a vote on anything. The fillibuster (as it is known) has been a favorite trick of reactionary forces in the US, most famously during the civil rights era, when "unlimited debate" was used to block racial justice.
So here we are, The health bill is about to maybe, kind of, let's hope be debated in the Senate and 41 Senators representing 25 percent of the population can kill it if they want by not even allowing a vote. The fate of millions of people who worry about just being able to see a doctor rest in the hands of such dubious characters as Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson. The tragedy here is that, because of the structure and rules of the Senate, far reaching progressive legislation is almost impossible in this country. It's built into our system. Forget health care, just try passing the Employee Free Choice Act, making it easier for workers to unionize.
Now here's why this is all a fantasy. Let's say you wanted to pass a constitutional amendment, making the Senate truly representative. You know, you still want an upper house made up of members who have longer terms and represent larger constituencies to temper the occasional Stupack Amendment that comes out of the House. I would be cool with having 50 Senators elected from districts representing regions of the country of equal population.
Well, that's impossible. Even if todays Senate would actually approve such an amendment, the constitution forbids it. Congress may propose amendments except that... "no state, without it's consent, shall be deprived of it's equal suffrage in the Senate". So we're stuck with a system devised when Rhode Island and Pennsylvania were almost different nations. In 2009, the 500,000 people of Alaska have much more say about what happens to health care than the 30 million of California.
The one thing we can do is get rid of the filibuster. Progressives might worry that this could come back to haunt us when Republicans are back in power. Well that's a risk I'm willing to take. We're taking a larger risk by keeping it. Without the filibuster we could have a national public option, expanded labor rights, and a climate bill. With it, we make it almost impossible to get progressive legislation through the congress, even with massive majorities. We tie our hands forever and allow a reactionary minority to block the will of the people.
This is probably a fantasy as well, it will be very difficult to get rid of the filibuster, but it's something that we should be fighting for.
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