The University of Idaho Argonaut

Well, the U.S. Senate’s version of the Stupak amendment — that is, the amendment that would effectively remove abortion coverage from any health care plans to be offered under the new health care legislation — failed on a vote of 54-45.

Read that again: it failed with a majority.

Though I have an opinion on the amendment, I’m content to keep it to myself today. Instead, I object to this tyranny of the minority, with the advice and consent of Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada.

When Pennsylvanian Sen. Arlen Specter switched parties earlier this year, he did not hand off control of the Senate as Jim Jeffords did in 2001. The Senate was already Democratic, with a 59-vote majority: that party has held control of the chamber since the midterm election in 2006, when the Republicans lost six seats and Democrats picked up five. To return to the point, Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell agreed that amendments to the health care bill would require 60 votes in the affirmative.

As reported by U.S. News and World Report, an average of one filibuster per Congress (a two-year period) in the 1950s has escalated to 52 filibusters in 2007-2008.

The ‘50s weren’t the carefree “Leave It to Beaver” days popular perception has pegged them to be, either: the U.S. dealt with the Korean War, the Cold War and the popularization of the bikini during that time, as well as a renewed interest in civil rights legislation.

The filibuster, and more broadly, the Senate, is undemocratic. That doesn’t preclude a legitimate defense of the procedure or the body, but its routine use has led to a scenario wherein a few Senators can receive whatever accommodation they wish. It’s very hard to be a single Senator precluding action, but it is significantly less difficult to be the third or fourth.

Last year, Connecticut voted 61 percent for Obama against 38 percent for McCain, and a Research 2000 poll puts Connecticut’s support for the public option at 68 percent. Lieberman campaigned for McCain and has threatened a filibuster over the public option. That’s not to call him a bad man, and I don’t mean to meddle in another state’s affairs, but it tells me the support he got against Democrat Ned Lamont in 2006 was not from the party’s Democrats.

Howard Dean once declared he was in the “Democratic wing of the Democratic party.” It’s clear that wing isn’t controlling things in the upper chamber. Senators from Montana (population 967,400), Nebraska (population 1,783,432) and Nevada (population 2,600,167) are. That’s the way we’re presently set up.

A few moderates who object to proposals supported by 52 others — abortion restrictions, the public option, expanded subsidies to provide coverage — wield the power. Heaven forbid elections have consequences.

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