History Tells Us How To Fix A Broken Congress

If we want a functional federal government, our leaders must follow the examples set by their distant predecessors who knew how to deliver a system that serves all people, not just some. They must commit to compromise—even if it takes more time and more debate.

Congress is fundamentally broken. Long-standing issues such as immigration, healthcare, education, and the conduct of our elections cry for a solution. Something must be done. And yet, nothing ever happens.

This paralysis has, in turn, broken the federal government. It is rare for legislation to settle anything of great importance; Congress has abandoned its role as the key arbiter of our disputes and ceded its power to the Executive and Judicial branches. Those branches have therefore become unreasonably powerful. The Federal bureaucracy has become a fourth branch of government, issuing regulations in numbers that stagger the mind. The Judiciary usurps the powers of the Executive branch, to the point where district judges override the President’s decisions, based only on a preliminary hearing.

The proximate cause of this is the filibuster. Unless one side or the other has a 60-seat super-majority in the Senate, legislation can be stalled forever. None of our problems gets solved, and the country heads to ruin.

It would, however, be a fundamental mistake to get rid of the filibuster or, more properly, the 60-vote threshold for ending debate. To do so would usher in the tyranny of the majority. Control of the White House, the House, and the Senate would give the ruling party absolute power, unchecked by the wishes of the minority. The resulting winner-take-all political system is not what we need; the tyranny of the majority is real.

We need compromise. We need the two dominant parties to come up with solutions both sides can live with. We do not want and should not have a winner-take-all political system.

Some try to solve this problem by bringing back the so-called talking filibuster. I think this is on the right track, but use of the term “filibuster” is prejudicial to what we ought to look for, which is compromise. A filibuster is an obstructionist tactic. It does not achieve consensus. Replacing the silent filibuster with a talking filibuster makes it more painful to obstruct, but it remains an obstacle to consensus and compromise.

The framers of our Constitution had grave differences. The small states feared the big states. The rural states feared the industrial states. The South feared the North. And yet, they managed to settle their differences and come up with a governing document that has stood us well for nearly 250 years.

Why was that?

Nobody could go home until the problem was solved. They locked themselves into Independence Hall and debated the form of the new government, month after month, until they hammered out a series of compromises that most of them could live with.

Imagine if the modern Senate took up such a mission. It would go nowhere.

The key to this is the process of debate. What passes for debate these days in the Senate is a travesty. It consists of political posturing, grand-standing, and endless bloviation. Its sole purpose is to appeal to the base of the various senators to ensure their re-election. True debate involves the honest exchange of views, the weeding out of disingenuous arguments and factual falsehoods. That is what we need.

Here is how we fix the Senate: When the Senate takes up an issue, nobody can go home until a solution is reached. We need to keep them in Washington and lock them in their chamber, 60 hours or more per week, until they come to agreement; put them in a situation where failing to resolve their differences is no longer an option. If one side or the other makes unreasonable demands, they will only extend the duration of their imprisonment. Eventually, they will tire of posturing and come up with something they can live with.

In doing so, we will empower the moderates—an endangered species in the current environment. There will always be hard-liners on either side of the aisle who cannot be convinced of anything. In the current environment, the hard-liners have all the power. If we bring back debate as proposed above, then the situation is reversed: a dozen or so senators who will listen to both sides of an argument can control the balance of power.

Try to imagine: the Senate takes up healthcare, and three months later we have a compromise. After that, immigration, education, and election reform; it might take a few years to work through all this, but at the end we might have a government that works. But this will only happen if we insist that the Senate return to its tradition of deliberation, debate, and a set of rules that do not let them stop until the problem is solved. Idealistic? Perhaps, but we did have this at a time in our distant past. We can have it again, if we wish.

Craig W. Stanfill (@craigwstanfill) is a computer scientist, software entrepreneur, and the author of the AI Dystopia science fiction series.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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