An Aside

In MetaReality’s PODCast the point that the US Congress is being held hostage by a minority is brought up. No facts, no support, just opinion. The news media the world over is spinning this story. I’ll add some check-able facts and you can decide if you can trust your news sources.

The US Congress cannot be blocked by a minority. Both houses of the US Congress use a parliamentary procedure known as a filibuster. It is used to block legislation and stop proceedings. It has a long history. In general it is used to bring attention to an issue. The old time idea is that a speaker in either house would take the floor and talk until yielding the floor to another member of party to speak and hold the floor.

It was not possible to interrupt them within the procedures of each house. But, should a speaker stop talking, the other party could take the floor. It required a great deal of effort by those attempting to filibuster in the past. This is a simplified explanation, but I think you’ll get the idea.

Today’s filibusters are by gentlemen’s agreement. Both parties basically agree there is a filibuster in play so the politicians can go home and sleep. This means that unless they want to mount an old style filibuster a majority of members must agree on the filibuster. There is no super majority requirement; a simple majority will do.

Additionally the House of Representatives adopted a maximum time for a filibuster in 1800 something, or to be PC debate, and is now essentially filibuster proof. A filibusters is more of a delaying tactic than a blocking tactic in the House.

The Senate can stop a filibuster with a 3/5’s majority vote. This means that more than 40% of Senate must agree with the filibuster for it to continue.

Whether one considers a minority the 49% voting minority or a minority as in an ethnic minority, like 1 to 10%, is played on by the media. In the US Congress a blocking minority has to be greater than 40%, not what I consider a minority of people.

Is the TEA Party (which is not a political party but a grass roots collection of citizens) a minority? Not really. The media is making every effort to class it as a small vocal minority. But, they did elect a number of politicians and replaced several incumbents. That is not done by a minority. Elections are won by majorities. The so called TEA Party is made up mostly of the silent majority.

Then there is the issue of who is blocking who. One can use Thomas Library of Congress to research that point. From 2009 to 10 the 111^th Session was in play and now the 112^th Session is in progress. It is tedious sorting who passed what and who blocked what. When a bill passes the House it moves to the Senate. The Majority Leader chairs the Senate and controls the agenda as the Speaker of the House does in the House. Either of these men can block anything they choose in their house.

The result is some hundreds of House bills wait for The Senate Majority Leader to allow them to come to a vote every year, essentially paralyzing the legislative process on those issues. In the recent session there are 28 bills designed to create jobs passed by the House. The Majority Leader is refusing to allow them to come to a vote in the Senate. You can verify the status of the bills on Thomas. Just try and find the bills the Senate has put forward…

It is common for the Leader to block a vote when he feels a bill his party doesn’t like will pass, meaning Leader thinks the majority of senators would vote for it. Or if a vote against such a bill will hurt Senators running for re-election. Vote against jobs or something the people want, lose your election.

Counter to what the news is reporting on jobs, a single Democrat-liberal-progressive in the Senate is the minority blocking jobs bills. The House is voting down tax increases and trying to hold the limit on debt because the people that put them in office, a majority, elected them on that platform.