Third Way: The Senate Of The Future
Omar Chatriwala
Former-Vice President Joe Biden is currently predicted to win the 2020 election and flip the Senate, meaning the Democratic party has the chance to crawl onto the American throne once again. The enticing possibility of controlling both houses and the presidency has Democrats musing on which to policies to push through.
Even if the polls are wrong, again, the Republican's grasp on government is still threatened by an invisible enemy (COVID-19 aside): time. As older generations contract in size, Millennials and Gen-Zers (alongside the forgotten Gen-Xers) are taking their place. Indeed, in July 2019, Millennials became America's largest living adult generation. With their population continuing to expand from immigration, the group is expected to peak in 2033 with about 74.9 million members. Millennials and Gen-Zers are much more liberal than their predecessors, which means their arrival will be a massive demographic boost for the left.
In the meantime, however, the Democrats are laying siege to the Senate. This is because current Senate rules make it impossible for any policy to escape the filibuster, a technique used in the Senate to stall voting on all things from policy to nominee picks. According to The Economist's 2020 Senate forecast model, the Democrats are likely to get 52 to 57 seats, meaning they would only ever have a simple majority in the Senate. All their actions in the senate, therefore, are subject to the filibuster. To be successful in a Biden administration, the Democrats need to eliminate the filibuster.
Ending the filibuster is a dangerous move, but the danger it brings may only last for another decade or so. By opening the door to a more majority-oriented Senate, the Democrats will be chipping a wall that will break by the late 2040s. Behind it lies a massive demographic swing in their favour. Of course, going nuclear could damage the Democrats as much as the Republicans, not to mention the country as a whole. Even if the demographics seem to be on their side, the left must stay on the middle path.
Rule change in the Senate is topical right now, as the Democrats are using it to throw tacks at the Republicans feet to slow down the appointment of Judge Amy Coney Barrett. Retaliation against Judge Barrett's nomination has led to talk of possible statehood for Washington DC and Puerto Rico, and Judicial court-packing, among other things. To achieve any of these goals, however, the filibuster has to be removed from the Republicans' arsenal.
Ending the filibuster may have sounded radical last year, but the idea has found more moderate support as the prospect of a Democratic Senate and Biden presidency grows more real. Centre-left liberals should continue to support reform of the filibuster, which, while once an effective tool, has only increased division in a hyper-partisan Senate. Changing the filibuster, however, requires changing Senate rules. That is a herculean task.
There are various ways that the Senate can change its rules. The most common is through "Senate resolutions", or simple resolutions. These resolutions require only a simple majority (51 votes). However, resolutions can be debated and are therefore are subject to the gruesome filibuster. Furthermore, unlike most policies, which require three-fifths (60) of the votes of the Senate to invoke cloture (which ends discussion), standing rules are unique and require two-thirds (67) of the votes to invoke cloture. Resolutions have more knobs and tubes than this but suffice it to say that "filibusters all the way down" is enough of a reason to stop here with them.
The most viable possibility for Senate rule change is the so-called "nuclear option", a term coined by former Republican Senator Trent Lott in 2004, when the 55 seat Republican-controlled Senate threatened to change Senate rules after the Democrats continually blocked President George W. Bush's judicial nominations. What makes the nuclear option so "nuclear" is not its novelty nor its establishment of new Senate precedents, but its effective violation of procedural standards, opening the door for radical change.
The nuclear option has been used to alter filibusters twice in the past decade. Democratic Senator Harry Reid triggered it first in 2013, ending the three-fifths requirement on most judicial nominee votes. Senator Mitch McConnell then went nuclear in 2017 when he extended that precedent to Supreme Court nominees, a decision which opened the door for the current SCOTUS debate. If any new change was to be enacted, then, the Democrats would have to hit the red button.
Overall, rule-changers are caught in a catch-22. If they want to abolish the filibuster, they will be stopped by the filibuster. A resolution to change the rules of the Senate is debatable, and everything that is debatable is open to the filibuster. If the Democrats want to make a serious change in what may be a partisan-divided Biden Administration, the filibuster has to be removed, as dangerous as launching the warhead might be.
Nuclear Fallout
Of course, abolishing the Filibuster would be risky for the Democrats. Democrat filibustering has stopped much of Trump's agenda, and, as mentioned above, stalled judicial nominations. The filibuster provides a means for the minority to prevent the enactment of majoritarian policy which ignores minority interests. Even so, abolishing the filibuster now may put the Democrats at risk for only another decade. This is because the left is about to get a windfall of young voters.
Already the lower chamber is getting younger and more left-leaning. The 2018 midterm election saw a 5% increase in the amount of millennials in the House of Representatives. As Boomers dwindle off in the coming years, the Gen X-ers and millennials will take their seats, shifting the chambers towards the young.
With most millennials and Gen-Zers identifying as liberals, their weight will push the country left as older generations slink out of office. In the 2020s, the millennials and leftist Gen-Zers will represent 62% of all eligible voters. By 2032, the Democrats could have as much as a 7% gain.
Generational Voting For President 1972-2016
Demographics, however, take a long time to change, and the Republicans have twisted intricate vines around government, making it hard for Democrats to reclaim an office the majority wants them to have. Yet, demographic shifts lead to faster changes in public opinion than persuasion does. If the demographics do in fact support the left, progressive change seems likely.
What would this change look like? On most political talking points, such as Medicare, immigration, and government involvement, the results are what one would expect. Millennials favour the left's policies and the Gen-Xers doggedly follow their little sibling. Both think the government should do more to tackle inequality and poverty. The Gen-Z cohort, the youngest of the three, has raced past them both and are overall more progressive.
Senate reform may be taken further than filibuster elimination by the burgeoning left. A paper from The Roosevelt Institute, a progressive think tank, discusses changes to the Senate to make it more equitable and racially inclusive, a trend millennials support. Yet Dr. Todd Tucker, a political scientist for the institute, has argued for abolishing the Senate in the paper.
Many millennials may see this as an attractive option. The generation has grown up in a time when governmental institutions seems to have failed modern politics. Abolishing the Senate for this reason is outright barmy. There is much merit in having a body that can deliberate over the implications of a bill while also serving the purpose of defending minority interests. Rule by majority would be tyrannical to those out of power, and the Senate was designed to prevent this. It is modern politics which has failed the Senate, not the other way around.
By dispersing power throughout the nation, the minority can survive under the weight of the minority. This is what the philosopher Hannah Arendt often claimed was the beauty of America's system of governance. Arendt advocated for government that rebuffed hyper-centralized leadership through the empowerment of citizens in their local and state legislatures. The constitution, she argued, fell short in not protecting these local institutions. This failure, among other trends, has allowed power to accumulate in the executive and federal branches, resulting in an ineffectual Senate which was never designed to deal with two-party politics.
Federalist Paper no. 62 offers another example for why the Senate should stay; to prevent government mutability. Hamilton and Madison argued that the Senate would prevent policy from changing every time a different faction came into power. Laws that change frequently would confuse Americans, and no person would be able to "guess what it will be tomorrow". Furthermore, an erratic Senate creates erratic foreign policy, one which could be contradictory with every new President and breed a lack of faith in America globally. The country's current foreign policy shows how problematic this is.
Progressive goals may be noble, but, as the demographic balloons their numbers, moderate liberals should accept change warily. The country as a whole will take a long time to shift to the left. Further, if a progressive party oversteps, a reactionary generation of Republicans, shaped by progressive mistakes, would be waiting in the wings to control DC again. This should not stop reform as a whole. Re-evaluating the Senate is an experiment in Democracy and adapting it to today's politics will prevent further American ossification. The rule-changers, however, should remember how moderate the immigrants who will grow their party are before jettisoning age-old institutions.
It's challenging to predict the political arena decades before it's arrived. The Democratic party will grow, but it'd be silly to think the Republican party will lose all its ground. Despite that, the Democratic party should look to the future, taking cautious steps in Senate reform to prepare for their ascendancy while also restoring a sense of honour, ability, and intellectualism, to a body that has been ravaged by years of partisan war.
