Sen. Reid, D.-Nev., and the Democratic majority changed the rules of the Senate by a majority vote. Fifty-two Democrats and independents voted to partially abolish the filibuster. The change reduces the threshold from 60 votes to 51 for Senate approval of executive and judicial nominees to lower federal courts.
The Republican minority was unanimous in its opposition to the change. Republicans were joined by three Democrats -- Mark Pryor D-Ark., Joe Manchin, D-W.V., and Carl Levin, D-Mich. The rule change does not apply to Supreme Court nominees, who are still subject to a 60-vote filibuster threshold, or to legislation.
Reid's justification was simple: "The American people believe Congress is broken." Translated: "We are the majority; the majority rules." Further translated: "Power makes right."
Were Reid and the Democrats right? In America, should the majority party be able to run the country by majority vote? Are you for "pure Democracy?" After all, the voters, gave the Democrats a majority in the U.S. Senate.
But go back in time to the first two years of the Obama administration, when the Democrats, besides controlling the presidency and the Senate, also controlled the House. If you believe that 51 (of 100) senators and 218 (of (435) representatives should be able to pass whatever law they deem necessary or convenient, how would you feel if 51 senators and 218 House members passed any of the following laws?
-- Re-instituting slavery?
-- Making it illegal to be a Catholic or a Baptist?
-- Stripping Jews of citizenship?
-- Prohibiting American families from having more than one child?
-- Providing for the sterilization of all illegal immigrants found inside the United States?
-- Making it criminal to be a member of the Republican Party?
-- Directing extermination of all mentally disabled persons?
-- Denying tax exemption to "tea-party affiliated" groups? Or "progressive" groups?
-- Suppressing Fox News and CNN? Or putting monitors in their newsrooms to ensure their news reports are "favorable to the president, his party and his friends"?
If the rule is majority rules, what protects the minority? Where does the minority hide?
Lord Acton has written, "The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority..."
Our Founding Fathers tried to give America a maximum of democracy short of mob-ocracy. They feared the "mob." They feared the excesses of "pure democracy." That is why, rather than creating a pure democracy, they created a representative republic of limited powers, and further hamstrung it with a Bill of Rights, calculated to put certain powers beyond the reach of the majority.
Harry Reid, to the contrary, our Constitution is not "broken." It is a document replete with checks and balances -- intentionally built in -- to limit the power of the transient majority and the chief executive so as to safeguard personal liberty and property.
James Madison summed it up in Federalist Paper No. 10: "Democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."
And if there is danger in unfettered mob rule, there is equal danger in government by executive orders and decrees. Our Constitution was adopted to bar both.
It is for that reason that no law can be passed by the president. It is for that reason that no law can be passed by the House or Senate alone. Indeed, it is for that reason that Article I, Sec. 1 of the Constitution provides "All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives," and why Congress is granted power "To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof."
And it is why the president takes an oath that he "will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
And it is why the Constitution and the Bill of Rights bar the president, the Congress and even the courts from engaging in certain actions destructive of the liberty of the individual citizen.
Posted Online: March 19, 2014, 11:00 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea
Copyright 2014
John Donald O'Shea
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