Filibuster and the Electoral College

A few days ago I said that I would be coming back to write about filibuster.
Before I get into my position on this I will provide a small synopsis of the filibuster, where the word comes from and its effect on our political system.
The term filibuster was first used in 1851, and it is a word derived from Spanish filibustero meaning pirate or freebooter. Thus the word filibuster would mean pirating or taking control of the time of debate. It is not a new concept. The Roman Senate had members that would filibuster.
Both Houses of Congress allowed its members to filibuster. The House of Representatives allowed the filibuster until 1842 when a rule was passed that stopped the use of it.
In the Senate it would require 67 senators to stop a filibuster. The rule was then changed to 60 in 1975.
The Senate used to use the filibuster to stop or extend debate of bills.
In the period 1999-2002 an average of 58 filibusters took place. In the period ending 2008 there were over 110 filibusters, almost double of the previous minority. In most instances used for reasons that are unnecessary such as allowing proposed staff members of the Executive branch to be brought to a vote on the floor.
This is arguably the main reason why the public in the United States is frustrated with its government, nothing gets done. The Senate has become the place where all bills end up dying.
Before my conclusion I will draw a comparison with the election of US senators. When the constitution was written members of the senate were elected by state legislatures. Between 1911 and 1912 the Seventeenth Amendment to the constitution was passed changing Articles 1 & 3 allowing US senators to be directly elected.
Lastly, this also brings me to the election of US presidents. This is probably one of the few democracies in which the public does not elect its presidents directly. The concept of the electoral college may have been useful at the time when the constitution was written. This system seems to favor the minority to govern over the majority like we witnessed in 2000, where Al Gore had the most votes and George W. Bush, supposedly, the most electoral votes. Although that election ended being decided by the Supreme Court, in what even conservatives should admit, was an over reach of the Federal Government. I wonder where the Tea Parties were back then when Washington was over reaching many times in local decisions.
It is time to do away with both the electoral college, a concept that has become obsolete, and the possibility of filibuster. The US does not have a representative system like other democracies, such as the most European nations have, where every vote is represented, so why should we allow the minority party to block every single piece of legislation.
By removing the possibility of filibustering we would stop people who do not represent the interest of their constituents, and who seem to be only interested in representing the people who pay for their campaigns, to whom they owe favors. This will become more acute starting with the next election thanks to the unfortunate decision by this Supreme Court to allow corporations to fund elections.
The only people who are opposed to these ideas are the people that in the name of democracy are really only interested in holding on to power.

Health care

To the people who say that we only need to fix “a little bit” the roof in terms of healthcare hopefully with Anthem Blue Cross' 30 to 39 percent rate hike in California this will become a rude awakening of what the reality is, and why we need to overhaul the whole system, and why we need either single payer or at least a public option.
We should also mention that Anthem Blue Cross made a 2.7 billion in the last quarter of 2009. I suppose that the increase is to recover the millions that they spent derailing the possible bills in both houses and funding the demonstrations to stop those bills and hearings.
Insurance companies increased their premiums 78% from 2000 to 2006, while the inflation had been less than 3% a year.
I can imagine that conservatives still believe that insurance companies will voluntarily start reducing their rate of increases, or better still, that costs will come under control by addressing the lawsuits that push costs higher. Unfortunately for them, lawsuits only represent 2% of the costs. In other words, that will not do the trick. The other option that conservatives say that will help bring down costs is buy buying insurance across state lines. I remember my next door neighbor was telling me once a story about Mutual of Omaha. My neighbor was offered insurance by this company for his mother. Everything was fine until she got sick and had to be hospitalized. He never got a penny out of them, and ended up having to pick up the tab himself. That option is another mirage, unless we have some organization looking over insurance companies, and enforcing whatever they commit themselves to cover.
While the opposition has only offered sand castle alternatives that in reality will end up making matters worse, the cost of healthcare keeps rising and more people will run out of coverage.
Their idea of the market taking care of itself is what caused the meltdown of 2008 and the bailout of the banks of 1989. Total lack of control.
The republicans believe that it is my way or the highway, even though they are the minority party.
It is unfortunate that this party, that represents only the interests of the haves, and is always on the wrong side of the issues, such as with the Civil Rights Act, lacks any message with the exception of “no”.
It is probably time to address the filibuster in the senate.
I will discuss that in a future blog.

Tea Party Nation

As the Tea Party Convention comes to an end we can see what the members of this movement stand for by reading what the crowd cheered for. Comments such as “we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country” from former Congressman Tom Tancredo.
He has a reputation that precedes him as a anti-immigrant, ant-minority “person”.
As an immigrant myself these comments worry me because it seems that the United States is going backwards instead of looking into the future. These were the same attitudes that led to segregation.
People seemed to forget that, with the exception of native Americans, we are all immigrants. The difference is how long has your family been here.
While the Chinese are on their way to overtaking the US in being the biggest economy in the world we are still worried about the fact that Obama is not born in this country, that minorities can vote and that everything is solved by cutting taxes. What I mean by everything is simple, I always say if republicans would be doctors they would medicate a cold, cancer, and heart failure with the same medicine: tax cuts.
If the economy is good => tax cuts
If the economy is bad => tax cuts
If we invade a country => tax cuts
If we are attacked => tax cuts
If we need health care => tax cuts
Nobody denies that deficits are not healthy for the economy, for the currency, and for the future of the country, but where were all these people while the previous administration was doubling the national debt in 8 years? For those who don’t know when Bush was sworn the national debt was 5 trillion, by the time he was gone it almost 10 trillion (9.8 trillion).
If the Tea Party movement is represented by people like Tancredo and Sarah Palin I wonder where is this country heading to.