Majority versus Minority Rule

Sadly we have been living under minority rule for a very long time thanks to patently unconstitutional Senate Rule 22, which directly contradicts and usurps 51% majority rule our Founding Fathers wrote into the U.S. Constitution.

Senate Rule 22 allows 41 Senators to block legislation from coming to the floor of the U.S. Senate for a majority rule vote.

Our Founding Fathers did not intend for 41 Senators to block legislation in our constitutional majority system.

Our Founding Fathers intended 51 Senators to pass legislation - not 60 Senators as required by Senate Rule 22.

A "Quorum" as stated in Clause 1, Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution is a simple majority, fifty-one out of one hundred Senators.

Article I Legislative Branch

• Section 5 Proceedings

• Clause 1 Authority

• Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business;

• but a smaller Number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penalties as each House may provide.

BIG DONORS, i.e., Billionaires, Bankers, Mega Corps and CEOs love minority rule and prefer smooth bi-partisan legislation instead of pointy, prickly partisan legislation that imposes greater restrictions and taxes on BIG DONORS.

BIG DONORS are the tiny minority in American politics, but BIG DONORS swing the biggest axe thanks to Senate Rule 22 and PAC-funded Democrats and Republicans who vote in the interest of their BIG DONORS.

Senate Rule 22 is inherently unconstitutional as it IGNORES constitutional majority rule and imposes a 60% majority rule before any bill can be voted on in full in the U.S. Senate.

Joe Biden infamously quipped that he strongly opposed eliminating the filibuster (Senate Rule 22) because when Republicans are in charge, Republicans will be able to pass partisan legislation without Democrat input or votes.

TDP supports Majority Rule, eliminating Senate Rule 22 because our U.S. Constitution literally imposes and defines Majority Rule as 51% - not 60%.

What about Biden's concern that when Republicans are in charge, they will be able to pass legislation with 51 Senators, without Democrat input or votes?

TDP is not afraid of Republicans complying with contitutional majority rule precisely because TDP knows that elections have consequences for both Democrats and Republicans.

Fairness remains constitutional.

The reason the Republican Party came up with the need to create and impose Senate Rule 22 in the first place was because elections have consequences.

From approximately 1945 until about 1995 the Democratic Party usually ruled the House, the Senate and the White House for about 50 years; and during that long period Republicans were angry that voters did not support Republicans as much as voters supported Democrats.

In 1978, enter Georgian Republican, hardcore racist Newt Gingrich - the Grandfather of "Stop The Steal" who began propagating the GOP lie that the reason Republicans lost so many elections to Democrats is because Democrats were allowing illegal aliens to vote for Democrats in elections.

Categorically false and remains false to this day.

How else could Gingrich and the Republican Party explain 50 years worth of election losses?

Trump and Republicans will always continue to blame undocumented immigrants for their election losses.

Trump and Republicans also blame undocumented immigrants for everything from housing shortages, job losses and healthcare costs while fatcat Republicans and Democrats remain responsible for housing shortages, cost of living and rising healthcare costs.

Senate Rule 22 is the ‘Catch-22′ paralyzing our republic

July 21, 2022

Op-Eds and Letters

U.S. Rep. John B. Larson wrote the following op-ed that appeared in the Hartford Courant:

In 1961, author Joseph Heller introduced “Catch-22″ into the American lexicon.

That term referred to a fictional rule requiring repetitive behavior that leads to nowhere.

In 2022, we are enduring the same absurdist nightmare visited upon the country by Senate Rule 22, which has single-handedly paralyzed our nation by grinding the U.S. Congress to a halt.

Unlike Catch-22, Senate Rule 22 is not fictional, and the resulting dysfunction has become a reality.

How is it, in the past 16 months, the House of Representatives has passed more than 400 bills, 70% of which have been bipartisan-sponsored, and the Senate has yet to vote on any of them?

Democrats control the House, Senate and the presidency, yet bills to protect voting rights, enact gun safety, and safeguard women’s reproductive rights have passed the House of Representatives but never received a vote in the Senate chamber.

Once revered as the world’s greatest deliberative body, the Senate is now the most debilitating threat to our Democratic Republic.

How so?

Forty-one senators determine what bills the Senate will take up through Rule 22, the cloture vote.

Cloture is a vote to end a filibuster, and under Senate rules, requires 60 votes.

Any senator can ask for the cloture vote without even coming to the floor.

You should not mistake this for “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” where Jimmy Stewart holds the floor and principally tries to persuade his colleagues.

This has nothing to do with principle or policy and everything to do with power and politics.

Is that in the Constitution, you may ask? No.

Nowhere in the Constitution does it say you need a super majority to take up House-passed bills.

Beyond that, there is nothing in the Constitution that permits a filibuster to block majority rule.

That, too, is a rule of the Senate that has become weaponized against democracy.

To be fair, both parties, Republicans and Democrats, have utilized the cloture vote to control the floor and block legislation.

It has been used not to improve, amend or pause legislation, but to kill the will of the American people.

Most recently, the negative effects of the filibuster have been compounded by devastating Supreme Court rulings.

How is it that in the Senate it only takes 51 votes to confirm three conservative Supreme Court Justices, yet requires 60 votes to safeguard women’s reproductive rights, pass universal background checks on gun purchases and protect the right to vote for all Americans?

If you want to know why things are not getting done in Washington, you need look no further than this unconstitutional rule allowing a minority of senators to block the people’s will.

At John Lewis’ funeral, former President Barack Obama lamented that the filibuster needs to go.

With all the threats that we are facing: a global pandemic, Russia, China and foreign and domestic terrorists attacking the very fabric of our democracy, it may shock people to know that over 400 bills representing ideas put forward by the people’s representatives have neither been heard nor voted on in the U.S. Senate.

The Founding Fathers were aware of the threat posed by consolidated power.

They meticulously countered it by devising a system of checks and balances whose premise was to govern by majority rule.

When asked what kind of government they had created, Benjamin Franklin responded with this warning: “a republic, if you can keep it.”

These are consequential times, and the American people are looking for results and accountability.

Rule 22 must go, and the good news is we do not need a constitutional amendment to change this rule.

We only need a majority vote from a Senate that cares more about the nation’s well-being than power and politics.

We cannot let the procedures of the Senate remain a Catch-22 for our republic.

John Larson represents Connecticut’s First District in Congress.

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