When I heard about the Senate filibuster compromise late last night, I took a while to chew on it before forming an opinion. Victory? Loss? For whom? Upon reflection, I find I am glad that there were enough grown-ups in the Senate to reach a compromise in an attempt to preserve the collegiality of the Senate against what surely would have been a rancorous and divisive dispute. I'm also glad to hear that James Dobson is displeased. But, I can't really embrace the deal. Here's why.

The compromise fails to solve some of the most important problems that the Senate and judiciary face. First, the two of the most activist, uninterested in individual and civil rights, and corporatist justices will be added to the bench. Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown will be on the appellate courts, using their power to ignore the law and create rulings against workers and minorities, and for the "rights" of corporations to wield as much influence as they like using their deep pocketbooks.

Next, and more importantly... I haven't spoken much about the "nuclear option", but the biggest threat to the Senate's function from all of this was the idea that a slim majority could vote - not to confirm a judge, not to change the rules - but to ignore (by "reinterpretation") the very clear senate rules that require a 60 vote majority to end debate and bring the matter to an "up or down" majority vote. No matter how one feels about the rest of the issues that revolve around this debate, everybody should want to see the Senate playing by the rules. The tactic of just setting the rules to the side by "precedent" is just plain unethical. The compromise includes no guarantees that future Senators will avoid the "nuclear option", or any other unscrupulous tactics to work around rules they feel are inconvenient. It is the "ends justify the means" mentality that is so prevalent and destructive in our current political climate, and this compromise acknowledges the legitimacy of the threat by giving in to it and leaving it on the shelf for later.

Finally, the philosophical issue will now remain murky. Can a slim and partisan majority be truly said to represent the "consent" of the Senate? To my eye, the answer should be no. The proper role of the senate should be to provide temperate and above all, unifying leadership. Giving ultimate power to a slim and partisan majority is as good as sending the rest of the senate, and all the millions of people they represent, packing for a vacation until the next election. By leaving large minorities completely out of the process as simple majority votes do, a free pass is given to powerful factions within the small minority to create a radical environment in the Senate that gives no respect to "the other half" of the nation. I strongly believe that every voice should count, and that Senate tradition should be respectful of that. This compromise pays only lip-service to that philosophy.

Oh, one other thing - this "gentleman's agreement", when (not if) broken, will lead to more rancor, vitriol, and division. We could really use a break from that about now.

A better solution, to my mind, would have been some actual rule changes concerning cloture and Senate process. The first, and most important, would be a rule change that eliminated anything like the "nuclear option", where a slim majority could simply opt to ignore the Senate rules and set precedent. In other words, changing an interpretation of Senate rules should require a "supermajority" of some sort. Next, to insure that Senate business serves both the majority of Americans, and the most important interests of the rest of Americans, a change to the cloture rules is in order. An acceptable change might be to allow cloture with a simple "majority" vote, but only when a certain threshhold of caucuses present are included in that simple majority. For instance, 51 votes might close debate, but only if at least 1 of each caucus that has at least 15 members represented in the Senate are among those votes. Two votes could be required from a caucus of thirty, and three if the caucus reaches 45 or more. This would effectively make every cloture at least minimally bi- (or tri-, or quadri-)partisan. So the rest of the Senate wouldn't do just as well to go home and raise money for the next election when these votes come around. At least some of their constituents will have a representative in the cloture process. Furthermore, it has the attractive side-effect of giving an incentive to open the process of growing viable alternative parties. If the Constitutional Party or the Greens want a say in government, then their constituents have the motivation to elect at least fifteen of them to the Senate, which is a goal they can realistically pursue. At the same time, 51 votes really can bring the matter to an "up or down" vote, just as the Dobsonite Republicans wish for. It simply cannot be a homogenous 51 votes.

This protects the judiciary from the entrenched activism and radicalism that result from passing majorities' efforts to "stack" the bench, protects the sanctity of the Senate rules from being arbitrarily broken, and provides for a fair and Democratic process for Senate to exercise the will of the majority. What do y'all think?

(P.S. I'd like to get some feedback on this post, so I'm going to leave it at the "top" for the rest of the day... newer posts, if any, will go behind this one.)