On Why I Hate the Filibuster

The first thing many of you are probably wondering is why I'm writing this post now, instead of back in June when Wendy Davis was filibustering on the Texas State Senate floor about the anti-abortion bill before the state legislature.

I wish I had a good answer for that.  Partially, because as much as I don't like the filibuster as a tactic, it's because I think Wendy Davis is kind of a badass.  Partially, it's because this is not a non-partisan blog.  And, mostly, it's because I was making the same argument on Facebook and it never crossed my mind to make this post.

First of all, I will note that there are some minor differences between the current Ted Cruz filibuster on the U.S. Senate floor and Davis's filibuster in Texas.  One, Wendy was in Texas, so her actions impacted only the residents of Texas, while Senator Cruz's filibuster aims to impact the entire country and the federal government.  So, yknow, keep the scope of things in mind as we progress here.  Two, the Texas State Senate filibuster rules state that you can only continue to speak as long as you continue to speak on matters directly related to the bill at hand.  This stipulation does not exist for the Senate filibuster, which may proceed (even by reading the phone book) until the speaker 1) voluntarily sits down, leaves, or stops speaking or 2) the Senate reaches a 2/3 vote needed for cloture and ends the debate in spite of the filibuster.  Until then, anything and everything is fair game.

Which brings us to today.  Ted Cruz is filibustering on the Senate floor [last I heard, reading Dr. Seuss books] to delay or prevent a vote on a critical budget measure in an attempt to "defund Obamacare" and the stipulations of the Affordable Care Act which will go into effect tomorrow.

I hate the filibuster as a tactic or procedural rule -- regardless of party affiliation or the issue.

First, it prevents any real, constructive debate on the topic at hand.  Debate is, inherently, a conversation.  And a filibuster is precisely the opposite -- especially when you don't even need to be talking about the bill that's up for a vote.  It is one-sided preaching, sometimes on topic, sometimes not, which does nothing to require either side to provide evidence or support for their side of the argument.

Second, the filibuster is a direct threat to the democratic process.  Senate voting rules were designed for a simple majority.  And, pending Presidential veto, a simple majority is supposed to be all that's needed to pass something.  The filibuster, by requiring a 2/3 vote, effectively raises the threshold for substantive Senate progress to a level even harder to achieve than half-plus-one.  People complain about Congressional inefficiency, but it's even harder to make any moves in any direction when you need not only a majority, but overwhelming support for any measure.

The filibuster is a holdover from very old Parliamentary procedure.  In the early 1800s, the House of Representatives decided it was enough of a bar to productive and timely debate that they removed it in an update of the House debate rules.  It sticks around in the Senate as a fossil from an era where immediate action was both typically unnecessary and more or less impossible -- in a world which is quite the opposite.

Politically yours,
Rachel Leigh

On Senior Year

Once upon a time, someone told me that senior year is easier.  And by once upon a time, I mean everyone has lied to me for the last four years about what my life senior year would be like.  I have been swimming in piles of class work, trying to sort through grad school applications (PLEASE SOMEBODY WANT ME), and dealing with the fact that with senior status comes a large amount of responsibility within student organizations.

When did I sign up for this?

I think, to some extent, the idea that seniors don't have to work hard is rooted in the way we, as underclassmen, saw seniors behave in personal contexts.  It always seemed like the seniors were the ones who always had time for a party...and can anyone say Cellar Wednesdays (the Cellar is our on-campus bar)?

I'm starting to wonder, though, how much of that culture was perpetuated by the sheer amount of work and stress which comes with senior year -- if maybe that's how people are choosing to cope.

All I know is that I'm jealous of the students whose Wellness classes involve taking naps.  That's just not fair.

Senioritically yours,
Rachel Leigh

On Home, Location, and Permanence

So today I registered to vote in Virginia.

Shocking, I know.  Because it's not like I care about Virginia politics.  (That was sarcasm.)

What that really got me thinking about, though, ties into a concept from class yesterday.  Historically, we think of location as permanent, and a home as a sense of permanence.  This came up as we were talking about how census data and the people who research it conceive of location -- in a way that doesn't account for frequent movement, especially in areas for poor or migrant families.

And today, registering to vote in a state that I do not think of as "home" although I also no longer live in the town I think of as "home" (as in it is not my current permanent or temporary residence), made me think a bit more about permanence.

I moved around a decent bit growing up.  Not like the army brats in movies who move to entirely new cities every six months and never get their roots -- I never had a problem establishing a sense of home in a general sense.  But changing circumstances led to a lot of literal moving: between one parent or the other, the amount of time I spent living in the same room in the same home was pretty limited after I was about six.

Now that I've once again gotten some sense of settled, here in Richmond, I'm already preparing for the likelihood of being somewhere else for graduate school, and my sense of permanence and stability is once again pretty shaken.

Most of the moves I have made in my life have been the result of conscious choices -- new relationships/marriages, going away to school, etc.  Yet they still impact my ability to think of a plot of land or building or physical location as a stable point that I can call "home."  I can only imagine what it must be like when even the sense of home that surrounds a group of people or family has gotten taken away, and the need to move is prompted not by choices but by circumstance.  With how much we consider home and location a part of our identity (my family, the fact that I'm a "Yankee" going to school in the South), it must be hard to craft a sense of identity when you're pushed away from a feeling of home.

Locally grown,
Rachel Leigh