A number of the liberal-leaning blogs I read have been arguing of late that the filibuster in the US Senate needs to be done away with, as it is a fundamentally undemocratic thing whose use has become so frequent and entrenched over the last few years as to render the Senate into a body which de facto requires a supermajority in order to pass anything. (Example.) I tend to agree with this argument; the filibuster's main virtue seems to be that it's been that way forever, and that, in itself, is never much of a reason to keep doing anything.
But I'm reminded of a historical episode I read about in a wonderful book by Barbara Tuchman, The Proud Tower, in which she describes a similar problem faced once by a Republican Speaker of the House named Thomas B. Reed, at the end of the nineteenth century.
He [Reed] was determined, on taking up the gavel as Speaker, to put into effect a plan on which he had long deliberated, consulting no one, and on which he risked his entire political future. He knew that the fight would focus upon him the nation's attention and also that if he failed his Congressional career would be over. The stakes were high: he would either break "the tyranny of the minority" by the which the House was paralyzed into a state of "helpless inanity", or he would resign.
The system Speaker Reed had decided to challenge was known as the silent – or disappearing – quorum. It was a practice whereby the minority party could prevent any legislation obnoxious to it by refusing a quorum, that is, by demanding a roll call and them remaining silent when their names were called. Since the rules prescribed that a member's presence was established only by a viva voce reply to the roll, and since it required only a majority of the whole to constituted a quorum, the silent filibuster could effectively stop the House from doing business.
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To Reed the issue was survival of representative government. If the Democrats could prevent that legislation which the Republicans by virtue of their electoral victory could rightfully expect to enact, they would in effect be setting aside the verdict of the election. The rights of the minority, he believed, were preserved by freedom to debate and to vote but when the minority was able to frustrate action by the majority, "it becomes a tyranny". He believed that legislation, not merely deliberation, was the business of Congress. The duty of the Speaker to his party and country was to see that that business was accomplished, not merely to umpire debate.
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He reached his decision to attack the silent quorum, and planned his campaign, alone, partly because no one else would have thought there was a chance of success and partly because he was not sure that even his own party would support him. There were indications that they might not. Because of Reed's known views on the silent filibuster it was clear that quorum-counting would be an issue in the new Congress. REED WILL COUNT THEM, predicted a headline in the Washington Post, and the story beneath it said that even Mr. Cannon, Reed's closest lieutenant, was, opposed to the attempt. The Democrats were manning their defenses. Ex-Speaker Carlisle let it be known that any legislation enacted by a quorum which had not been established by a "recorded vote" woul dbe taken to court as unconstitutional.
Reed, however, had satisfied himself that he would be upheld if it came to law, and on the attitude of his own party he was prepared to gamble. He shrewdly judged that the Democrats in their rage would provoke the Republicans to rally to his support. When the first of the contested elections appeared on the schedule for January 29 he was ready. As expected, the Democrats raised a cry of no quorum and demanded a roll call. Reed's moment had come. Without a flicker of expression on the great white moon face, "the largest human face I ever saw", as a colleague described it, without any quickening of the drawling voice, he announced, "The Chair directs the Clerk to record the names of the following members present and refusing to vote," and began reading off the names himself. Instantly, according to a reporter, "pandemonium broke loose. The storm was furious...and it is to doubted if ever there was such wild excitement, burning indignation, scathing denunciation and really dangerous conditions as existed in the House" during the next five days. Republicans were wildly applauding, all the Democrats were "yelling and shrieking and pounding on their desks" while the voice of their future Speaker, Crisp of Georgia, boomed, "I appeal! I appeal from the decision of the Chair!" The explosion was "as violent as any ever witnessed in any parliament," a member recalled later. "Mr. Blanchard, Mr. Bland, Mr. Blount, Mr. Breckinridge of Arkansas, Mr. Breckinridge of Kentucky..."
Up jumped the Kentuckian, "famous for his silver hair and silver tongue." "I deny the power of the Speaker and denounce it as revolutionary!" he called.
The resonant twang from the Chair continued unregarding, "Mr. Bullock, Mr. Bynum, Mr. Carlisle, Mr. Chipman, Mr. Clement, Mr. Covert, Mr. Crisp, Mr. Cummings" – through hisses and catcalls and cries of "Appeal" irresistably rolling down the alphabet – "Mr. Lawler, Mr. Lee, Mr. McAdoo, Mr. McCreary..."
"I deny your right, Mr. Speaker, to count me as present!" bellowed McCreary.
For the first time the Speaker stopped, held the hall in silence for a pause as an actor hold an audience, then blandly spoke: "The Chair is making a statement of fact that the gentleman is present. Does he deny it?"
It's a fascinating tale. It doesn't end there with that one act of Reed's, of course; few things of this nature ever do. The Republicans would later lose Congress so badly that the Democrats were able to raise a quorum by themselves, and they then restored the silent quorum. This backfired after the next election cycle, however; the Democratic majority was greatly reduced such that now-Minority Leader Reed was able to frustrate Democratic legislative aims by using the silent quorum himself, until the Democrats finally relented and allowed the silent quorum to end forever.
(The Proud Tower is one of my favorite history books, by the way. It is a large-scale picture -- a historical snapshot, if you will -- of the state of the the world as it was moving inexorably toward World War I.)
3 hath spoken!:
As a parent of a special needs child (God Bless and RIP Quinn)
Do you think if the clinton 1994 health care plan was in effect the system would have helped prolonged her Life? Clinton Plan was rejected after long debate. But seems to be back in full force in this "Stimulus" bill with little debate or hearings do you think the Health care provisions would improve care for You or me our spouses and children as out lined in the article below. Would this truly help or hurt our country and its people?
Republican Senators are questioning whether President Barack Obama’s stimulus bill contains the right mix of tax breaks and cash infusions to jump-start the economy.
Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the health provisions slipped in without discussion. These provisions reflect the handiwork of Tom Daschle, until recently the nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department.
Senators should read these provisions and vote against them because they are dangerous to your health. (Page numbers refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf version).
The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.
But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”
Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far.
New Penalties
Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties. “Meaningful user” isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose “more stringent measures of meaningful use over time” (511, 518, 540-541)
What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment? The vagueness is intentional. In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the “tough” decisions elected politicians won’t make.
The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (190-192). The goal, Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses” and “forgo experimental treatments,” and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.
Elderly Hardest Hit
Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.
Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).
The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.
In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision.
Hidden Provisions
If the Obama administration’s economic stimulus bill passes the Senate in its current form, seniors in the U.S. will face similar rationing. Defenders of the system say that individuals benefit in younger years and sacrifice later.
The stimulus bill will affect every part of health care, from medical and nursing education, to how patients are treated and how much hospitals get paid. The bill allocates more funding for this bureaucracy than for the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force combined (90-92, 174-177, 181).
Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is intentional. Daschle supported the Clinton administration’s health-care overhaul in 1994, and attributed its failure to debate and delay. A year ago, Daschle wrote that the next president should act quickly before critics mount an opposition. “If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it,” he said. “The issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.”
More Scrutiny Needed
On Friday, President Obama called it “inexcusable and irresponsible” for senators to delay passing the stimulus bill. In truth, this bill needs more scrutiny.
The health-care industry is the largest employer in the U.S. It produces almost 17 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. Yet the bill treats health care the way European governments do: as a cost problem instead of a growth industry. Imagine limiting growth and innovation in the electronics or auto industry during this downturn. This stimulus is dangerous to your health and the economy.
Best Wishes
DavidS
Here is a fine example of Goverment Run health care taking care of our children, do we want this here??????
The newspapers in the UK were recently full of stories about the death of a certain Baby P, a 17 month old baby boy who was progressively killed by his mother’s boyfriend while she watched, apparently amused at the proceedings. Over an extended period the little child had his fingers lopped off, bones broken, teeth punched in and spine snapped until finally he died. What made the story resonant with the British public was how it went on undetected despite at least 60 visits or interviews between the child and welfare professionals. It was like a play full of motion where everything stayed still. Child protection people, for example, would make inspections yet fail to cross the room to look closely at the child. At other times, the infant was presented at arms length smeared in chocolate by his monstrous guardians to obscure his injuries, all of which seemed to escape the notice of the social workers. When the child was taken to a government health care doctor for examination shortly before he died, the doctor didn’t examine the child because it seemed inconvenient to do at the time. “The doctor, who qualified in Pakistan and worked in Saudi Arabia before coming to Britain in 2004, spotted bruises to his body but decided not to carry out a full systemic examination because the boy was ;miserable and cranky’.”
Amidst the reams of journalistic soul-searching which followed, the most interesting analysis was provided by Theodore Dalrymple, who drew on his experience as a doctor in the British health care system. His basic thesis about why Baby P died undetected in plain view was that in bureaucratic Britain the concept of responsibility had changed from being predicated on results to one predicated on process. Nobody saw the actual, all they could see was the process. Dalrymples’ remark reminded me of a comment I recently heard from someone in a major consulting firm in connection of the recent economic meltdown: that they were so busy measuring compliance that there was no time to ask if the basic business made sense. Everyone was looking but what were they looking at? Dalyrymple wrote of this bureaucratic universe:
The fundamental purpose of the British public service is to provide a meal-and-mortgage-ticket for those who work in it, especially at management level. The ostensible purpose of an organisation is rarely its real purpose. I know this from my experience in the Health Service. Thus, when a problem reveals itself, the response is a curious one, that is to say simultaneously one of work creation and work avoidance.
The work creation consists of instituting ever more “failsafe” and “best-practice” procedures, usually with all their associated paperwork, which are then bowed down to and worshipped like the Golden Calf. Of course, this creates the impression of terrific pressure of work, that can be relieved only by the employment of more and more staff with strange titles such as Compliance Manager and Best-Practice Co-ordinator. …
Documentation is its own justification; and a superstition now exists among the police, nurses, doctors, social workers, prison officers and no doubt others that nothing can go wrong if the forms are filled in correctly. Anyone who has been to a coroner’s court lately will know that this is a superstition shared by many coroners.
At the core of Dalrymple’s critique is the idea that in many modern bureaucracies, appearances have become the actual measure of performance. They exist to fulfill their own procedures. And things may now have reached the point where people have actually forgotten what the point of the job is. And yet this startlingly ineffective, Potemkin bureaucracy has become the preferred vehicle for replacing personal responsibility in much of the developed world. In another article in the City Journal, Dalrymple described why the bureaucracy was expected to stand in lieu of the family: because that ancient institution was rapidly collapsing. The substitution of government for the perceived failure of the Old Ways has been a common theme in the culture wars. And in Britain at least, there was no doubt that the Old Way of doing things was having it rough.
More than four out of ten British children are born out of wedlock; the unions of which they are the issue are notoriously unstable. Even marriage has lost much of its meaning. In a post-religious society, it is no longer a sacrament. The government has ensured that marriage brings no fiscal advantages and, indeed, for those at the lower end of the social scale, that it has only disadvantages. Easy divorce means that a quarter of all marriages break up within a decade.
The results of this social dysfunction are grim for children. Eighty percent of British children have televisions in their bedrooms, more than have their biological fathers at home. Fifty-eight percent of British children eat their evening meal in front of the television (a British child spends more than five hours per day watching a screen); 36 percent never eat any meals together with other family members; and 34 percent of households do not even own dining tables. In the prison where I once worked, I discovered that many inmates had never eaten at a table together with someone else. …
Violence against teachers is increasing: injuries suffered by teachers at the hands of pupils rose 20 percent between 2000 and 2006, and in one survey, which may or may not be representative, 53 percent of teachers had objects thrown at them, 26 percent had been attacked with furniture or equipment, 2 percent had been threatened with a knife, and 1 percent with a gun. Nearly 40 percent of teachers have taken time off to recover from violent incidents at students’ hands. About a quarter of British teachers have been assaulted by their students over the last year.
Given that crisis, the tendency had been to throw more social workers, supervisors, compliance experts etc to police up this shattered domestic landscape but not always to good effect. Instead of a dysfunctional families, you had a lunatic bureaucracy pretending and pretending some more. Eavesdropping on the British bureaucratic debate following the death of Baby P, as through the video clip below, is like listening to people talk nonsense in what outwardly resembles English, yet in a language with completely different semantic rules. It is a language which seems designed, for example, to express as little meaning as possible in the greatest number of words. Everyone is always talking about ‘regret’, ‘appropriateness’, ’safety’ and ‘protection’ in such a disembodied tone that it is almost rote; and moreover where there is considerable doubt those words mean anything like their entries in a dictionary; and even some doubt about whether they mean anything at all, apart from what they imply in terms of procedure.
But what are we to make of speech deliberately emptied of significance? The first would be to recognize, as Orwell did, that the advantages to saying nothing at all in a bureaucratic world are very great. If you say nothing, no one can blame you for anything. It used to be the case that only macroeconomists were allowed to make deliberately ambiguous statements. But today it is a general virtue to be like Sergeant Schultz. I know nothing, I see nothing. It is a strange world we live in when to express a dislike for murderers or spot the dying baby — is to invite complication and trouble. We live in a world full of noise and glitz and yet is afraid to speak. No wonder Baby P could not be saved by an army of social workers. Not a one of them could risk saying the obvious. They just filled in the forms.
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For the record I work in the health care industry but that is a misnomer I do 10% care 90% paper.
I also own some rental properties with Section 8 vounchers each tennat has forms 4 inches thick (Not an exaggraation)
Forms Forms Forms
DavidS
Thank God for Filibuster I hope the use it here, if they dont I am going to apply for one of those federal over site boards looks like good wages & benefits, just like all those California State Employees
As part of the stimulus bill, the House wants to pump least $160 billion into our already-bloated health sector, and members say they intend to fight for every penny when the bill goes to conference with the Senate.
The health-related provisions take a sharp turn toward greater government control over our health sector, without any hearings or serious debate in Congress and without telling the American people what the changes would mean for their personal health care. This is the biggest land grab in the health sector ever attempted by the federal government, and it would be a major step toward thrusting full responsibility for health-care financing onto the American taxpayer—today and for decades to come.
For starters, the bill would create a 15-member federal health board, composed entirely of federal employees appointed by the president, charged with running “comparative effectiveness” research to assess which drugs and other medical treatments are most effective. The board’s decisions would determine what medical treatments the federal government would or would not pay for. The treatments some patients desperately need might not be on the list. House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D., Wis.) explained that drugs and treatments “that are found to be less effective and in some cases, more expensive, will no longer be prescribed.”
The bill would also establish a $400 million slush fund, which the secretary of health and human services would use to give government, not doctors and patients, more control over health-care decisions.
There will be a substantial burden on employers: The bill would impose a back-door mandate for them to continue providing health insurance to workers long after those workers have left. PricewaterhouseCoopers says the ten-year cost of this provision would be up to $65 billion just for those workers currently eligible for COBRA (the current program through which people can participate in ex-employers’ health plans). The estimated costs would be even higher if many more workers retire early, as they likely will if they know they can continue their employment-based coverage indefinitely.
Further, under the bill, the federal government would reimburse workers for part of their COBRA bills—at least 65 percent under the House bill and 50 percent under the Senate version—creating a major new health spending program without the slightest debate over the economic distortions this would cause.
Also, having already repositioned SCHIP as a program for middle-income children, Congress wants to do the same with Medicaid. The House bill would have the federal government pay 100 percent of the costs for states to extend Medicaid coverage to unemployed workers and their families, no matter what the families’ income or assets. Under this definition, President Bush and members of his cabinet would be eligible for Medicaid.
Finally, the bill would allocate more than $20 billion to health information technologies, despite the fact that no one has been able to come up with a workable plan to spend even a fraction of that amount wisely. Speaking from experience in managing these types of initiatives, one of us (Winkenwerder) can say it is simply impossible to spend sums that huge wisely—not to mention quickly enough to stimulate the economy.
The U.S. already spends $2.2 trillion a year on health care, and it is widely acknowledged that we are not getting anything close to our money’s worth. Can we invest an additional $160 billion wisely? Highly unlikely. The health-related provisions of this bill are too consequential to be rushed through in this gigantic spending bill.
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DavidS
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