A Dem Senate with 51 seats and no filibuster (0.00 / 0)

would basically be equivalent to the one we had with 60 and with the filibuster. So something like 53 would be a small step up, I guess. But I highly doubt you could get 50 of those 53 to kill it. (50 of the current 59 would be more plausible -- why is doing it a the start of a new congress different from the nuclear option, again?)

And it hurts to think of what might have been.

---

by: illissius @ Wed Feb 10, 2010 at 00:42:28 AM UTC

We'd need more than 51 Dems (4.00 / 1)

I could easily see Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Evan Bayh voting against eliminating the filibuster. I'm sure there are a few more.

Too bad we can't have the vote now, while there are still 59 Dems. Even then we'd be lucky to get 50 or 51 of them. I think the Senate leadership would have to go hardcore to get such rule-changes passed, such as by denying seniority and DSCC support to anyone who votes no.

---

by: existenz @ Wed Feb 10, 2010 at 01:28:43 AM UTC

Eliminating the filibuster with only 53 Dems (4.00 / 2)

could in fact give the Republicans a majority vote on quite a few issues. All they would need is 3 conservative Dems and Lieberman to pass any Republican agenda item.

I would be careful in what you wish for.

---

by: MO Blue @ Wed Feb 10, 2010 at 01:45:51 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

well (4.00 / 1)

One would still have the Presidential veto, if not the House.

New Jersey politics at Blue Jersey.

---

by: Hopeful in NJ @ Wed Feb 10, 2010 at 02:45:56 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

This assumes (0.00 / 1)

that at least 41 Democrats out of 53 would filibuster Republican bills.

Which they wouldn't.

---

by: Filler @ Wed Feb 10, 2010 at 04:06:34 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Destroying the filibuster (4.00 / 1)

by a party with no program and no will to act does not seem to me to be a positive. Is there anyone who really thinks the Dems are determined to pass a bunch of progressive laws and the filibuster is the main deterrent? It makes no sense. The Republicans on the other hand are determined. They will go after social security and medicare...for sure. They will come up with laws so outrageous we cannot now conceive them. Maybe if we are lucky the Dems will perform their one useful function and filibuster. As it turns out, the filibuster is a defensive tool for a party (the Dems) which have nothing positive to add but does sometimes act  defensively.

---

by: VLaszlo @ Wed Feb 10, 2010 at 13:02:22 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Worst-Case Scenario (4.00 / 2)

is the the Republicans win back the Senate, and use the current buzz as justification to abolish the filibuster, and then pass all sorts of crazy stuff. This would open up all sorts of fissures internally, and invite some wicked blowback if any of their fantasies of ending entitlements ever came to pass. The Democrats would then inherit filibuster-less Senate.

I'm fine with that.

---

by: glacierpeaks @ Wed Feb 10, 2010 at 01:39:56 AM UTC

Absolutely No Chance Chris (2.00 / 2)

The filibuster is institutional in the Senate - there is no chance, none, that any party in power will ever do away with it, however irresponsible the minority's use of it was at the time. It would be regarded as an unconscionable abuse of power by the majority and as such would amount to political suicide. It won't ever happen.

---

by: MinnRick @ Wed Feb 10, 2010 at 04:19:10 AM UTC

hope you are right (4.00 / 1)

but in the mean time it seems to serve as a great distraction from and excuse for democratic failure to make them filibuster.

---

by: selise @ Wed Feb 10, 2010 at 08:42:31 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Are you averaging all the poll numbers? (0.00 / 0)

Cuz I could've sworn the IL poll where Kirk was up by 3.3 was just one poll.

---

by: liberalmaverick @ Wed Feb 10, 2010 at 08:46:20 AM UTC

So What Would Turn It Around? (0.00 / 0)

Passing some sort of health care bill and then fighting for real change?  Reinstating real progressive taxation?  Back in the 70's progressive Democrats supported "full employment" legislation and the idea that there was a right to a job -- how might that be applied to today?  Using the military to fight each snowflake (DC residents will understand).  Personnel shifts at the White House?

Anyway, I'd like to see more creativity applied to how Democrats might turn the current situation around.  When you are in free fall it's time to grab on to something.

---

by: howardpark @ Wed Feb 10, 2010 at 13:47:18 PM UTC

I wonder how loud the "kill democracy" crowd will be when the Dems no longer (nominally) control the Senate. (4.00 / 1)

Because given your own forecasts, Chris, it looks like we're looking at losing the Senate this November or else in 2012, in which case the Dems and their hacks will go right back to their position when it was the GOP that wanted to remove the filibuster.  Here are some tickets for you to take a much needed trip down memory lane.

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/...

The above link describes abuse of the deal in 2006-2006 to preserve the filibuster by the GOP, which effectively eliminated the procedure by threatening to remove it entirely if ever the Democrats tried to use it.

http://dir.salon.com/news/feat...

Here is something interesting that was brought up, and it explains further the phenomenon of chronic my-teamism.

If democracy is all about the will of the majority, then the filibuster is undemocratic because it thwarts the majority's will. But the Senate isn't the most democratic of institutions, and it wasn't meant to be. Senators are like eyeballs; everybody gets two, no matter how big or small you are. New York gets two senators, but so does Wyoming. Thus, as E.J. Dionne Jr. has noted, the 52 senators from the 26 least populous states "could command a Senate majority even though they represent only 18 percent of the American population." If "democratic" vs. "undemocratic" is the test in the Senate, we'll be waiting for Kansas to cough up its seats to California.

...

As the Christian Science Monitor recently put it, there isn't much "partisan consistency in how the filibuster has come to be viewed." You hate the filibuster when you're in the majority; you love it when you're not. Nineteen Democrats tried to kill the filibuster in the mid-1990s, and fact sheets from Republican opposition researchers are overflowing with quotations from this Democrat or that expounding on the evil of the filibuster when it was a tool in the other side's hands. But the hypocrisy game can be played both ways: When Bill Clinton was president, Orrin Hatch and Bill Frist weren't exactly jumping up and down about each nominee's right to an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor.

Looks like the kill democracy debate isn't a new one, and it isn't limited to the Republican Party.  Just ask Joe Biden.

While speaking Sunday at a fundraising event in Florida, the vice president denounced the Republicans' use of the filibuster to block key Democratic initiatives in the U.S. Senate. "As long as I have served," Politico quoted Biden as saying, "I've never seen, as my uncle once said, the Constitution stood on its head as they've done. This is the first time every single solitary decision has required 60 senators." Adding, "No democracy has survived needing a supermajority," Biden described the parliamentary tactics of the GOP as putting what the paper said was "a dangerous new roadblock in the way of American government."

What is truly amazing about the vice president's observation, however, is that he apparently made it with a straight face. Biden, who served in the Senate for more than 30 years, was a longtime proponent of the filibuster as a way to block Republican presidential appointments and legislative initiatives. He was also an active opponent, on philosophical grounds, of the so-called nuclear option, a Republican effort to change the rules of the Senate to end the filibuster as a way to block judicial nominations.

Speaking on the Senate floor in May of 2005, Biden said, "At its core, the filibuster is not about stopping a nominee or a bill, it's about compromise and moderation. The nuclear option extinguishes the power of independents and moderates in the Senate. That's it, they're done. Moderates are important if you need to get to 60 votes to satisfy cloture; they are much less so if you only need 50 votes. Let's set the historical record straight. Never has the Senate provided for a certainty that 51 votes could put someone on the bench or pass legislation."

Oh, and here's this gem!

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/d...

Why the Filibuster Is So Important, and What Its Effect Has Been

If the Republicans win, then whenever a judicial nomination is reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, a simple Senate majority vote will result in the confirmation - or failure - of the nomination. That is an extraordinary change in Senate procedure.

Typically, the minority party has used the filibuster threat - in essence, a threat to talk the nomination to death before it can be voted on - in order to ensure that the majority party's nominees have sufficient bipartisan appeal. Only a cloture vote - which requires a 60-vote, three-fifths majority of the Senate - can stop a filibuster.

The result has been either the nomination of moderates or, at least, of judges and justices palatable to the minority party. Given that the judges and justices have life tenure, for the minority party to have this kind of input seems not only reasonable, but necessary. But now the Republicans want the Democrats, currently the minority, to have no input at all.

...

The filibuster could hardly be more important than it is at this particular point in history. Congressional Republicans have become a rubber stamp for anything the Bush White House wants. House Democrats have been effectively neutered by the rules of that body, where the majority controls. As a result, Senate Democrats, with their filibuster, are the only check on Bush's bid to impose hard right wing philosophy on the federal judiciary. And Bush is hell-bent on pushing his nominees through: He has resubmitted twenty judicial nominees turned down by the Congress earlier.

...

Yet ultimately, the issue should not be solely a partisan one. It is an issue of what is in the long-term interest of both parties: Should the minority party (whichever it might be) have a say in federal judicial nominations - including Supreme Court nominations - as it has throughout the history of the Republic? Or should it be utterly shut out?

The issue is also this - and again, it should not be partisan: Should the character of the Senate be changed profoundly and for the sake of a questionable goal.

I boldfaced the relevant arguments.  Sorry about the lengthy quotes, but I thought you might benefit from seeing them as fully here (and in bold type) as possible.  The issue here seems to be that because the Democrats are now in power, they should be free to end democracy because it's convenient to them to get their corporate-favoring bills passed without Republican obstructionism.  But back when the GOP was large and in charge, Democrats were crying foul at the very prospect that the opposing party could so easily force its extremist agenda on the rest of the nation.

Is it too much to ask that all this talk of ending the filibuster be dropped in favor of doing something, you know, reasonable?  Like getting tough on conservative Democrats and making them represent the nation as opposed to corporations, with the threat of replacing them if they don't?

"Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time." -- Harry S. Truman

---

by: Dude Where's My Health Care @ Wed Feb 10, 2010 at 16:44:17 PM UTC

Filibuster = Democracy? (4.00 / 1)

Your analysis is incredibly weak. First, the filibuster isn't part of the Constitution or a law. It has nothing to do with democracy but rather is an impediment to democratic rule. It became a conventional senate procedure about 100 years ago. During President Johnson's administration the number to override the filibuster was changed from 2/3 to 60. When the filibuster was adopted, no one ever imagined that it would be used to filibuster everything as the current Repubs have done. Simply put, the country can not function like this - where one party, acting in lockstep, stops everything from passing, not out of principle but to win the next election.

The filibuster rule is a gift to conservatives & works against liberals. Basically, it stops change from occurring. Pragmatically, it works in Repub's favor in that conservative Democrats from the heartland vote with Repubs on numbers of issues & thus defeat the ability of Democratic senators to filibuster. Furthermore, Repubs are willing to discontinue the filibuster, at the drop of the hat, when it suits them, as witnessed by the nuclear option during the Bush Administration, when Democrats were filibustering Bush court appointees.

---

by: Carter2 @ Wed Feb 10, 2010 at 18:34:28 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Yes, the filibuster is part of democracy. (0.00 / 0)

What part of that is so difficult to understand?  An opposition party is supposed to filibuster legislation and appointees it doesn't like.  That's the whole point of representative democracy, especially in a legislative body designed to give all states equal representation.  The problem isn't that Republicans are doing their jobs by acting as the opposition, but that Democrats refuse to do their jobs by using the majority they have and enforcing party discipline to pass bills that benefit Americans.

And what do you say to the fact that Republicans were able to pass 99% of their sick agenda without a filibuster-proof majority?  Obviously, the problem is not a component of democracy that has worked for 200 years.  It's that the party that's supposed to represent the people against the interests of big business insists on coddling the far right opposition and all too often joins up with it.  That problem isn't going to be solved by killing another bit of our democracy.

"Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time." -- Harry S. Truman

---

by: Dude Where's My Health Care @ Wed Feb 10, 2010 at 22:59:46 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

The existing filibuster has not been a component of (0.00 / 0)

US democracy prior to 1975.  No theory of democracy (there are many) suggests a role for the filibuster.

Slapping the label "democratic" on this does not make it so. Nor does every aspect of the US polity (even the ones that legitimately can claim a pedigree more than a couple of decade) deserve the label democratic. By your logic, expanding the right to vote to 18 year olds was undemocratic, because prior to that time the rule was to exclude them.

Again, no need to pick one thing out and say it's the problem. Certainly that is not what Chris is doing - he's identifying one problem. That doesn't mean there are not other problems.

Politics is the art of the possible, but that means you have to think about changing what is possible, not that you have to accept it in perpetuity.

---

by: David Kaib @ Thu Feb 11, 2010 at 00:52:35 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

But without addressing the other problems, (4.00 / 1)

addressing this one makes no sense. But then again Bowers seems to be wedded to the idea that the only way forward for progressives is through the Democratic Party. I do not have a GOOD alternative but I can recognize a bad idea.

---

by: VLaszlo @ Thu Feb 11, 2010 at 01:23:15 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

But Chris has never advocated ending the filibuster (0.00 / 0)

as a single remedy to our problems.  Forget seems - he has not advocated it.  You can't undermine his actual argument by what you infer that he may also believe. (The whole better Democrats idea has been a part of the conversation here for a long time, for example.)

I do think this conversion should be connected to other issues - like getting better Democrats and forcing better behavior among the Democrats who are already there.  

Here is the thing - it's next to impossible to mobilize people to force Dems to behave better on procedural issues. But we could begin by mobilizing people against this particular brand of Republican obstructionism, with the argument that the filibuster is illegitimate.  Having done that, it is far easier to go after 1) Democrats who join Republican filibusters and 2) Reid for honoring holds (for example.) That is, I see the attack on the filibuster as part of a larger pro-accountability and pro-democracy effort.  

Politics is the art of the possible, but that means you have to think about changing what is possible, not that you have to accept it in perpetuity.

---

by: David Kaib @ Thu Feb 11, 2010 at 04:27:32 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I understand that Bowers thinks other things should be done. (0.00 / 0)

But we are getting whip counts on the filibuster and agitation on THIS issue regularly, not those other things. Absent a determined party aggressive to make serious change (and there is no way in the world you would describe the Democrats as ANXIOUS to do anything that rocks their relations with corporate America) what is the advantage of ending the filibuster? I don't see it. What legislation is it preventing?
OK you say it is an organizing tool. I really think people are done with organizing tools for now. People expect results and if they do not get them, they are walking away, running away, from the Dems quickly. Obama seems slightly more engaged after Mass. (He has to be one of the truly stupidest inhabitants of that office in a long time. This administration hasn't had a clue in a solid year. It has made alienating people it needed it's main focus. Emanuel combines nasty and incompetent to a level that goes beyond normal). It is much too little. I do not think organizing against the filibuster will be successful; it will weaken the Dems in their natural defensive role when the Republicans + blue dogs are in a majority which will likely be soon.  

---

by: VLaszlo @ Thu Feb 11, 2010 at 13:50:47 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

The recent victory in OR, or the UC protests (4.00 / 1)

to name just two, suggest that people are not done with organizing.  Instead, the Dems (and key constituencies like the AFL-CIO) have consistently undervalued organizing.  When it has been taken seriously, it has a better possibility of success.  I don't believe there are any alternatives that will work.

I don't believe that non-Blue Dog Dems will use the filibuster to stop Republican legislation in the future - I'd say history shows this is not the case.  But even if it did, I accept that when Republicans win elections they will get to determine policy.  I don't accept it that when Dems win elections the rules will allow them  to avoid enacting Democratic policies.  YMMV.


Politics is the art of the possible, but that means you have to think about changing what is possible, not that you have to accept it in perpetuity.

---

by: David Kaib @ Thu Feb 11, 2010 at 14:18:07 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Chris is a party hack, that's why he is wedded to the idea. (0.00 / 0)

Progressives have forgotten how to act like a movement, whereas the far right never forgot and has used its movement to take over both major parties.  Historically, when movements have had their agendas frustrated, they went outside the established party system, using "third" parties to push their preferred ones in the desired directions.

"Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time." -- Harry S. Truman

---

by: Dude Where's My Health Care @ Thu Feb 11, 2010 at 12:02:45 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Obama asked for funding of left 527's to cease. (0.00 / 0)

He ousted Dean as his first order of business. He could not have been a more ineffective, incompetent, unwilling agent of change unless he were really a Republican deliberately trying to sabotage the other party. He can never regain trust where he has lost it so abysmally. The question is whether people like Bowers, Lux, Markos, go the same route.  

---

by: VLaszlo @ Thu Feb 11, 2010 at 13:58:14 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

"The question is whether people like Bowers, Lux, Markos, go the same route." (0.00 / 0)

I don't think so, because if it is, then it's already been answered in the affirmative.  I think the question is, where do we go from here?  Around what organization shall progressives organize?  Seems to me that the places we can go for online organizing are getting fewer and farther between.  That being the case, we need to take charge ourselves and do something.  I suggest local level politics and building up from there, probably by going the third party route.  I remember reading somewhere, maybe an affiliate of this site or some blog that links to it, about how the Green and Progressive Parties already have local and state organizations we can get into.

"Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time." -- Harry S. Truman

---

by: Dude Where's My Health Care @ Thu Feb 11, 2010 at 16:56:18 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Oh yes it has been. (0.00 / 0)

Read the Salon link I provided.

The Senate's rules have allowed unlimited debate, or filibusters, since 1806, when senators dropped a rule that allowed a majority of the Senate to put an end to discussion and call for a vote. For the next 111 years, there was no way to stop a filibuster once it had started. But in 1917, when filibusters were blocking Woodrow Wilson's plans for World War I, the Senate adopted Rule XXII, which allowed senators to end a filibuster by a two-thirds vote on a motion to cut off debate -- a procedure called "cloture." In 1975, the Senate amended Rule XXII so that cloture required, in most cases, the vote of not two-thirds but rather three-fifths of the senators. In today's 50-state, 100-member Senate, that means it takes 60 rather than 67 senators to put an end to most filibusters.

1806 to 2010, more than two centuries.  I know, "facts are stupid things," right?

"Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time." -- Harry S. Truman

---

by: Dude Where's My Health Care @ Thu Feb 11, 2010 at 12:00:07 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

The rules change in 1975 (0.00 / 0)

severed the filibuster from debate, thereby taking away its justification.

Nice try though.

Either way, something existing for 200 years (even if you were right about that) does not make it democratic, or a good idea.  

Politics is the art of the possible, but that means you have to think about changing what is possible, not that you have to accept it in perpetuity.

---

by: David Kaib @ Thu Feb 11, 2010 at 14:23:43 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Uh, no. (0.00 / 0)

The filibuster still exists.  And it is democratic, whether you like it or not.  It's part of the system of representative democracy, an integral part of our bicameral legislature.

"Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time." -- Harry S. Truman

---

by: Dude Where's My Health Care @ Thu Feb 11, 2010 at 16:52:46 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I didn't say it didn't exist (0.00 / 0)

I said it no longer has anything to do with debate.  

I can't respond to your 'it's democratic' argument, because it's not an argument. It's a assertion. The only argument you have made (other than the false one that it has anything to do with debate anymore) is that it is long standing, which is evidence of nothing.

The filibuster clearly prevents large majorities from getting what they want, which is the core principle behind representative democracy (not the only principle, but the core one.) If it did so for a reason (like to allow debate) it might be justified. But it has no such reason.

It also makes it easier for our representatives to pretend to support something (by voting for it on the merits) while not actually supporting it (by refusing to vote for cloture.) Democrats and Republicans do this - it is quite common.  This makes it antithetical to representation.  And democracy.

Politics is the art of the possible, but that means you have to think about changing what is possible, not that you have to accept it in perpetuity.

---

by: David Kaib @ Thu Feb 11, 2010 at 18:59:01 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Your words: (0.00 / 0)

The existing filibuster has not been a component of US democracy prior to 1975.  No theory of democracy (there are many) suggests a role for the filibuster.

When I showed how it has been a component of U.S. democracy prior to 1975 (with the accompanying role in democracy), you then switched to arguing something else.

The rules change in 1975 severed the filibuster from debate, thereby taking away its justification.

Actually, no, the filibuster is pretty much extending debate on a bill as long as it takes to prevent its passage.  Same thing for nominees.  It's all about debate, whether you like it or not.  You don't get to pick and choose what parts of representative democracy fit the definition of democracy without a constitutional amendment.  That's how the founders set the system up.  If you don't like it, take it up with them.

Try making an honest argument in favor of killing democracy, instead of making stuff up to justify an unjustifiable position.  Oh, wait, you can't do it.  Sucks to be you, then.

"Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time." -- Harry S. Truman

---

by: Dude Where's My Health Care @ Thu Feb 11, 2010 at 23:26:45 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

This is hilarious nt (0.00 / 0)

Politics is the art of the possible, but that means you have to think about changing what is possible, not that you have to accept it in perpetuity.

---

by: David Kaib @ Thu Feb 11, 2010 at 23:41:55 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Yes, it is. (0.00 / 0)

You've wasted how many comments fudging the facts trying to make a bogus case now?  And now you've reduced yourself to simply laughing at thin air because you can't refute my argument and because you've been caught fibbing.  Nice try, but no cigar.

"Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time." -- Harry S. Truman

---

by: Dude Where's My Health Care @ Fri Feb 12, 2010 at 14:44:43 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

well, how is killing the filibuster anti-democracy? (4.00 / 1)

how is the 50%+1 concept anti-democratic?

---

by: The Big Hurt @ Fri Feb 12, 2010 at 18:40:04 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I just explained it to you. (0.00 / 0)

Obviously you didn't bother reading any of what I have written previously, so here it is AGAIN.  Democracy is not a slim, 51% majority getting its way with the other 49% always getting the shaft.  That's what you would have us go to by getting rid of the filibuster.  Democracy is everyone getting a say in government -- EVERYONE, whether you like it or not.  You don't get to support it when your party is in the minority and oppose it when it's in the technical majority.  Democracy is not set up for the convenience of people in power; it's set up so everyone gets a voice.  Yes, sometimes -- in fact, very often -- some of those voices carry messages that are repugnant, depraved, downright evil.  But because this is a democracy designed so everyone would have that voice, they get to use theirs.  It's not my fault that you don't like that, but you and the others who support this madness want to make it everyone else's problem.

"Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time." -- Harry S. Truman

---

by: Dude Where's My Health Care @ Mon Feb 15, 2010 at 14:45:29 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I don't suppose.... (0.00 / 0)

they will undo it just before the mid-term elections.  And then, if the Repubs retake Congress, they will walk all over the Dems.  La de da.

Or under an opposite scenario, if they don't undo the fillibuster, and the Repubs retake Congress, do you suppose the Dems will ever use it like the Repubs did (this time shutting down all the bad bills)?  I doubt it.  La de da.

Better alternative:
I just wish the prog Dems would get some backbone.  Be bold and give the people what we want so we won't lose Congress in the first place.

---

by: SeanAriel @ Wed Feb 10, 2010 at 17:01:48 PM UTC

Senate Forecast (0.00 / 0)

The basic error here is in thinking Democrats will be progressive.  A more accurate, realistic view would consider Corporatists (Democrats and Republicans) vs. Populists.  If the 53 Democrats left after the Nov. 2010 elections include 40 Corporatists (for argument's sake), it won't matter whether the filibuster exists, or even whether Democrats have a slight majority.  Until we start to see these Corporate Tools clearly, regardless of party affiliation, we are deluding ourselves.  And, until we can somehow clean out most of the Corporatists and replace them with true Populist-Progressives, which will include ending "corporate personhood" and "money equals speech"; instituting mandatory public funding of all campaigns; paper ballots which can be hand-counted; limited campaigns (six months: two months for primaries and four months for general elections); and free airtime on all media for qualifying candidates, we will never have a true democracy representative of people (not corporations and banks) here.

---

by: EDTHEREDPILL @ Wed Feb 10, 2010 at 17:49:41 PM UTC