Bunning and the tyranny of the petty

Republican Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky taught Washington an important lesson when he single-handedly blocked his colleagues from considering a temporary extension of federal unemployment benefits, highway projects and other expiring programs. Bunning argued that the $10 billion in new spending should be offset by cuts in other programs. But rather than prompting a debate over whether deficit spending is the best way to stimulate the economy, he inadvertently made a persuasive case that Senate rules no longer work in today’s hyper-political environment. Far from preventing the “tyranny of the majority” that Alexis de Tocqueville decried, the rules are giving rise to petty tyrants.

It’s bad enough that the Senate enables a mere 41 senators to thwart the will of the majority through filibusters, which we’ve criticized numerous times, regardless of which party was in control. That rule allows a minority to block not just a vote on a bill but even the process of debating and amending it. What’s worse is that the Senate often allows individual senators to block consideration of bills that leaders of both parties have agreed to debate. That’s what happened on HR 4691.

The measure would extend an assortment of federal spending programs for 30 days as well as delay a deep cut in reimbursement rates for doctors treating Medicare patients. It isn’t controversial; the only real dispute is whether to offset the $10 billion in spending or simply borrow the money. Yet even on that question, most senators were willing to push the budget more deeply into the red to extend the programs.

Bunning admitted last week he didn’t have the votes to require that the $10 billion be taken out of last year’s $787-billion stimulus package. What he did have was the power to delay passage of the bill until the programs expired, creating needless expensive, administrative hassles and hardship for their beneficiaries. That’s because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) sought to bring up the bill by “unanimous consent,” a common technique used to avoid filibusters on bills with broad support.

We welcome efforts to trim the deficit, which is a legitimate concern. But senators also should be willing to debate their ideas and accept the consequences when they don’t have the votes to prevail, especially when they don’t have enough even to sustain a filibuster. Anything else is just obstructionism. The Senate has witnessed too many episodes in recent years of individual members abusing the leverage provided by the body’s arcane procedural rules. Those rules, which assume a degree of comity and cooperation that no longer exists in Washington, have to change. We don’t need lawmakers to work hastily, but we do need the system to function rationally.