President Barack Obama gave this statement on the Senate passing the nuclear option on filibusters:
Like all but a handfull of partisan on each side, Obama’s position on ending the filibuster has flipped.
Writing this sentence means 1)the political false equivilency police will come after me 2) many will point out how the GOP has abused filibuster use, which is easily documented. Fair enough. But the fact is politicians in both sides have indeed changed their positions on this — apart from any circumstances. Each side will try to avoid that fact. The variable is what has happened to use of the filibuster under Republicans were Democrats finally had enough and — realizing the consquences if they are in the minority — decided to pull the trigger.
The underlying issue: has the resulting governance shaped by the Republicans’ heavy use of the filibuster in the past few years in keeping with the kind of government the founding fathers sought to create? Or had it almost changed our political system?
And this change will likely change it even more in ways some foresee and perhaps in ways still unforeseen.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.