In light of Georgia Senator Ralph Warnock giving Democrats a 51 seat majority, I want to talk about why these slim majorities are so important. Because the truth is, they shouldn’t be.
Now I’m a Democrat, but simply for the purpose of getting like minded people elected. But it’s the power of these political parties that makes these majorities so important, and in my view it borders on a constitutional crisis.
As you know, nothing in the constitution gives political parties any power. In fact, our founders were extremely fearful of this potential political power.
But within Congress, the House and Senate have written there own procedural rules and these rules are largely responsible for party gridlock. The Speaker of the House, for instance, is supposed to be an impartial procedural authority. But this impartiality is now gone completely. Most significantly, the speaker controls who chairs committees and what bills get to the floor for a vote. This means that if your representative is in the minority party, they are basically there to make suggestions to the majority.
This power is so immense, in my view, that it functions as a fourth branch of government. In the where a single party controls both houses, its a branch more powerful then the legislative branch as a whole.
Right now this is a hard thing to combat because we are dealing with a Republican Party that is so extreme that we are desperate for a Democrat majority. But it’s this problem that makes Republicans so dangerous.
Any member should be able to get a bill passed through committee and brought to the floor. If we don’t start to minimize the power of political parties, this democratic experiment won’t last.
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