Mario Cuomo Warns Against Filibuster Changes

In the Democrat’s weekly radio address today former New York Governor Mario Cuomo warns:

Senate Republicans “are threatening to claim ownership of the Supreme Court and other federal courts, hoping to achieve political results on subjects like abortion, stem cells, the environment and civil rights that they cannot get from the proper political bodies.”

“How will they do this? By destroying the so-called filibuster, a vital part of the 200-year-old system of checks and balances in the Senate,” Cuomo said.

“The Republicans say it would assure dominance by the majority in the Senate,” he said. “That sounds democratic until you remember that the Bill of Rights was adopted, as James Madison pointed out, to protect all of Americans from what he called the `tyranny of the majority.'”

“It sounds nearly absurd when you learn that the minority Democrats in the Senate actually represent more Americans than the majority Republicans do,” Cuomo said.

Someone should remind the good Governor that there is no Constitutional “right” to filibuster and that each house of the Congress has the right to set their own rules (by majority vote). Article 1 of the Constitution gives each house of Congress the power to determine its own rules. Senate Rule XXII establishes the necessity of 60 votes to close off debate.

William Kristol in the May 9 Weekly Standard has a good piece explaining the historical and consitutional precedences and distinctions.

Flaps’ take: Up or Down Vote Please!