Why Arlen Specter matters

Stephen Gordon did a wonderful job of summing up the reactions to Arlen Specter's defection to the Democratic Party this week. There's been a lot of talk about the Pennsylvanian Senator's change of heart, and rightfully so. He was a Republican for 43 years until April 28, when he declared that he would become a Democrat.

With most of the politicos and bloggers saying, "good riddance," one might wonder, "what's the big deal? So some old coot in Pennsylvania is switching teams- what difference does it make?"

Well, my friends, it makes a difference. It all has to do with cloture. And filibustering. And possibly other silly-sounding, but official words.

Since the average American doesn't understand much about his government, a brief explanation of Senate rules:

Occasionally, when a bill makes it onto the floor, and through committee, the Senate will vote on it. (See below.)




If a bill is particularly contentious, a Senator or group of Senators may feel the desire to stop its progress. The Constitution doesn't limit the Senate (or the House) to a specific amount of time when debating whether or not a bill should become law. (I think the idea was that the Senators and Congressmen would take their job seriously and not rush into passing laws that should never have been passed. Good idea.) Unfortunately, this means that to keep a bill from being passed, any Senator can filibuster. Filibustering is talking, sometimes about nothing, to prevent the group from voting on the prospective bill. In an effort to stop a certain piece of legislation from going through, a Senator can effectively talk about anything- what he ate that morning, the entire plotline of Lost, etc. That's good news for him, but bad news for everyone else, particularly those who are trying to pass the bill.

And then Senate Rule 22 was born: cloture. President Wilson thought it would be a good idea for there to be some limits on how long Senators could filibuster. With Rule 22 in place, a filibuster can be overruled by a supermajority of Senators. In a full chamber, that means 60.

And here we come to the crux of Specter's importance. There are currently 40 Republican Senators, and now, with Specter's defection, 59 Senators who vote Democrat. There is one contested seat in Minnesota. If Al Franken wins the seat against Norm Coleman, and it's looking as though things may go that way, then the Democrats will hold 60 seats, and maintain a supermajority over the Republicans.

What that means is that virtually any measures proposed by the Dems will go through, and the GOP will have no chance of stopping them. Ordinarily this would not be such a big problem, but with socialist measures such as the stimulus package getting passed, and Obama signing them all into law, things are looking bleaker and bleaker.