I, like many here and around the world, have been mesmerized by the Winter Olympics. Although I am no athlete of any kind, I do appreciate the training, determination, and—yes—fearlessness that it takes to reach the levels of excellence that these men and women have achieved. Apolo Ono’s skill on the ice and grace off the ice are admirable. Shun White can do things on the halfpipe that defy gravity and every other law of physics. Some of our skiers make death-defying maneuvers that make me wonder, “Whatever made someone think to do that in the first place?” But what have we learned from the essence of the Olympics? That thing called the Olympic spirit?
The athletes themselves do have that spirit, and they have taken the Olympic oath to uphold its ideals: “We swear that we will take part in these Olympic Games in the true spirit of sportsmanship, and that we will respect and abide by the rules that govern them, for the glory of the sport and the honor of our country.”1 This oath was first sworn in 1920, after World War I, to begin the 7th Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium. Even though the war kicked off with the Kaiser’s armies invading Belgium, the Olympic host country promoted an ideal that asked athletes to compete with respect, adhere to the rules, and to behave in ways that would honor their countries. That oath continues to be taken at the beginning of each Olympics, in spite of wars too numerous to count having taken place since that war that was to end all wars.
As we watch athletes from countries across the globe, we are reminded of that ideal. Watching the opening ceremony with the athletes of nations marching by, holding their countries’ flags erect, we saw a demonstration of countries working together but competing apart. It was a very moving event, but there was something that occurred near the end of the opening ceremony of the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, that struck me personally and profoundly, one about which I have heard very little mention. A slam (or spoken-word) poet, Shane Koyczan, recited his exaltation of Canada, his beloved homeland. He referred to Canada as “an experiment going right for a change” and noted, “We believe in generations beyond our own.” Both of these concepts are idealistic, and I know full well that Canada, too, has its problems. However, I wondered if we in the U. S. haven’t sometimes forgotten that we have always believed that of ourselves, or at least we used to. Has our fear of terrorism after 9/11 led us away from the experiment of creating a nation of laws, that City on the Hill? Have we lost ideals in favor of security at any cost? Ben Franklin warned us of this: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”2
America’s respect for the competitive spirit, our love for academic excellence, of team work and the game itself are an integral part of who we are. And yet, off the court or the field, competition may sometimes become competition for its own sake. Excellence and team work may be lost in playing the game. That is certainly true of Congress lately. Too many of our senators—yes, Democrats as well as Republicans—have forgotten that the game they are playing is not a game to those they represent. Members of Congress, like Olympic athletes, take an oath. Congress people take an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States. They are supposedly in Congress to represent all the people, not just the lobbyists who have purchased their loyalty. They are elected by their constituents to represent their constituents, not just the noisy ones—all of them. They won their seats to represent their state and the people who live in those states, not a political party only. And don’t these senators and representatives have an obligation to the country as a whole and to generations beyond their own? Perhaps they have been in office for so long that they have forgotten why they are there. Although one may run for the House of Representatives at age 25 and for the Senate at 30, we have a Congress that grows older and older because they work to keep the job they have rather than to make laws that benefit we, the people. The average age for a Senator today is 61.7 years of age and for Representatives, 56—both averages over twice the requisite age for getting the job. With age comes wisdom, supposedly. With the abuse of Senate Rules lately, I have to wonder if the minority party isn’t acting more childish than wise.
The GOP threatened the “nuclear option” when the Democrats were in the minority and held up a few appointments of some of Bush’s judicial nominees. Republicans were appalled at the abuse of the filibuster rule. They were outraged and indignant that the minority party could hold up the people’s business. Oh, but that was then. This is now.
Ezra Kline, of The Washington Post, interviewed Barbara Sinclair, a political scientist at UCLA and a student of Congress. Her most recent study about the use and abuse of the filibuster is most enlightening. “About 8% of major bills in the 1960s faced filibusters or filibuster threats, and 70% of bills in the current decade did the same.” She went on to explain that this escalation in the threat of filibuster, making every bill require a super-majority of 60 votes is part of the polarization evident since the Clinton years. But the most sinister reason she gave puts some of the onus on us, the voter. She saw this increase in the abuse of Senate Rule 22, which lays the ground rules for the filibuster, as “a strategic realization that the American people do not reward the majority if it fails to deliver on its promises, and the minority recognized it had the power to keep the majority from delivering on its promises.”3 If the minority party stops every bill dead in its tracks so that there can be no legislation passed, their hope is that we will not notice who’s at fault when nothing occurs. It is up to us to pay more attention, to read things for ourselves, to become a fully informed citizen. Sinclair went on to say: “When the Republicans were the Senate minority in 1991-1992, there were 59 cloture filings. However, when President Clinton took office, with Republicans remaining in the minority in the Senate, that number shot up to 80 in 1993-1994…. When Democrats reclaimed the Senate majority in the 2006 elections, cloture filings shot up from 68 in 2005-2006 to a record 139 in 2007-2008”4 What are we to make of this sudden need to filibuster everything? Can a minority party be satisfied with just saying, “No!” to everything?
And saying no has become even more childish and contrarian. When John Kerry ran for president, he was accused of being a flip-flopper because he had been for a proposal until he decided he wasn’t. The Republican attack ads made hay of that. What then are we to make GOP Senators who once proposed cap and trade but are now against it because Obama is for it? Is this not a flip-flop? When some Republican senators proposed a bi-partisan committee to study ways to cut the deficit, Obama agreed to support it. Now it is a bad idea because Obama agrees with them? It reminds me of the stubborn child who disagrees just to disagree. Our Senators’ average age is over sixty-plus, but they are behaving more like six-year-olds.
The Senate was not designed to move as quickly as the House of Representatives. George Washington is reported to have said that he saw the Senate as a cooling saucer for proposed legislation. Nevertheless, I am certain that he and the Founding Fathers cannot have seen the Senate as a body ruled by only the minority. Had they wanted all legislation in the Senate to have required the approval of a super majority for every law’s passage, they would have said so. They did note specific times when more than a simple majority is required. It should then be assumed that they meant a simple majority is sufficient for all other instances. In its fledgling days, our leaders created the Articles of Confederation and thought that those laws would be a suitable framework for the new nation. That attempt failed. When the founders started anew, they were very careful when establishing the rules for law making. They had learned from experience that no country can govern if a super majority is required before any action can occur.
While the filibuster is never mentioned in Article I that sets up the powers of Congress, it is not un-Constitutional. The Senate does have a Constitutional right to make its own rules, a right clearly stated in Article I, Section 5: “Each House may determine the Rules for its proceedings….” However, should the rules they create make legislation impossible? Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Krugman, in a New York Times column, noted research which puts the current Senate paralysis resultant from the continual threat of filibuster in these terms: “In the ‘60’s, only about 8 percent of major legislation was affected by the filibuster or the threat to filibuster. By the 1980’s, it was 27 percent. By 2007, 70 percent of all major legislation faced a major filibuster threat. That’s a quantitative change so big it’s a qualitative change.”
And so, I would ask our legislators to consider some of Shane Koyczan’s words as well as the words of the Olympic Oath. Please legislate for the “generations beyond our own,” not only for yourselves and your own political party. Make America, once again, “an experiment going right for a change.” Work with a spirit of fair play, guard against an abuse of the rules, and work for the glory and honor for this country. We are a great and powerful country, but this does not mean that we retain this status without the work and dedication it took to bring us to this level in the first place. Other nations are watching us now and making their own moves to harness clean energy, to provide health care, and to out produce us. If we have a legislative body content to win big politically by being and thinking small and only planning for the win of the moment, we will be out paced. Remember, there were other great powers in the history of the world: the Netherlands once ruled the seas; the sun once never set on the British Empire; the Romans ruled the known-world. Pride and complacency will be cold comfort for us if we do not prepare for the way the world and other nations change while we are squabbling and standing still. A good Olympic example would be to remember that the Soviet Union always won the gold in hockey, until it didn’t. In 1980, the U. S. beat them 4-3. It was called “The Miracle on Ice.” Bet no one, especially the Soviets, saw that one coming. Is that a lesson for all of us?
1. www.mapsofworld.com/olympictrivia/olympic-athletes-oath.htm
2. http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/1381.html
3. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-lein/.html; December 26, 2009; 11:00 AM ET
4. http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/the-rise-of-cloture
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