Democracy Denied
On Tuesday, our nation’s Senators cast historic votes to continue denying voting representation for residents of the District of Columbia. Don’t be deceived though, the Senate didn’t even vote against the actual bill that would have granted DC a full voting member in the House of Representatives. Instead, the Senate flat out refused to debate the constitutional merits of such a bill due to the threat of a filibuster.
As Senator Orrin Hatch stated in a floor speech yesterday preceding the vote, "When has the U.S. Senate been afraid to debate a constitutional issue as important as this one?" In my frustration and disappointment with the failed cloture vote, I can only second the Senator’s question: Have American politicians become so removed from the democratic process that they no longer welcome struggling with and debating constitutionality?
As Jews, we are taught to struggle with the meaning of the Torah like the great sages of our past and to value debate with G-d as did Abraham when he bargained to save the residents of Sodom (Genesis 18:22-33). Taking these Jewish traditions to heart, what is personally most disheartening about Tuesday’s vote to maintain the status quo of disenfranchisement is the fact that the Senators simply voted to avoid the issue. Perhaps the DC voting rights bill was unconstitutional, perhaps it wasn’t; maybe the filibuster was warranted in order to discuss constitutionality, and maybe it was an overly aggressive approach. But one thing is certain, the bill (and our Constitution) deserved a full debate. Forty three Senators were unwilling to discuss the merits of the DC House Voting Rights Act of 2007, but I send a sincere thank you to those Senators who still remember what American democracy is all about.