Ezra Klein had a good piece on the filibuster today, and I think I have changed my mind. I don't think it is unconstitutional, as his piece suggests (instead, I am convinced by this piece at the Monkey Cage). What convinced me to change my mind is the point that the founders considered and dismissed the idea that legislation should require a super-majority.
In the past, I have felt that the filibuster helped prevent very Republican policies from being implemented. I have a good memory of the Bush years when Democrats needed and used the filibuster. I think it moderated, to a degree, Bush policies - and potentially moderated judicial appointments. Roberts and Alito are not moderates, but they are - or at least Roberts is - less conservative than people that could have and would have been appointed without the threat of a veto.
But I do think requiring a super-majority for legislation favors conservative causes generally - not because Republicans are bad people and use filibusters more frequently (the graph at Wonkbook doesn't show an obvious pattern - I would need to crunch the numbers to come to a real conclusion). Instead, I think it helps conservative causes because it prevents government action.
Conservatives more often want to prevent government from getting involved. In Robert Heinlein's science fiction book The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, one of the protagonists, a libertarian, makes a speech calling for the new lunar government to have high standards - super-majorities - for any law and low standards for erasing a law. I think that illustrates conservative views pretty well. Conservatives would be happy when in power to pass fewer laws and more importantly, when not in power to prevent laws from being passed.
So it is that I change my mind on filibusters. But I must say, there will be times, possibly as early as 2012 with a Republican president and Republican Congress and an abolished filibuster, that we will wish we had the ability to filibuster crazy conservative legislation.
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