When Did the Senate Hit Peak Dysfunctionalality?
Kevin Drum argues that the Senate currently could not get any more dysfunctional, so unprecedented changes in the cloture rules by simply majority vote were justified.
But to my mind the peak of recent Senate dysfunctionality was when it passed the PPACA. It passed a rushed piece of legislation 2000 pages long full of holes and errors that no one had even read. When bribes (e.g. in Louisiana, Nebraska) were openly being offered to holdout Democratic Senators to gain their vote.
To this day, even Democratic supporters are expressing surprise at what they voted for. Most of its key provisions (employer mandates, restrictions on individual policies) have turned out to be unenforceable. While the Obama Administration has done plenty to screw up the exchanges, the problems began in the legislation itself that did not actually fund or specify a home for the web site development. And because of implementation delays, we have not even gotten to the point where we can see the real problems with the law that many of us expected.
The Dems said that the filibuster made the Senate dysfunctional. If the PPACA is what results from a "functional" Senate, I will take dysfunctional.
