The usually unflappable President Obama was pissed off today, after the United States Senate failed to pass any legislation reforming American gun laws despite overwhelming public support for such legislation (the video is at the link, and is well worth watching). Three separate measures failed, one of them – the bipartisan attempt to expand background checks – doing so despite a majority of votes in its favor.
“I’m going to speak plainly and honestly about what happened here,” Obama said, “because the American people are trying to figure out: How can something have 90% support and yet not happen.”
Good question. The president offered some explanations, some of them mildly refreshing in their plain-spoken honesty. “The gun lobby and their allies willfully lied about this bill,” he said. And senators were “intimidated” by that lobby, worrying that it would “come after them” in their next elections. That, of course, is true and is the primary reason that this legislation failed: lobbyists own Washington, D.C. and their dollars swing elections. What was notable about this press conference was Obama’s willingness to admit that basic fact. Describing how some senators have called this vote a “victory,” he asked, “Victory for not doing something that 90% of Americans, 80% of Republicans, the vast majority of your constituents wanted to get done? It begs the question: Who are we here to represent?”
The answer is “whoever can get us reelected,” and that usually comes down to who has the most money. But money buys votes, so voters still factor into this equation. How is it that the Senate – even one flush with cash – can ignore the opinions of a vast majority of voters? Why does the system seem to reward anti-democratic acts? Here’s why:
“What is certain is that the power of the smaller states is large and growing. Political scientists call it a striking exception to the democratic principle of ‘one person, one vote.’ Indeed, they say, the Senate may be the least democratic legislative chamber in any developed nation….
“Behind the growth of the advantage is an increase in population gap between large and small states, with large states adding many more people than small ones in the last half-century. There is a widening demographic split, too, with the larger states becoming more urban and liberal, and the smaller ones remaining rural and conservative, which lends a new significance to the disparity in their political power.”
Regularly, bills supported by senators representing a majority of Americans do not pass. Sometimes, bills supported by senators representing a majority of Americans and a majority of the Senate do not pass. That, of course, is because of the filibuster.
“Research by two political scientists, Lauren C. Bell and L. Martin Overby, has found that small-state senators, often in leadership positions, have amplified their power by using the filibuster more often than their large-state counterparts.”
That was the case today with the attempt at an expansion of background checks, which received 55 votes in favor and 45 votes against and lost.
Just to give you a sense of where the National Rifle Association’s political support lies, here’s a map of its rating of senators, state-by-state, with the dark green indicating an “A” and the orange indicating an “F.” (The interactive version is here).
Note the correlation – with the always important exception of Texas – of “F” grades and highly populous states and “A” grades and not-so-highly populous states.
There are many, many problems with the Senate, but the most basic is that it is a profoundly anti-democratic institution. And that’s not just a matter of structure, although it certainly is that. It is also built into the behavior of individual senators themselves, who care more about their reelection campaigns than they do about reflecting the views of American voters. At one point during his press conference, Obama said, “And I talked to several of these senators over the past few weeks. And they’re all good people.” That’s not true. They’re all bad people. If they were good people, they would have put the safety of American citizens – even a marginal gain in the safety of American citizens – ahead of their own careers. They did the opposite. At last check, the approval rating of Congress was just below 15%. Who are these people, and what exactly are they approving?
