School teacher gives big shot government professor a lesson in the nature of the American regime
My sister-in-law, Tami Huggins, a school teacher in Las Vegas, Nevada, has a letter coming out in the Las Vegas Sun in which she provides to Washington Post columnist, E. J. Dionne, a lesson on the purpose of the U. S. Senate. Several days ago, Dionne, who is also a professor of government at Georgetown University, published an op-ed piece in which he writes, among other things, the following:
Of course what has happened on the health care bill is enraging. It’s quite clear that substantial majorities in both houses of Congress favored either a public option or a Medicare buy-in.
In a normal democracy, such majorities would work their will, a law would pass, and champagne corks would pop. But everyone must get it through their heads that thanks to the now bizarre habits of the Senate, we are no longer a normal democracy.
Here is Tami’s response to Professor Dionne’s op-ed piece:
Dear Editor,
On Monday, Dec. 21, 2009, the Las Vegas Sun ran an editorial by E. J. Dionne from the Washington Post entitled “Democrats’ outrage understandable, but not helpful.” I noticed several holes in the author’s knowledge of the facts. First was his statement, “The whole system is biased to the right because the Senate itself – a body in which Wyoming and Utah have as much representation as New York and California – is tilted in a conservative direction.” This statement comes from a man who “received the American Political Science Association’s annual Carey McWilliams Award in 1996 for a major journalistic contribution to the understanding of politics” (statement found on his biography page under www.washingtonpost.com). Does the author not know about the balance of power in the Legislative Branch of our government laid down by the U.S. Constitution? The House of Representatives has representation based on population of each state, so in that House of Congress California does have more votes than Utah. The Senate has representation based on the equality of the states. The author has revealed a lack of knowledge about the history of the writing of our Constitution and the great pains our founding fathers took to protect the rights of the minority as well as the rights of the individual states. Further, if the author does not know how a bill is actually signed into law, he needs to read the Constitution. For a bill to go to the President to be signed into law, the bill has to pass both Houses of Congress in the same form. There cannot be two different bills on the same issue. If the Senate passes a bill that is different from what the House passes, the job is far from done. Then the author complained about the necessity of a “super majority” of 60 votes, which is 3/5 of the Senate’s available votes. I found out the importance of that number when I googled “stopping a filibuster.” But I think the author should be responsible to find out some of the facts on his own. Lastly is the author’s complaint that a minority can stop legislation. Is this author not aware that the Democrats in a former Republican majority Senate used the same tactics to prevent Republican legislation from passing and that the then minority senate leader, Harry Reid (D-NV), lead the way? Did the author complain then that the equal voting by the states “titled the whole system” in a liberal direction?
Sorry, I’m not impressed…there is nothing inconsistent between Dionne’s statement that “[t]he whole system is biased to the right because the Senate itself – a body in which Wyoming and Utah have as much representation as New York and California – is tilted in a conservative direction” and the notion that the founding fathers established two houses of congress with different structures to protect the rights of minorities.
Because the founding fathers designed the senate to protect less populous states, it’s almost unavoidable that senate votes would not reflect the will of the overall people (unlike Dionne and like you, your sister-in-law and lots of others, I too think this is a good thing).
Biased to the right because of the Senate? With 60 Democrats and 8-10 RINOs?
I guess if he means “to the right of Lenin…”
Yeah, no offense to your sister-in-law, but she seems not to grasp that Dionne is disagreeing with the balance of powers the Constitution laid out by giving the states’ equal representation in the Senate. That’s not the same as being “ignorant” of it. He was writing a op-ed column, not a government textbook.
Also, in defense of my alma mater, I don’t think Dionne is an actual tenure-track professor; he’s a visiting professor who teaches like one seminar a semester.
“In a normal democracy…”
We are aware that we’re a Republic, yes? Anyone?
Dionne is listed under the “core faculty” of the Georgetown Public Policy Institute and he has the title of “Professor” (as opposed to “associate professor, etc., ) which I think makes he (likely) tenured (or more/less immovable)
http://gppi.georgetown.edu/faculty/
Thank you Tami. You should run for Harry Reid’s seat.
“Yeah, no offense to your sister-in-law, but she seems not to grasp that Dionne is disagreeing with the balance of powers the Constitution laid out by giving the states’ equal representation in the Senate. That’s not the same as being `ignorant’ of it. He was writing a op-ed column, not a government textbook.”
Essentially, then, Dionne provides a brief against Federalism by claiming it is inconsistent with “democracy.” But the purpose of the government is to provide a means by which the governed are treated justly and the common good is advanced. Why is Dionne so sure that “democracy as crude egalitarian representation” will achieve these results? He just assumes that it is true.
Thus, his op-ed is just an exercise in emotive question-begging rather than serious analysis. What he says amounts to: the Senate is undemocratic because it’s not like the House. But that is precisely what he needs to prove, unless he is confident that his readers are ignorant of the roots of our regime and the reasons why its Founders thought this system is the best means by which to protect that essence of democracy: equality before the law.
Rex;
“We are aware that we’re a Republic, yes? Anyone?”
Precisely. A constitutional republic to be exact. The system worked, at least to some degree, like it should – if only the Dems had “represented” the voters, then they’d killed the bill. We get our say in November.
The Professor is constitutionally illiterate and made a complete ass of himself. He’s little more than a leftist hack.