The Cure for DeMintia

For decades the pinnacle of Republican intellectualism was the art of coming up with a word or phrase that served as a codeword to their followers and cynically trivialized an issue. Sometimes these were passingly clever, like "Obamanation," but mostly they were phrases like "states rights," "trickle-down economics,""welfare queens," and "death panels."

An entire industry of conservative think tanks sprang up to spend millions of dollars slapping fresh coats of paint on tired Republican tropes to deceive voters into thinking Republicans had new ideas.

Therefore, in honor of the upcoming departure of Tea Party favorite Jim DeMint from the Senate, I am following in the Grand Old Tradition of the Grand Old Party. I'm coining the term "DeMintia."

DeMintia is the political atherosclerosis that prevents passage of legislation necessary to the health of the nation for narrow partisan gain. DeMintia has afflicted the United States Senate for years, but has become especially acute since 2010.

Years ago, most legislation in the Senate was enacted by simple majority vote. It was still possible for a single man to stop something egregious from passing, but it required a herculean effort. In the days of Jimmy Stewart's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington a senator wishing to do so had to filibuster -- hold the floor in debate. He could do so as long as he had the stamina. To stop the filibuster a two-thirds cloture vote was required.

Over the years the filibuster has become more and more common -- though no one ever actually has to debate. Today a single senator can stop any action on the Senate floor simply by threatening to filibuster. The effect is that no legislation can pass unless it has 60 votes. Since there are 45 Republican senators and they nearly always vote in a bloc, any one man can completely gum up the works.

Thus, the Senate, which was constituted to prevent the tyranny of the majority, has descended into the tyranny of the minority -- a minority as small as one. This narrowing of the legislative arteries is what has lead us to the budget impasse we're at today.

Gladly, there is a cure for DeMintia: filibuster reform. The Constitution says nothing about the filibuster; it's only Senate rules that make it so. Senate majority leader Harry Reid has finally grown a spine and says he will enact filibuster reform. Instead of just whining Republicans should accept this and engage the Democrats in a spirit of compromise to reform other Senate rules that make it difficult for the minority to offer amendments ("filling the tree").

Republicans are complaining that this is the end of Democracy as we know it. The fact is, the minority is still quite powerful. Even with a simple majority vote, the very structure of the Senate allows a small minority of the population to completely stymie the legislative process: the 51 senators representing the smallest 26 states, which contain only 55 million people, constitute only 18% of the population. With the existing filibuster rule, the 41 senators required to keep a filibuster going could represent as few as 35 million citizens, or just 11% percent of the nation.

There's nothing sacred about a tiny percentage of the population being able to blackmail the rest of the country every time they don't get their way.

Though it was Mitch McConnell who in 2010 said, "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president," no Republican tried more fervently than Jim DeMint to thwart the president's every initiative in the Senate. He tried but failed to pack the Senate with Tea Party louts like Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, who were even more thuggish than himself.

With filibuster reform DeMint was doomed to become just another useless yammering Republican in the Senate. So, like Sarah Palin, he's quitting in mid-term to cash out. But instead of working for Fox News, he's going to work for one of those Republican "think" tanks, the Heritage Foundation.

I'm betting his first pitch to wealthy donors will go something like this: "The single most important thing we can achieve is to prevent President Obama from becoming a three-term president. That's why you need to donate one million dollars to our 2016 Future Freedom Fund to prevent Obama from repealing the twenty-second amendment."

Judging by how many millionaires suffered from DeMintia in the last election, I'm sure he'll get quite a haul. Those crazy old rich coots will believe anything.