We Speak For Earth

The White House announced that it will now require 100,000 signatures on petitions posted on its “We The People” website, instead of 25,000, in order for it to respond.

From the White House blog:

When we first raised the threshold — from 5,000 to 25,000 — we called it “a good problem to have.” Turns out that “good problem” is only getting better, so we’re making another adjustment to ensure we’re able to continue to give the most popular ideas the time they deserve.

Starting today, as we move into a second term, petitions must receive 100,000 signatures in 30 days in order to receive an official response from the Obama Administration. This new threshold applies only to petitions created from this point forward and is not retroactively applied to ones that already exist.

The petition website has become popular for posting proposals that range from the ridiculous – like one for the government to build a Death Star, which the White House responded to with a nerdy breakdown of why it’s not feasible – to the right-wing – like the influx of secessionist petitions from states like Texas, which the White House rejected this week.

Are you sick of reading news about how there’s no news on the fiscal cliff?  Has the word gridlock taken on a far more sinister meaning than it ever did when applied to traffic?  Do you rue the day some asshole thought it was a good idea to give filibuster rights to our esteemed Houses?

I am, it has, and I do.  But hearing from the Atlantic that the courts have struck down legislation curbing filibustering has actually rather brightened my day, and I will tell you why.

As The Atlantic points out, the courts have no business telling the Houses how to make or reform procedure, and this includes the procedure of filibustering.  Has it been unimaginably abused?  Yes.  Does the court have the right to do something about it?  Hell no.

“…courts aren’t suited to resolve every political problem. This question in particular is entrusted to the Senate itself by Article I, § 5, cl. 2 of the Constitution, which provides that “[e]ach House [of Congress] may determine the rules of its proceedings.” 

Nothing elsewhere in the text suggests that the courts should ride herd on those rules; and if federal judges begin disciplining Congress in this case, where would they stop? The Senate is, after all, the branch of Congress in which the Democrats hold a majority. Given the conservative dominance of the federal courts, I would think progressives would be hesitant about inviting Sam Alito and Nino Scalia to decide how the body shall operate.”

The article closes by chastising House Democrats for not taking a stronger leadership role and allowing themselves to be cowed by Republican filibusters:

“The best answer is: to hell with that. Political leaders should not refuse to govern today because they are planning for their own defeat; if they do, they are beneath contempt.

The courts aren’t coming to the rescue. If self-government is vindicated in the next two years, it will have to be done by those who ought to have done it all along: our elected leaders.”

Well said, sir.  Well said.