The End of the Supermajority?

Before the election of President Barrack Obama, as well as the senators and representatives who rode his coattails to victory, many of my conservative friends were concerned that the Democrats would ram through their policy priorities without an effective check on the process. They had every reason to be worried. Their own party had been doing the same for at least 6 of the past 8 years when they had majorities in Congress and the Senate.

The election of Scott Brown to the seat of the late Senator Edward Kennedy will help to undermine this supermajority that the Democrats have enjoyed for the past year. Despite this legislative advantage, Democrats have been anything but the legislative juggernaut many Republicans have feared. This is in large part due to a reality that the congressmen themselves realize that pundits can't seem to understand: Americans don't like unchecked power. They don't like legislators deciding on policy without the partial consent of their political opponents.

Electorates are a fickle bunch. They are prone to emotional swings and voting against their own interests. Because of this, our founders created a republic, based on the protection of minority interests. For some reason, 120 years of legislators from both sides of the political fence have been eroding those protections and have constructed a democracy instead. While this sounds good in principle, this is a disaster from a legal protection standpoint. After all, what protection does a minority group (racial, religious, gender or socioeconomic) have from "majority rules." The answer is none. We are supposed to have a federal court to protect the people from the whims of the people through their representatives. Unfortunately, the courts have largely been willing to cede this responsibility to make legislating easier. This is detrimental to all of our freedoms and the more Congress switches party control, the more we realize this.

Rather than creating a demand to regain our lost principles and decimated Constitution, it has instead created poltical warfare and the concept of an "eye for an eye," politically speaking.

Will this election in Massachussetts change anything? Probably not. Unfortunately, it is likely only to create retribution once control of the legislature changes, which history shows will most certainly happen again. If the Democrats aren't careful, it may happen sooner than even they could believe.