Filibuster: Inherently Anti-Civil Liberties?

With the recent election of Senator Scott Brown for the Class I seat from Massachusetts, many foresee the doom of "Obama's Agenda." The problem: the filibuster, which stands between the majority and effective governance.

A History Lesson
In 1806, the Senate removed a rule to stop debate and force a vote. Essentially, it got rid of the 'off' switch of debate. Ever since, the 'lightbulbs' debating bills have had to burn out on their own before any votes could be made. At first, this wasn't a problem; legislators didn't realize how much power they had until William R. King became the first senator to utilize it to 'extend debate on' (read: kill) a bill to charter the Second Bank of the United States.

So what has happened since then? The current problem started in earnest during the Wilson administration, when the president had gotten fed up with the lack of progress on critical bills to fund World War I. His solution was to add a way to stop debate if 2/3 of the senators so wished. Great idea to add a brake to the system, but why 2/3!? Over the next half-century, cloture was invoked successfully only five times when a filibuster was declared!

The Current State of Affairs
Although the necessary proportion of senators has been reduced to 3/5, the gridlock should sound familiar. While the filibuster was only used an average of once per year in the 1950's, last year it was used an astonishing 139 times.

But perhaps the filibuster is a good break on the 'tyranny of the majority.' At least it ensures that a bill has widespread support before passing, right? Sure, but it favors the minority so much that it goes beyond giving a voice to the little guy and on to leading to 'tyranny of the minority'. At its most imbalanced (i.e., the 42 senators from the 21 least populous states), Senators from seats of roughly 11% of the country's population can thwart the will of 89% of the country's representatives!

Of those 21 states, 8 haven't voted Democrat since going for LBJ in 1964 (WY, ND, AK, SD, ID, NE, UT, KS). Also, the only time Montana has voted Democrat in the last 40 years was Bill Clinton's first candidacy. Eight of the remaining twelve are either solid Republican or swing states (Repub: AR, MS; swing: NH, ME, WV, NM, NV, IA; Dem: VT, DE, RI, HI). Although voting Democrat and supporting civil liberties are NOT synonymous, such a trend suggests that the cards might be stacked against civil libertarians.