Jack Rakove has a good piece in the Washington Post pointing out that the filibuster in the Senate does not induce deliberation. Instead, it has essentially become a supermajoritarian requirement to lawmaking giving us a Senate “that prefers parliamentary obstruction to constructive deliberation — something the “greatest deliberative body in the world” now seems incapable of doing.” This is not what James Madison had in mind. On that, Peter Wehner has a great essay that echoes much of what has been said here about representatives actually reasoning and thinking—deliberating about the public good—rather than simply being the mouthpieces of their constituents. As Wehner writes, … Continue reading Congress and Deliberation