In an age where millions of people get off on conveying their thoughts in 140 characters (not words) or less, the art of crafting a one-word description of anything seems like a next logical step.

So if, after witnessing the U.S. Senate during the month of December, you were asked to describe that legislative chamber in one word, what would it be?

(Yes, I know, but no #@$&*($%*%*# words are allowed.)

For myself, I know what words would not be among those I would use to describe the Senate.  Here are a few of them: admirable, competent, inspirational, multi-tasking.

Some of the ones that might make my list: unbecoming, ridiculous, one-dimensional.

I think you would have to agree—no matter where you stand (perch?) on the political spectrum—that it was an undignified spectacle at best.  Is this how we as a country really want our Senate and the 100 potentates that grace it with their presence to operate?    

The most outrageous thing about the Senate is, of course, that 60-vote rule that came out of who knows where and lives on as a hallowed tradition.  I’m not going to belabor the point that nowhere in the Constitution–which, by the way, these Senators have sworn to uphold–does it say anything about having to garner 60 votes in order to move anything ahead.

But the outrageousness of the 60-vote rule became so clear as one or two senators were able to effectively dictate what large sections of the health care reform package would or wouldn’t contain.

You may well have appreciated Sen. Joe Lieberman’s threats this time around because they happened to play into what you wanted or didn’t want.  But you can rest assured that the time will come when another senator with delusions of grandeur takes a Lieberman-type position on something of vital interest to you.  Then we’ll see how much cheering you do.

And where did this apparent rule come from that you cannot consider a couple of pieces of legislation simultaneously?  Even kids in kindergarten are taught that you can use both hands at the same time.

Thus, we ended up with a result that no one really expected to actually happen.  Which is to say that the Senate never acted one way or another on the fact that the estate tax was due to expire for a year at the end of 2009, only to be reborn at 2001 levels in 2011. 

The fact that this cockamamie law was passed in the first place is a pretty big indictment of our legislators.  But all the while we kept telling ourselves that surely Congress would move to fix the year’s lapse.  They couldn’t possibly let it expire without doing something about it, we kept telling ourselves.  The possibility that they would do nothing—not act at all—was the stuff of late-night comedy shows, not something that might happen in the world’s greatest deliberative body.

It’s not like they didn’t have enough time to think about it. 

So now, the likelihood is some kind of retroactive patch, which in itself will create all kinds of weird problems. What if someone dies in that period when there is no estate tax, i.e., before retroactivity is voted on and approved?

The House at least took some action on the estate tax.  Similarly it has moved ahead on financial services reform, while the Senate tries to find its navel.

Maybe the problem is that there are too many millionaires in the Senate and they’ve just forgotten that we vote for them and then pay them to be there and get things done.

So, my one word to describe the Senate?

Dysfunctional.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 3:38 pm and is filed under opinion, politics, public figures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.