The only thing worse than the tyranny of the majority is a tyranny of the minority.

Mark Green: Filibuster Illogic: Why Allow 10% to Veto 90%? - Politics - Air America
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As the Senate begins its historic floor debate on health care this week, let's glance at history.

To reach unanimity at the Constitutional Convention, the 1787 “Connecticut Compromise” created a House of Representatives allocating seats by population (favoring big states) and a Senate allocating seats by state (favoring small states). That was one thing when states were somewhat similar in populations, not now when California is 68 times the size of Wyoming. So today each California senator represents 68 times the number of people as a Wyoming senator. Or 10 times that of each Connecticut senator.

At the same time, the filibuster is nowhere in the Constitution and is merely a rule of the Senate. To end debate and allow a majority vote on a bill used to require 67 votes, which changed to 60 votes in 1975. But this rule violates at least the spirit of the Constitution which specifies those very few instances – treaties, impeachment, among others – that alone require a two-thirds super-majority vote. And it used to be invoked sparingly in less partisan times – an average of once a year in the 1950s but 139 times by Republicans in 2008.

The result? Only 10% of Americans living in 20 small states have nearly the votes needed to continue a filibuster and kill any essential health care reform – or any policy reform for that matter. 10% can in effect veto 90%, something the Founders never desired or expected.

It gets worse than that.

The campaign finance system (notwithstanding 1974 post-Watergate reforms and the McCain-Feingold soft money restrictions) still allows special interest money to flow to special friends in the Congress– like the insurance industry’s affection for Lieberman – to make sure that such members throw monkey wrenches into the legislative process on big ticket items as health care.

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The problem is not the hollowness of his arguments but the political fact that he has the power to sink the Public Option or other popular reforms because of an Achilles heel in our system – two of them really. The only thing worse than the tyranny of the majority is a tyranny of the minority.

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Since there's no possibility that small states will ever agree to a constitutional amendment to weaken their power in the U.S. Senate, what options exist for Majority Leader Harry Reid on the health care bill in particular or in the Senate generally?

• *Campaign Finance Reform? One is radical campaign finance reform so that big corporate interests don’t compound the problem of the filibuster. Unfortunately it appears that, if anything, America is headed in the opposite direction given the imminent Supreme Court decision in Citizen’s United, which I will discuss in a separate blog post next week.
• *Reconciliation? Second, if health care fails this go-around with “only” 58 or 59 votes, Reid should consider using the so-called Reconciliation route next year which allows budget bills to be enacted by simply majority vote. This would eventually require the Senate Parlimentarian to rule on what parts of the current health care bill qualify as in effect budget bills. That would be legislatively problematic but still possible.
• *55 not 60? Third, by agreement between the Senate leader and the vice president sitting as presiding officer, the Senate at the start of the next session in January, 2011 could reduce the number required to cut off debate (“vote cloture”) from 60 to 55, which would be the difference between minority rule and minority rights.

Republican critics will loudly complain that Reconciliation would violate Senate tradition and reforming the filibuster would be a “nuclear option” risking a breakdown in Senate business. But isn't their recent incessant use of the filibuster an undemocratic violation of tradition and a slow-motion nuclear option that, in effect, vetoes the results of the '06 and '08 two elections? If 67 votes for cloture could shrink to 60, why not to 55? And speaking of tradition, what was wrong with an era that, when Senators say they want to keep debating, they would have to keep debating, like the filibuster of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington?