PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

To say there is an arcane rule in the U.S. Senate allowing a “filibuster” is to give the process a compliment.

It is time to do away permanently with this archaic formulation that was described this way in a Wall Street Journal piece last week:

“Arcane and opaque rules have allowed a minority to paralyze the Senate and prevent consideration of nominees, treaties and legislation. Democracy is too important to permit winks, nods and obstruction to be the order of the day.”

I agree. Paralysis and opacity.

The filibuster process has been generating headlines in recent days as Democrats in the Senate tried to use that tactic to avoid a vote on Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch who is obviously qualified for a position on the nation’s highest court – and who, after an affirmative vote in the full Senate last week, was sworn in.

Democrats, led by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, don’t like Gorsuch’s judicial history, which illustrates his tendency toward conservatism. Or, put differently, his commitment to look at the law and precedent, not political positions.

Democrats also want revenge for the action by Republicans not to consider Obama Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland.

So, we’re back to one bad turn deserves another, which is, itself, an illustration of the gridlock and acrimony that binds Congress. And the blame, if there is blame to assign, falls on all sides.

Two authors of the Wall Street Journal article – John Yoo, a law professor at the University of California-Berkeley, and Sai Prakash, a law professor at the University of Virginia – also provided a useful bit of history on the filibuster. They wrote:

“…Republicans have more than revenge on their side this time around; they have the Constitution. Article II, Section 2 creates no special vote threshold for nominees. By contrast, it explicitly requires “two thirds of the Senators present concur” to approve treaties.

“The Founders never constitutionalized the filibuster; the first one occurred in 1837. Congress managed to reach fundamental decisions—the creation of the first departments, the proposing of the Bill of Rights, the establishment of Hamilton’s national bank—without it. No filibuster was necessary then to secure a senatorial consensus. Nor, as the Gorsuch conflict demonstrates, can a filibuster today heal partisan polarization.

“A Senate minority can still filibuster legislation, though there has been talk of reforming that rule, too. As senators consider future steps, they shouldn’t pay much heed to concerns about the filibuster’s protection of the minority. The Senate’s very structure is minoritarian, giving small states a disproportionate share of legislative power. The least populous 25 states have less than one-sixth of the U.S. population but account for half the Senate’s members.

“Senators also should keep in mind that the filibuster has strayed far from its roots in promoting deliberation. As in the 1939 film “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” senators had to filibuster by physically delivering speeches to prevent the majority from calling for a vote. Sen. Strom Thurmond, then a Democrat from South Carolina, set the record by speaking for 24 hours against the 1957 Civil Rights Act.

“But in 1917, senators adopted a procedure called ‘cloture’ under which a two-thirds vote would end debate and bring a measure to a vote. That threshold was reduced to 60 votes in 1975—but five years earlier Majority Leader Mike Mansfield had introduced the ‘two track’ system: If cloture couldn’t be achieved, senators simply accepted that a filibuster would continue and turned to other business, without requiring anyone to keep speaking.

“What had once been a rare showstopper that ground the Senate to a halt has become a cheap and easy way to increase the effective vote threshold for Senate action to 60 votes. Senators ‘extend’ debate by shrinking from it. Little wonder that filibusters are as common as broken campaign promises.”

For me, the arcane filibuster rules illustrate the inner workings of Congress that have become unintelligible to regular Americans.

It looks like what is, which is a way to avoid taking a position and voting.

As the two authors above point out, it used to be that a filibuster meant that a senator or senators had to stay on the Senate floor and keep talking. Senator Strom Thurmond holds the talking record – more than 24 hours.

The Senate’s action this week to stop filibusters and return to majority rule for Supreme Court nominations is not a bad thing:  It is a good thing and returns the Senate to simple majority rule, not “stop the voting” filibusters.