DEAR EDITOR:

Thank you Patrick Buchanan for addressing the topic of senatorial filibuster this election year (Aug. 10). Filibuster is the distinguishing feature of the United States Senate that allows extended deliberation by requiring 60 votes, a super majority, to shut off debate and force a decision to pass or reject. This device is a delaying tactic and can effectively cripple legislation by forcing partisan planks or extraneous detail into legislation that may not be connected to the issue at hand. I offer my original proposition to adjust and re-adapt this procedural maneuver.

Why not dismiss the filibuster altogether and require that the Senate enact all its legislative business by super majority? Doing this would require that our legislators work out agreeable and practical solutions to needs in their chamber, their offices, their committee meetings, and bring back to the anxious American people legislation that has broad agreement and support, not simple majority (1 vote), which demonstrates in essential terms, that no true majority exists.

Some readers might object that such policy might lead government to stand still because plurality agreement is hard to achieve. Granted, it is difficult under the two-party structure, where difference of opinion is promoted as right or wrong, while sensible people regard that difference is just a matter of view. The two major parties, who I do not name, are fully invested in the rule of simple majority. My belief in the human spirit imagines that if such policy were to be adopted, our politicians and leaders would rise to the occasion and forge the necessary relationships required to pass legislation. Politicians they may be, but they are also adults with careers, families and personal convictions, each subject to the vote, or even recall, if they fail to fulfill their duties as required by law or any adjustments they make to law.

Join me, neighbors, in starting a discussion about filibuster, about majority and about the benefits of plurality or super majority, which would cause us to forge broader agreement across our multiple and disparate views and concerns regarding the blessed American nation.

JIM VILLANI

Youngstown