If there was a single issue that really mattered in the last U.S. Senate race in Maine, it was anger over the dysfunction in Washington.

Independent Angus King ran on a promise to work with both parties, and to challenge the rules of the Senate that give a minority of senators the ability to stop the other branches of government from doing their jobs. Pundits said that you can’t build a campaign around “process” instead of policy, but King won with 53 percent of the vote, no mean trick for a non-party candidate in a three-way race.

Additional Photos

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada talks about the overuse of the filibuster by Republicans during the Obama administration. The Associated Press

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada talks about the overuse of the filibuster by Republicans during the Obama administration. The Associated Press

Maine voters got what they asked for Thursday when King voted with most Democrats to change the Senate rules to allow an up-or-down vote for every executive branch appointment and judicial nomination for courts other than the Supreme Court. This has been described as a “nuclear” attack, a “naked power grab” by Democrats that jettisons centuries of tradition. But it’s not.

It is a much-needed correction for an institution that was not functioning. With congressional approval ratings in the single digits, this was no time to stick with business as usual.

It’s not surprising that most of the criticism comes from Republican senators, who say this will change the way the body has operated for centuries.

“This is contrary to not only the long-standing rules of the Senate but our traditions of respecting minority (party) rights,” said Maine Sen. Susan Collins.

But it is what the Republicans have been doing in the Senate over the last four-and-a-half years that is the real aberration, and the new Senate rules will bring the practice back to something closer to the norm.

As Reid pointed out Thursday, there have been 168 filibusters of executive and judicial nominations in the nation’s history. Half of them have occurred during the Obama administration.

He said there have been 23 filibusters of district court nominations in the entire history of our country. Twenty of those were nominated by Obama. The break with tradition did not start on Thursday.

If all these blocked nominations were because Obama was nominating ideological extremists, it might make sense. But even when they block these candidates from being considered, Republican senators say that it’s not about the nominee’s qualifications.

William Kayatta, a Portland lawyer with stellar qualifications and the endorsement of Maine’s two Republican senators, saw his nomination for the U.S. Court of Appeals stalled for more than a year by senators who had hoped that a Republican would win the 2012 presidential election and nominate someone else. This not only interfered with the work of the courts, but it gave all potential nominees a reason to think twice about accepting a nomination.

And as for giving power to the Democrats, that’s true for now but may not be true much longer. The Democrats are holding on to a 53-45 majority that they could easily lose. If the Republicans were to regain the Senate and the White House in the next two elections, it is unlikely that they would change these new rules, even though they now call them “bad for our Democracy.” They would want their party to be able to name judges and executive branch officials to carry out the voters wishes.

Sen. Republican leader Sen. Mitch McConnell was exactly right when he said “The solution to this problem is an election.”

That is where these kind of issues should be decided. The voters elect a president and Congress, and they lead the government.

It turns out that you can have an election on “process.” And most voters would favor action over dysfunction every time.

Related Stories