“Senate Fails to Act on [insert issue of the week]” is a common headline in today’s papers.  Gridlock in the Senate is certainly nothing new, but it is clearly becoming more and more common, to the detriment of dealing with the country’s pressing problems.   Over the past fifteen years the institution has wandered far from the model we all read about in that high school classic, “How a Bill Becomes Law.”

While there are many reasons for this state of affairs, a lot of them political, the most important factor is simply that senators have fallen into bad habits.  The Senate was designed to move slowly (remember the saucer and tea cup analogy), and it has succeeded through a finely tuned system of minority rights.  Since much of the Senate’s business is conducted by unanimous consent and since “holds” on taking legislation up are generally respected, it is easy for a single senator, or a small group, to block progress.  When a senator’s party routinely supports its individual members’ obstructions, forcing the leadership to produce 60 rather than 51 votes, gridlock becomes the rule rather than the exception.