Liberum veto (Latin for I freely forbid) was a parliamentary device in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It allowed any member of the Sejm to force an immediate end to the current session and nullify all legislation already passed at it by shouting Nie pozwalam! (Polish: I do not allow!).
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Which is just a bit more undemocratic than the requirement that 2/3 of the Senate, which already over represents the population of small states, agree on any change to our laws.
Of course the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth collapsed, partly because members of the Senate exercised the right of veto at the behest of foreign “campaign contributors”.
Remember, you dems, you loved the filibuster when the republicans were in power. When they return to power you will love it again.
Do not want
The liberum veto was great for Russia — which was always able to bribe a pole venal enough to prevent Poland from defending itself.
Also, in the sake of anal retentiveness, I would like to point out that 60/100 is 3/5th not 2/3ds.
Also, the dems filibustered some judges, drilling in anwar, and quite a few other things. The senate rules generally work that if any senator wants to filibuster they can. The other side can respond with asking for a cloture vote which takes 60 votes.
This is a good policy as it means that laws are required to have wide support to pass. This is also why it is good that constitutional amendments need 66 votes to pass. Bills that are that powerful should require /very/ broad support.
The senate requiring 60 votes on controversial bills also means that in a closely divided senate, one person can’t have all the power to pass which side’s bill he wants. In our system, in a 59-40 split, the best that individual can do is block the majority’s bill, he can’t as is the case with a 50-50 split, have all the power to decide who’s bill gets passed.
Because of this, the supermajority requirement for a cloture vote is more democratic in my opinion than not having it.
@docmerlin
This person is the nationally elected Vice President. His right to do this is explicitly enshrined in our constitution.
You are ignoring the fact that this one person will be 3/5 crazier if they are the 60th person than if they are the 50th.
Thanks Tomasz,
Yes, requiring some form of supermajority is a good way for the represented minority’s rights to be respected. Its incredibly annoying at times, but I think overall a good thing.
Doc Merlin is right (twice): the filibuster is a good thing. And the 60th marginal vote is different than the 50th. When 60 are needed, there are 60 potential defectors to not vote for cloture, while at 50 there are fewer. So any one person can be that person when only about 60 senators favor a bill. We don’t want a healthcare bill only favored by 50 senators + the vp just as much as we didn’t want Bush court nominees favored only by 50 senators. So major legislation is hard to pass and it can’t be quickly reversed when the ruling party slips out of the majority.
That said, the Polish super majority requirement of 100% described above sounds terrible. That is an idea best left for a 2 page textbook coverage of Knut Wicksell and is not a good way to run a country (as they found out when it failed and was split up by their neighbors).
I don’t think “undemocratic” means what you think it means.
It pains me that in a forum as learned as this, the term “democratic” would be used in a positive fashion. We do not live in a democracy, a form of government abhorrent to our founders. We live in a constitutional republic, and that constitution explicitly provides that each house shall form its own rules. That the senate should evolve a super-majority requirement for normal business would neither surprise nor disturb our founders.
Running up the debt & ignoring the Bill of Rights? They would be working on another revolution.
We laugh, but the PLC ran 236 years. The French Revolution was in 1789, 220 years ago, and France has had two empires, five republics, and a few other things in that time.
In fact this was not “liberum veto” but rather “liberum rumpo”, the former was official protest of one representative against a certain bill, the latter was, officially, not allowing the Diet to prolongue its assembly past standard six weeks. Liberum rumpo not only ended the assembly, but also effectively nullified all accepted laws.
The background of veto was the fact that in the middle ages Poland was badly divided between small, sovereign principalities, and reunification gave them, in some areas, more liberty than states in America have. Diet of Poland (and, later, the Commonwealth) was not like american Congress, rather, it was like EU, with every country having power to block anything…
More on that subject: Norman Davies, “God’s Playground”.
I also wish the Senate would require 100 votes. Then they would pass no laws and liberty would most likely increase.
fuwen 2010.03.23
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It allowed any measure favored by the majority to be defeated by the whim of one borderline personality who would not hesitate to oppose as unacceptable a program that he was on record as having supported just weeks previously.
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