On the recordJanuary 5, 2011
last month, our former colleagues, Gary Hart, a Democrat, and Chuck Hagel, a Republican, published an essay in Time magazine calling on us to ``restore democracy to the U.S. Senate'' by reforming the filibuster. In their words, the abuse of the filibuster ``is no way to govern a great democracy.'' Few principles are as central to democracy and the ideals of the American Republic as majority rule. Though James Madison and his colleagues in The Federalist acknowledged the necessity of protecting the rights of minorities, the course of our nation was to be determined by the will of the majority. No other system consistent with democracy would prove workable. There is nothing in the United States Constitution that permits a minority to frustrate the will of the majority. Yet in the early 21st century, the will of the majority of Americans, expressed on a daily basis by our elected representatives in Congress, is consistently thwarted by a minority in the United States Senate.
