Dan Eggen had an article on Common Cause’s recent embrace confrontational activism in February 10ths Washington Post beginning:

Common cause has long been something of a nerd among the jocks. While other activists staged loud demonstrations and nervy stunts, the 40-year-old good-government group was more likely to hold a forum on filibuster reform or the vagaries of redistricting.

Amazingly, after specifically mentioning the filibuster in his lead, Eggen fails to report that Common Cause recently flip-flopped their position on the filibuster for purely transparent politically partisan reasons. A 2005 Common Cause press release reads:

Common Cause strongly opposes any effort by Senate leaders to outlaw filibusters of judicial nominees to silence a vigorous debate about the qualifications of these nominees, short-circuiting the Senate’s historic role in the nomination approval process.

“The filibuster shouldn’t be jettisoned simply because it’s inconvenient to the majority party’s goals,” said Common Cause President Chellie Pingree. “That’s abuse of power.”

Today, however, now that a different political party is on control of the Senate, Common Cause has a polar opposite position:

A filibuster is the use of unlimited debate not to inform or persuade, but to obstruct the proceedings of a legislative body and prevent the majority from taking action opposed by the minority.

Today, majority rule has been replaced in the Senate by minority rule. The Senate filibuster rule (Rule XXII) gives a minority of 41 Senators — who may be elected from states that contain as little at 11% of the nation’s population — the power to prevent the Senate from debating or voting on a bill, resolution or presidential appointment.

The filibuster was clearly not an original part of the Founding Fathers’ vision of our government. If they had intended a 60-vote supermajority requirement to pass bills, they would have included it in the Constitution, just like they explicitly required a supermajority to override a presidential veto.