President Obama's State of the Union description of the Cantor/McConnell Republican Faction of NO as "playing short term politics" and failing to display “leadership” was an understatement. The Faction of NO poses a profound threat to the United States. They, like their nineteenth century confederate counterparts, have seceded from constitutional government and declared a civil war. On Main Street that war is waged with racist hate speech spectacles. In the media it advances from the mouths of Limbaugh and Beck.

In the Senate of the United States the Faction of NO’s civil war is waged with Rule 22 that establishes the parliamentary procedure for stopping debate on bills including those to change Rule 22 itself. If sixteen Senators sign a motion to bring to a close the debate upon any measure, motion, or other matter pending before the Senate, the Presiding Officer, without debate, submits to the Senate for a yea-and-nay vote the question: “Is it the sense of the Senate that the debate shall be brought to a close?” If that question is decided in the affirmative by three-fifths of the Senators present or in the case of a motion to change Rule 22 by an affirmative vote of two-thirds of those present, then debate limitations are imposed. If not, the bill or motion can be filibustered to death.

In the Senate the Faction of NO has obstructed the appointment of Obama nominees. As of November 2009, 53 of Obama nominees are still waiting for a full Senate vote, and another 175 are pending in committee. Since 1949, “cloture votes” under Rule 22 have focused on only 24 nominees. In the first nine months of the Obama administration, however, there have been 5! In the Democrat-controlled 110th Congress, Republicans have filibustered more legislation and have required more “cloture votes” to break them than in any other Congress in history. (Rebecca Lehman 11/05/2009 http://www.ourfuture.org) No matter what party is in the majority, under Rule 22, the Senate’s functioning is subject to the risk of minority tyranny, because a super majority of 60 votes is required to perform its constitutional role.

So how can the country deal with the civil war by the Faction of NO in the United States Senate?

For starters we can resurrect the wisdom of Founding Father and Fourth President of the United States James Madison. Following the constitutional convention in Philadelphia, Madison, Jay and Hamilton published the Federalist Papers to promote ratification of the new Constitution. In Federalist Papers, No 10, Madison wrote, “By a faction I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.” The causes of faction are ‘sown’ in the nature of man. They divide mankind in parties, “inflame them with mutual animosity, and (render) them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to cooperate for their common good.” Madison argued, “the most common and durable source of factions is the unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principle task of modern legislation and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of government.” Madison concluded, “…the causes of faction cannot be removed and the relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its effects.”

Now, more than two hundred years after Madison’s wrote those words we are faced with tyrannous minority waging civil war in the Senate of the United States. Madison tells us what to do by what he proposed and argued at the constitutional convention. There, his “Virginia Plan” was presented to the convention that contained the basic design of the future U.S. Government. It provided for a bicameral legislature, with both houses based on proportional representation…. (Chernow, Ron Alexander Hamilton, Penguin ,2004, page 230)

By switching the words “minority” and “majority” in Madison’s argument to the convention justifying proportional representation he speaks directly to us today. According to his biographer Ralph Ketchem, “Next, Madison presented to the convention for the first time the argument that since honesty, respect for character, and conscience had proven insufficient guards against faction and oppression of the majority, only the inclusion within a government of a multitude of interests, sentiments, and sections, each with the power to resist others, would prevent minority tyranny. History proved conclusively that “where a minority are united by a common sentiment, and have an opportunity, the rights of the majority party becomes insecure.” The only remedy, he concluded, “is to enlarge the sphere, and thereby divide the community into so great a number of interests and parties … that in case they should have such a (common) interest, they may not be apt to unite in the pursuit of it. It was incumbent on us then to try this remedy, and with that view to frame a republican system on such a scale and in such a form as will control all the evils which have been experienced.”

When the convention split on the question of proportional representation in the Senate, Delegate Roger Sherman proposed the “Great Compromise”: let representation in the lower house be according to the respective numbers of free inhabitants, and in the upper house let the states be equal. (Ketcham, Ralph James Madison, University of Virginia Press, 1991, page 203).

As result of the “Great Compromise,” Article 1, Section 3, Clause 1 of the Constitution provided that the legislatures of each state shall choose two Senators and with one vote each. By June 5, 1914 the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution changed Article 1, Section 3, to read: “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote…”

Today we can undo “the Great Compromise” and implement proportional representation in the Senate with a 28th Amendment to the Constitution that would provide: “The Senate of the United States shall be composed one Senator for each Federal Senatorial District containing 3.5 million persons of voting age in each State determined by the census and shall be elected by the people of each Senatorial District, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote.

I offer the number 3.5 million only for illustration purposes and to suggest that the proposed federal senatorial districts in each state should be substantially larger than congressional districts. A 28th Amendment would enlarge the membership of Senate to more accurately reflect the diverse factional and regional interests of the nation and would likely neutralize the power of the Faction of NO or any other minority that seeks to tyrannize the majority in the Senate of the United States.