A Bad Climate For Democracy

I don't have too much to say on why the Senate opted to turn down Bill 311 - the Climate Change Bill that was passed through the House and sent to Senate for analysis and ratification. There are numerous enough stories in the media about how the Conservative-dominated Senate harshly struck it down.It is good to see this in a bit of perspective, though. This the first time since before World War Two that the Senate opted to strike down a bill successfully passed in the House without even permitting it to be sent to committee for analysis and research. Its merits were never the issue; only the political optics of the Conservative majority prevailed before the bill's strengths and pitfalls could be evaluated. Historically, it didn't matter which party was in the Senate majority - bills always deserved appropriate attention. It is now hard to describe the Senate as a place of "sober second thought" when hardly a thought is given. A shameful day for the legitimacy of democracy.