You’ve read about it on the front pages of the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Michigan Daily. You’ve checked the blogs, and you’ve received the tweets. Most likely, you’ve even taken a glance at the pamphlets stuffed into your hand as you cross the diag. But as you and your preferred media source continue to contemplate the potential impact of the most important health care legislation ever to grace the chambers of Capitol Hill, you may find yourself wondering… well, “what’s taking so long?”

Of course, we all recognize the gravity of the issue at hand. As with all major legislative developments, the struggle for health care reform inevitably generates controversy as it progresses through each stage of consideration. Sweeping reform of the entire healthcare sector should not come without vigorous and healthy debate. However, thus far the debate has been anything but healthy.

For the past several months, Republican Senators, like Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, have been scheming up ways to lock down the Senate in a mire of procedural technicalities.

Take, for instance, a tactic referenced in a widely circulated GOP strategy memo: Hard Quorum Calls. Senate rules require a majority of Senators, 51, be present on the floor before business can continue. This is often waved by unanimous consent, but if only one member objects, then the presiding officer must check attendance by proceeding to read off all 100 names of the Senatorial body. Since the assembly routinely goes into adjournment, Republican Senators can use this tool to postpone discussion several times per day.

Also, Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah has threatened to force Senate Clerks to read aloud the reform bill in its entirety to what will surely be an empty chamber.

And if that doesn’t exhaust enough time, Gregg also urges his colleagues to take the more dramatic measure of calling for a Motion to Recommit, sending the bill back to the Senate Finance Committee (where it was just passed 14-9, by the way) for reconsideration. This essentially places the bill in the exact same position as it was earlier this year. It forces the Committee to re-play its months of testimony and debate on the bill, send it to a debate on the Senate Floor on whether or not to take up its consideration, and subject it to another round of the amendment process that we’ve already seen. Before you know, it’s next August.

Senator Gregg has also called on his colleagues to make points of order if they believe “that a Senate procedure is being violated, with or without cause”. A reasonable individual might ask why a US Senator would want to make objections “without cause”. The idea is that it would force the presiding officer to rule on the point of order which could then be challenged, beginning a debate on the merits of the point that cannot end until 60 Senators agree to table it.

These tactics are not theoretical; they have been sued to gross excess for the better part of a decade. One of the most abused procedures thus far in the healthcare reform debate has been the Amendment process. Senators can call for each proposal to be divided up into independent debates and votes, which unnecessarily increases the amount of time for each to pass through the floor. Gregg explicitly encourages his fellow Republicans to propose “an unlimited number of amendments — germane or non-germane — on any subject” that would force the Senate to debate and then vote on a series of irrelevant alterations that are protected from compromise by the rules of unanimous consent. This is known as Filibuster by Amendment because it has the potential to lengthen debate indefinitely with no discernible benefit.

And after moths of squabbling over frivolous amendments, points of order, and issues of Senate procedure, Senate Rule 22 will allow the Republican Leadership to invoke the Procedural Filibuster and saddle Majority Leader Reid with the responsibility to find a 3/5 ths majority in favor of any one bill.

In short, Senate Republicans have geared up to do anything and everything in their power to prevent Healthcare Reform from coming to an up or down vote. When the challenge at hand is designing a pieced of legislation that will provide improved healthcare coverage for millions of uninsured Americans, you would think that our Republican Senators wouldn’t mess around.

We are in favor of a vigorous public debate both on and off the Senate floor, but blatant obstruction by these representatives is undemocratic and causes gridlock. The fact that a popular President with large majorities in both the House and Senate is struggling to pass the centerpiece of his campaign raises the question of whether the Federal Government is capable of responding to the will of the people. It is up to the Senate to prove that it still can.