On Jan. 19, Massachusetts voters elected Republican Scott Brown to fill the empty seat in the U.S. Senate that previously belonged to Democrat Ted Kennedy. Most of the news media right now are concentrating on how Brown's election to the U.S. Senate will specifically hurt certain legislation. The health care reform bill obviously comes to mind, though pundits have also mentioned the cap-and-trade bill to reduce carbon emissions and regulatory reform of the finance industry as probable victims of Brown's ascent.

What may be more important-especially to college students-is how this election points to the injustices of the Senate voting system.

The filibuster is a ridiculous and undemocratic political tool. When Brown fills the Republicans' 41st Senate seat, Democrats will lose the supermajority that would have allowed them to pass Democratic-favored legislation relatively easily. Now, it will be possible for Republicans to indefinitely block the health care bill and other legislation from passing by use of the filibuster.

Young Americans who are particularly attuned to their basic sense of justice should recognize this abuse of bureaucracy and protest use of the filibuster in the Senate.

A quick review: the filibuster is a procedural act that allows the minority party represented in the Senate to extend the period of floor debate over a bill.

The motion for filibuster was rarely invoked until the mid-20th century. A rule revision in 1975 made the call for filibuster much easier by requiring 3/5 of the Senate-or 60 senators-to end debate.

If more people knew about the filibuster, more Americans would see that it is unfair and illogical and would understand how it antagonizes the legislative process.

I don't mean to criticize the filibuster just because I lean left politically or because I sympathize with Senate Democrats.

It simply doesn't make sense that any minority party should have so much power, especially since a bill only needs a simple majority to pass during final voting.

Senate Republicans, for the most part, represent sparsely populated states in the South and the Midwest. The Senate is not based on population, but even if it were, Democrats would still represent more people in the U.S.

How does it make any sense then that a minority could have a large enough influence to block major legislation?

Why is it fair that 60 senators make a supermajority, but one more minority member can completely impede legislative progress?

Both Democrats and Republicans have used and abused the filibuster in recent years. In 2005, Democrats threatened to impose a filibuster to delay judicial appointments made by then-President Bush in an attempt to keep conservative judges out of federal courts for as long as possible.

But use of the filibuster has spiked incredibly over the past 30 years as partisan politics became a fact of life in Washington. Before the 1950s, one call for filibuster was made, on average, every two years in the Senate. From 2007 to 2009, that number rose to 139, according to a Jan. 12 article in Slate magazine. Future figures promise to match, if not surpass, this one. Simply because the filibuster has become such a vital part of Senate debate, it is now almost guaranteed that major legislation cannot pass without 60 votes.

My basic point is that the filibuster is undemocratic. The initial purpose of Congress was to provide representation for citizens in their government. Universal suffrage complements this philosophy by ensuring that all Americans have an equal say in how their government is run. The nature of the filibuster is detrimental to this concept because it essentially gives more power to some and less to others.

The filibuster could be eliminated.

This would reform the Senate and put it in line with contentious modern politics, where party loyalty and closed-door deals can sway a Senator's opinion more than the needs of the citizens they represent.

Because it is a part of conduct within Congress, the House and Senate would need to take the initiative to rework the laws that allow filibusters.

And members of Congress are ultimately dependent upon their constituents, so if citizens organized a major grassroots campaign to protest the practice, senators and representatives would have to listen.

This is an issue that should especially irk any college student, particularly politically active and socially conscious Brandeisians.

We are young idealists, still hopeful that our system can change.

History's lessons are fresh on our minds-we remember that our government has undergone dramatic changes in the past, and by comparison the removal of the filibuster would be relatively tame change.

Young Americans were some of Obama's most vocal supporters during the 2008 presidential election. Many supported his vow to change the way government politics operate.

On the other hand, according to a poll released by Tisch College at Tufts University, only 15 percent of Massachusetts citizens aged 18 to 29 participated in the voting last week.

Most young people do not think their votes impact election results or do not follow politics.

This kind of apathy keeps significant change merely a vague dream.

The anti-filibuster movement has real potential to take off on college campuses, but not if this kind of political indifference continues.

Students especially need to recognize the enormous impact they could have on movements like these, show up at the polls and appeal to elected officials to transform our dissatisfaction into action.

This way, young people can act on their intrinsic sense of injustice to remove one of the most blatant inequalities still practiced by the government.