Filibuster Reform Gaining Momentum

One of the best panels I attended at Netroots Nation was the panel called The Filibuster and Senate Reform. The first panelist to speak was NYU Professor Mimi Marziani, who discussed the history of the filibuster and the founder’s intentions (hint: filibuster is not in the Constitution and the founder’s intended majority rule).

The second panelist was Congress Matters‘s David Waldman (KagroX) who discussed how the Senate rules work. He explained that a “hold” is actually an intent to filibuster, just a nice, polite way of making your intentions know. A hold can be overcome but it takes the same amount of time as overcoming a filibuster (which has certain time requirements). One thing that Waldman also explained is why we can’t just make them read the phone book. The way the rules currently work, the burden is actually on the majority to muster its 60 votes (totally backasswards).

Senator Tom Udall explained his plan for “the Constitutional option” which he plans to introduce at the beginning of the next session.

If you have time and are interested in the subject, I highly recommend you watch the session. It’s extremely informative.

In the session David Waldman explained the minimum reform that is needed: 1) remove the requirement of unanimous consent to open debate (getting rid of the one-man filibuster like Jim Bunning did) and 2) change the filibuster burden from the majority to the minority (make ’em read the phone book). During Harry Reid’s Q&A he expressed support for filibuster reform. It must be gaining momentum because The Hill wrote about the filibuster reform proposal:

Democratic leaders in both the House and Senate are pushing for filibuster reform at the start of the new Congress next year.
Five Senate Democrats have said they will not support a lowering of the 60-vote bar necessary to pass legislation.

Another four lawmakers say they are wary about such a change and would be hesitant to support it.

A 10th Democrat, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), said he would support changing the rule on filibusters of motions to begin debate on legislation, but not necessarily the 60-vote threshold needed to bring up a final vote on bills.

The 10 wavering Democratic senators named in the article: Carl Levin (D-MI), Ben Nelson (D?-NE), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Jon Tester (D-MT), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Daniel Akaka (D-HI), Max Baucus (D-MT), Mark Pryor (D-AR) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). Notice how many of them make up the obstructionist Senate asshole caucus? I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.

There was some pushback by leaders of the reform caucus after The Hill article was published.

Taken alone, the above statements seem like customary pushback to a politically uncomfortable story. But there was important context to Wednesday’s debate over filibuster reform. Shortly after the Hill piece went online, the Senate Rules Committee held its fourth hearing into reforming the rules of the Senate. Later in the day, Reid’s office added a bill to the Senate calendar that would eliminate the practice of secret holds on nominees — a smaller bite at the institutional reform apple but still a major cause for reformers.

One top Democratic aide speaking on the condition of anonymity predicted that the party would ultimately pursue more incremental gains in reforming Senate practices as opposed to fully changing the 60-vote threshold for cloture votes on legislation. But lowering the threshold, the aide cautioned, is “not impossible.”

“We have come to this breaking point and it is not only the freshmen and sophomores who think we need change,” the aide said. “There are institutionalists as well. When you have the majority leader making comments like that, that creates a type of pressure.”

After reading both The Hill article and the HuffPo response, I’m pretty hopeful that at least David Waldman’s description of minimum reform may come to pass. I hope that means that important legislation dying in the Senate right now can pass in the next Congress, despite the expected Senate seat losses.

Also, not to sound bitter, but if the Senate had adopted some of these changes in 2008, we’d probably have a Public Option and an energy bill by now.