More, and very encouraging, details in this Hill article reporting on Harkin’s radio interview today, Jon:

Harkin said Democrats expect Republicans will try to stall the debate by asking for the entire bill to be read on the Senate floor. If that happens, Harkin said, the majority party is likely to use a procedural maneuver to keep the Senate in session this weekend.

“If the Republicans want to stay here this Saturday and Sunday to read the bill, then let them stay here,” Harkin said, adding that Democrats would hold a “live quorum,” where the sergeant at arms requests the presence of all absent senators.

“I’ll tell you, we’re going to do something like that,” Harkin said. “We are planning to do something that would require Republicans to be there 24 hours a day, and if they leave the floor, we’ll ask unanimous consent to dispense with the reading, and that’ll be the end of it.”

[...]

He said Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is committed to working through every weekend in December if that’s what it takes to pass the bill before lawmakers break for the Christmas holiday.

“We’re going to be going long days — I’ve already talked to Leader Reid about this — long nights, weekends — constantly, from then until right before Christmas, when I think we’ll have the votes, hopefully, to pass the bill,” he said.

Tom Harkin is talking here like a democrat (small d) and as a spokesman for a proactive majority.

Forcing weekend and late-night Senate sessions is exactly the way to deal with threatened Republican filibusters and obstruction, rather than, for example, quietly accepting a requirement for 60-vote margins for passage of floor amendments via a Unanimous Consent Agreement.

The Senate hates working weekends. It is a very rare phenomenon to see them there at such a time, unless a long recess immediately follows (though Harry Reid seems to threaten to hold such sessions at the beginning of almost every week because, invariably, “We have a lot of work to get done”). And Mondays and Fridays have been reduced basically to travel days, not workdays, in the Senate (and House).

Judging by what Harkin conveyed in that radio interview as reported by this article (after having had discussions about the way forward with Harry Reid) the Senate may just let democracy break out in the consideration of this bill, and Sherrod Brown, Ron Wyden and others may have an excellent chance of having their improving amendments genuinely considered and even adopted on the Senate floor.

THREE CHEERS for the sentiments expressed by Senator Harkin as reported in this Hill article. May the Senate Majority Leader follow suit, and actually deliver on Harkin’s laudable recommendations for handling this legislation on the Senate floor.

Force the senate into session 24/7 until they come up with something and vote on it. No short work week, no long xmas vacation. I like the idea of forcing the rethuglicians to stay at their desks while every bit of delaying goes on. Do not close for meals or sleep. Force them to dine on take out, let them sleep on the floor. We pay them lots of money to actually do something. Force them to work.-if the rethugs leve, then have a vote to cut off everything and have a final vote.