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In a rather monumental development Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called for the filibuster to be reformed on the Senate floor. From Politico:
“If there were ever a time when Tom Udall and Jeff Merkley were prophetic, it’s tonight,” Reid said on the floor. “These two young, fine senators said it was time to change the rules of the Senate, and we didn’t. They were right. The rest of us were wrong — or most of us, anyway. What a shame.”
Reid added: “If there were anything that ever needed changing in this body, it’s the filibuster rules, because it’s been abused, abused, abused.”
I believe we are fast approaching the point where it is not a question of if the Senate rules regarding the filibuster are going to be reformed but simply a matter of when and how.
It is important to remember that the founders clearly intended the Senate to be a majority chamber and didn’t plan for there to be a filibuster. It only emerged later accidentally as a result of sloppy rule writing.
The shameful concept of the filibuster only survived for so long because it was reserved almost exclusively for suppressing African Americans. During a much more racist time the Senate thought it was good to have a special rule that basically only applied to preventing civil rights legislation.
It is only in the past year few years it has turned into a de facto 60 vote threshold for anything. Combine that with the fact that our political parties are becoming more ideologically unified, and it has made our Senate truly unworkable. The pure nonsensical stupidity of how the chamber is now run is a national shame.
This was obvious for a long time to any rational observer, but most Senators trying to jealously guard their power under the guise of defending “tradition” were slow to acknowledge reality. Now that even the leader of the Senate is forced to acknowledge what a joke the rules have turned the chamber into, reform is probably not far off.
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Filibuster reform would be nice; better to get rid of the Senate.
Where the hell was Hand-Wringing Harry Reid in 2009 and 2011, when the new Senate organized and the Democrats were in the majority and could have scaled back the GOP’s use of the filibuster?
As far as I’m concerned, Reid has zero credibility.
I agree. I am all for getting rid of the filibuster, even though it means no stopping future Republican majorities. But strikes me as awfully convenient for the forces of regressivism for Reid to now support getting rid of it just months before an election that many predict will give Republicans a slim majority in the Senate. Awfully convenient.
Mmmmm hmmmm, someone is in fear of being in the minority again.
You know who gave us the filibuster? Aaron Burr. This was shortly after he shot Alexander Hamilton and shortly before he tried to set up an independent nation composed of the Midwest, Southwest, and parts of Mexico, resulting in his being tried for (but acquitted of) treason.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_in_the_United_States_Senate
“In 1789, the first U.S. Senate adopted rules allowing the Senate “to move the previous question”, ending debate and proceeding to a vote. Aaron Burr argued that the motion regarding the previous question was redundant, had only been exercised once in the preceding four years, and should be eliminated.[2] In 1806, the Senate agreed, recodifying its rules, and thus the potential for a filibuster sprang into being.”
Just in time to cut the social safety net with 51 votes!
What could be more weak and pitiful than a party disempowering itself for fear of how others will beat them up when they have power ? Well ,dem leaders use the filibuster as an apologist for not passing anything that would piss off their corporate pimps,so I guess my query should ask how supporters,who fancy themselves as being smarter than teabaggers , could be suckered into believing such a scam .This filibuster regression ,and the senate in general.show a complete disdain for democracy .Surely such pansy-ass elements were pivotal to losing it .
Did the senate really require 60 votes to pass legislation when w was in the wh? What is the purpose of changing now? Can’t it wait until the new congress is in session? If the repugs are in charge, it will change anyway.
oops.. too late.
Reid is pathetic, as is the entire Democratic Party.
Yes abolish it. Two senators for CA, two for Wyoming? I don’t think so.
Harry Reid suddenly felt his spine? No. He is bloviating sensing it won’t happen (because Dims will loose control in 2012). If Dims retain control, then Harry will go etch-a-sketching.
The elite are nervous.
There are so many right-wing wackos popping up in the Republican party that legislation the elite need to increase/preserve their wealth may be blocked in the senate due to issues the elite don’t give a shit about like: racism, sex or Christian values/intolerance.
The Senate has the filibuster, an institution so sacred that is has not been altered since 1979. Or perhaps the Democrats are deeply committed to the democratic principle that 11% of the country’s population – those in the 21 least populous states – should exercise veto power over the other 89%. Richard Anderson-Connolly, 2010
They shouldn’t reform filibuster, but get rid of it entirely. It won’t happen, though, since filibuster is too useful and convenient to both sides, regardless of when either of them is in the minority or majority.
Without formally junking filibuster, or even reforming it, the 2010 enhanced use of reconciliation with ACA is intriguing. Maybe that will be replayed by both sides again and again going forward whenever it’s seen as the only way to get something. I wonder if that’s all the “reform” we’ll see.
I think medicinecat @6 nailed it —
BTW … when was the fillibuster used by the Dims to REALLY stop the lying thieving scum ?? yawn.
at least with the right wing senators, I have never voted for them! I’ve voted FOR kerry / kennedy / cantwell / murray … ugh, disgusting diaper pissers, all.
yup … I’m even looking back at too often bipartisan Teddy as part of the problem … to hell with all of them.
harry reid is a fucking liar, and, once again, Jon Walker delivers a dkos front page worthy diary. “Mean Meanies Are Mean!”
rmm.
Good luck with that, Harry.
Naw. Just 50 and Uncle Joe.
Who woulda thunk Harry Reid would raise ending the filibuster as an election issue (says this hardened and cynical liberal Democrat)?
Reid, Obama and the DLC-controlled Democrats would love for their supporters to believe it’s all the Republicans’ fault.
Yes, Republicans are scum, but the fact of the matter is that Democrats haven’t needed Republicans and have pulled their punches (hoping ignorant voters wouldn’t know the rules that the Senate and the House operate under) and helped pass corporate-friendly legislation. Like Obama’s healthcare bill, without a public option, that does not provide affordable, quality medical treatment for everyone, and that was passed in the end through reconciliation (50 + 1).
Republicans haven’t filibustered; they’ve threatened to filibuster. And Harry Reid made a deal with Mitch McConnell, to let Republicans do that. Harry Reid has refused to exercise the discretion that Senate Rule 22 allows: Making Republicans actually filibuster, instead of just threatening to do it. Rule 22 gives the Senate Majority Leader the discretion to actually make the call.
Filibustering is hard on those soft, pampered bodies. Harry Reid should have forced them do it, over every issue where Republicans have threatened to do it — Americans love reality TV. ‘Survivor – E Capitol St NE and 1st St NE’. The few times Reid has forced Republicans to actually filibuster, when Democrats have really needed whatever the issue was (like when Jim Bunning threatened to filibuster over extending unemployment benefits), Republicans caved.
But Obama and the DLC-controlled Democratic Party didn’t, won’t, let Reid force Republicans to filibuster. Because it might actually work to get Democratic voters’ legislative agenda made into the law of the land and do good for the People, but at less profit to corporations. And that’s not what Obama and Company are there for. They are there to do the work of the transnational corporations, and preventing that are the liberals, which Obama has excluded from his administration and silenced throughout government.
So that Obama can reach out for Republicans, and water down the legislation, make it Republican-like. Legislation that Republicans won’t vote for anyway, because everything that the parties do, both parties, is for the next election campaign. So Republican-like legislation gets passed, with Democrats signing on, and that makes the corporations happy. And Republicans can count on their ‘dumb as tree stumps’-constituents’ votes, because Republicans in Congress stood firm against Democrats. And all the while Obama and the DLC-controlled Democrats work to prevent any more liberals and progressives from getting elected.
We’ve known for years, before Obama got into the White House, that Republicans would obstruct everything that Democrats tried to do. Republicans said they would during the 2008 campaign, which wasn’t any surprise to anybody who had been paying attention to what had been going on in Washington over the past couple of decades, but most particularly the previous 8 years. Whenever Democrats weren’t lining up to sign onto Bush-Cheney-GOP policies and legislation, they were locked out of the congressional committee meetings where they served in minority status.
Once Obama got into the White House and he and Democratic politicians were running out of excuses for playing hardball with Republican’ obstruction, Reid and Democrats said, “Senate rules can’t be changed in the middle of a congressional session”, which isn’t true; Senate rules can be changed at any time, not just at the start of a new Congress (see page 6 – http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/45448.pdf ). Democrats could even change the supermajority rule by simple majority (50 + 1).
Nor is there just one way (or even two or three or more ways) for Democrats to get bills passed despite Republicans’ obstructionistic tactics. But first they have to want to do it, with the fierce urgency of now (don’t click on that link, don’t watch it, if you aren’t prepared and can’t bear to have any remaining cherished illusions about Obama destroyed).