Will the Senate Dems change the rules of the Senate on January 5th? How will it work? What’s likely to happen? You can get a decent primer on all of this from Brian Beutler over at TPMDC.
I think the answer to the first question is ‘yes’ the Democrats will begin a process on January 5th that will result in changes in the Senate rules. But it’s very hard to predict how it will all play out. The first thing the reformers need to do is to demonstrate that they have the support of Vice-President Joe Biden. Then they need to show the Republicans that they have 50 votes in their Caucus to change the rules. Once they accomplish those two things, it’s likely that Mitch McConnell will be willing to cut a deal.
At the end of the process I think we’ll see a fairly modest reform that does not do away with the 60-vote cloture rule. But I think it will make it much more politically painful to obstruct and lead the opposition to choose its battles very carefully. We’ll go from having every bill and every nomination held hostage to a situation where the GOP will let low level nominees get a vote so they can save their bullets for a few big fights.
I think they’ll make it so you have to physically maintain a filibuster and that you have to produce 41 votes for one. They’ll also change the rules so that you can only filibuster a bill once, not at every point in the process from calling the bill up, to ending debate, to having a final vote. It should speed things up a bit.
And if a party really doesn’t want something to happen, like see another Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court, they still have the power to obstruct with a mere 41 votes. Here is hoping I am right. Some reforms are obviously necessary.
Boo, it seems that the new year has made you a font of optimism about intractable problems (!)
Worth listening to.
If they have 50 votes + Biden why do they have to cut a deal?
Nonetheless, the reforms you predict would be quite powerful, and pretty much solve the problem of kneejerk obstruction from the moron side of the aisle. I appreciate your optimism, but the package seems too astute for the Dems to manage. I’d like to see the number to filibuster bumped up to at least 45, but the changes you think possible would suffice for now. Still hoping that someday soon the whole filibuster scam is dumped in its entirety, though, along with the rest of the House of Lords parliamentary bullshit. America’s New Years resolution should be to put an end, at long last, to our love affair with royalism in every sphere.
JUST DO IT
Cut a deal? If they are going to be accused of a power grab, they might as well make it a power grab. Otherwise folks are going to be pitying those poor Republican minorities (talk about a politically loaded word) who have to kow-tow to those awful Democrats.
It’s time that Democrats remember the second part of Goldwater’s famous line and throw it back at the Republicans: “Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
Stupid question: why exactly would they not have the support of Joe Biden? Has he been lukewarm toward the idea of filibuster reform? I find that a bit unlikely.
NCrissieB over at BPI Campus, has done a wonderful a three part series in morning feature on the Senate Filibuster, definitely worth reading before Monday.. .especially this last one on the procedural details that must happen
http://bpicampus.com/2010/12/31/morning-feature-the-filibuster-part-iii-the-devil-in-the-details/
They really ought to get rid of the secret holds, too. And not just the secret part, like I keep hearing about, but get rid of the holds altogether. There’s no way to justify allowing a single senator to block an appointment indefinitely. For a limited period of time, maybe, and with limits on how many senators can block a given appointee, but the Tom Coburn business shouldn’t even be possible.