Filibuster reform: Day late and a dollar short

stein@huffingtonpost.com | HuffPost Reporting

WASHINGTON -- Senate Democrats will try to reform the rules of the chamber when the next Congress begins according to one of the body's primary filibuster-reform advocates said Wednesday morning.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who has championed a weakening of the procedural mechanism that allows the minority party to hold up legislation. He predicted "fireworks" on Jan. 5, 2011. The Senate can, he argued, revamp its rules by a simple majority vote.

Harkin is armed with a lot of history, Harkin said, "I know the rules, and I know the procedures too, so we will see what happens on the fifth."

"[Former Sen.] Robert Byrd in 1975, the last time that last time that we changed the rules and [brought the filibuster threshold] from 67 [votes] down to 60, actually stated on the floor that a majority, 51 senators, could change the rules.

And that's what we intend to do and that is what we are working on right now. We are coming on the fifth to basically send a motion to the vice president ... that will change the rules and there is a procedure to provide 51 votes to do that.

Robert Byrd said that in 1975 and that's what we are going to try to do."

Essentially, that path to reform requires Vice President Joe Biden -- who supports weakening the filibuster -- to rule on the first day of the next session that the Senate has the authority to write its own rules.

Republicans, presumably, would immediately move to object, but Democrats could then move to table the objection, setting up a key up-or-down vote.

If 50 Democrats voted to table the objection, the Senate would then move to a vote on a new set of rules, which could be approved by a simple majority.


Imagine if the Senate Democrats had been bolder and had done this two years ago. It wouldn't have taken a year to get health care reformed and dozens of federal judges would be seated by now.


American democracy will be improved by this change. The government does need need to be held hostage by ideologues like Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn.


One word of caution: the tyranny of the majority: there are some issues regarding race, sex and gender and nationality that should require a super-majority.

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editor: Middle Class Warrior