Dems United on Filibuster Reform, Follow Merkley's Plan

Jeff Alworth

As the most-surprising, least lame lame-duck session in memory winds down, the Dems save their biggest surprise for last. Every single returning Democrat has signed a letter demanding change to Senate filibuster rules.

The letter, delivered this week, expresses general frustration with what Democrats consider unprecedented obstruction and asks Reid to take steps to end those abuses.... The fact that every returning Democrat signed the letter circulated by Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Mark Warner, D-Va., urging changes underscores growing determination on the part of the Senate’s majority to raise the bars for filibusters.

Ezra Klein details the contours of the bill, which appear to follow Jeff Merkley's proposals:

[T]he basic outline looks to take its cues from Sen. Jeff Merkley's proposal: Filibusters would require continuous debate on the floor of the Senate, and they would only be allowed once the bill is on the floor (no more filibustering the motion to debate a bill, for instance). Democrats would also like to see the dead time between calling for a vote to break a filibuster and actually taking the vote reduced.

The Senate is so heavily larded with byzantine rules, that there are lots of ways to kill legislation--but the easiest is to let bills die from time-starvation:

While many Americans understand that you need 60 votes to break a filibuster, relatively few realize that you need about a week of floor time on the Senate to even take those votes -- and the minority has been quick to understand that time is precious in the modern Senate, and so the mere threat of a filibuster on less-pressing items like nominations is enough to stop them cold. It's not that Reid doesn't have 60 votes to break the filibuster, but that he doesn't have a week to spend doing it.

I'd add that this may not be the revolutionary change it looks like. The Senate has long functioned along the lines of courtly detente--although rules allow the minority to block or slow legislation, parties have been reluctant to deploy every trick at their disposal. Since power shifts back and forth, Senators in the minority have not wanted to create precedents that would further erode their power in the majority. That all changed in the last four years, as the GOP used the filibuster and the practice of secret holds--both targets of Merkley's plan--to tie up work in the Senate. Many times, legislation that would pass by huge majorities--like the recent START treaty--get killed before the GOP have to vote. And Obama's nominees for executive and judicial appointments have been stalled in shocking, record fashion. So these changes won't tip the scale back toward the Dems; it will tip the scales back toward the former levels of majority/minority balance.

If they do manage to hold together and make these changes, we'll have seen the wisdom of exchanging Jeff Merkley for Gordon Smith quite quickly (in Senate years).

By Jeff Alworth Dec. 23, 2010