Filibuster reform: Forcing senators to talk

Harry Reid has a plan to fix the broken Senate, said Eric Zorn in the Chicago Tribune. The Senate majority leader wants to reform the filibuster, the legislative tool that allows the minority party to block legislation and presidential nominees. Originally used only as a last resort, the filibuster once required “nonstop speechifying” on the Senate floor to block a vote. But nowadays, all the minority party has to do is file a “hold.” And the Republican Party has used this blocking tactic an unprecedented 386 times since 2007, requiring the Democrats to amass a 60-vote super-majority to end filibusters on virtually every bill and nomination. Just 2.8 percent of bills introduced in this Congress have been passed, said the Los Angeles Times in an editorial, a “record low in modern times.” That kind of obstructionism is not what the Founders envisioned. Under Reid’s plan, senators who wanted to block legislation would have to spend hours and hours talking on the Senate floor, the way Strom Thurmond did in a failed attempt to block the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

In the guise of reform, Democrats are making a “naked power grab,” said Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in HumanEvents.com. The Senate’s current rules exist to allow the minority party to check the power of majorities, and encourage lawmakers to seek compromise. By unilaterally neutering the filibuster, Democrats would “poison party relations,” extinguishing “the very possibility of compromise.” Harry Reid should heed the words of a young senator who said that tampering with the filibuster “would change the character of the Senate forever,” said Kerry Picket in The Washington Times. That senator? Barack Obama, when the GOP majority sought to change the Senate rules in 2005.

Let the Republican Chicken Littles cry that the sky is falling, said Timothy Noah in TNR.com. Reid’s “insanely radical” rule change would merely require a real commitment of time and energy to bring Senate business to a halt. Provided it could keep talking, “the minority would still be free to filibuster to its heart’s delight.” And believe me, it would, said Jonathan Bernstein in WashingtonPost.com. Once Republicans took to the floor in a valiant, telegenic effort to save the nation from, say, immigration reform, Fox News and “the rest of the Republican-aligned media” would cheer them on as heroes—rewarding and hardening conservative obstructionism. Beware, Democrats, of what you wish for.

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