Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon has circulated a memo on his “talking filibuster” reform. It’s nice to see the details spelled out. The key element pertains to situations where there are at least 51 votes for cloture, but not sixty. Next year, there will be 55 members of the Democratic caucus and 45 members of the Republican caucus, so any party-line vote would fall into the affected category.
Under the current rules, the filibuster works by being tied to the unanimous consent requirement of the Senate. As such, it is much more powerful than a rule tied strictly to ending debate. Whenever the Majority Leader makes a motion to move to a new issue, he must receive the unanimous consent of all 100 senators. If anyone objects, he needs to file for cloture, wait two days, get 60 votes to approve his move, and then allow 30 hours of post-cloture debate.
Merkley’s talking filibuster doesn’t change any of those basics. But let’s say that Harry Reid wants to hold a vote on extending the middle class tax cuts for 98% of Americans and makes a motion to move to that bill. If anyone objects, he will still file for cloture. After two days, when the cloture motion has “ripened” there would be a vote. If it were a party-line vote, he’d get 55 votes. In today’s world, he would be defeated. Under the proposed reforms, however, having received a majority of the votes a new process of “extended debate” would be triggered. During this extended debate, at least one minority senator would have to be on the floor at all times talking against the bill. If they failed to keep talking, a new cloture vote could be scheduled requiring only a majority to pass. Otherwise, the 60 vote threshold would be maintained.
If you want additional details, follow the link.
How would this look? Let’s imagine a Supreme Court nomination opposed by the Republicans. As of today, it would take 41 Republicans to prevent even having a debate on that nominee. Under the proposed reforms, 51 Democrats could force a debate to the floor. Once on the floor, the Republicans would have to speak against the nominee incessantly to block a simple majority confirmation vote. Would the Republicans be able to block a nominee under these circumstances? The answer is that they could if they were determined enough.
But they wouldn’t be willing to do it unless there were exceptional circumstances.
Thinking back to the nomination of Robert Bork, the Democrats ultimately defeated him 58-42 without needing to filibuster. That was, in part, because six Republicans opposed him while only two Democrats supported him. Yet, if the composition of the Senate had been more favorable to the Republicans (as it was when they confirmed Samuel Alito, for example), the Democrats could have stopped Bork by using the extended debate period to essentially win the argument in the court of public opinion.
I think that is how the filibuster ought to work. The majority gets to govern, but if they try anything crazy, the minority can hold everything up and make a determined plea to the people to reject what has been proposed.
I think these reforms make sense. I support them.
You are forgetting, however, the minority is crazy. And try they will.
I think we will find out soon enough if they are really crazy or not.
If they decide to obstruct everything by talking-filibuster they will have a giant backlash, so they will have to change as there is no way they will get away with that crap. If they really are crazy we may see them vaporize into thin air.
Its not that its forgotten that they are crazy and will try, its that its obvious they will be held responsible more than they are now, so please let them try to talk their way into oblivion.
It sounds like Merkly’s filibuster is what the ordinary American schmoe (like me) THOUGHT the filibuster was—until we came to sites like this and learned about motions to proceed and “silent filibusters”. That explained how in the world the McConnell’s Mouseketeers could muster almost 400 filibusters—because they were phony filibusters.
Let’s go back to the Jimmy Stewart days.
yes. It basically makes it a requirement that a party filibuster rather than just one dude gumming up the works. It takes away minority rule and replaces it with minority rights.
“The majority gets to govern, but if they try anything crazy, the minority can hold everything up and make a determined plea to the people to reject what has been proposed. “
a good idea,except that only in “Mr. Smith goes to Congress” is the filibuster about public opinion.
The purpose of the filibuster is to hold hostage the rest of the government long enough that the opposition essentially gives up says its not worth it.
Which is fine. Its the way it should be.
Why does this continue to look like a bipartisan conspiracy to make the rules so complicated that voters will not understand who voted for what and that incumbents with long tenure have a procedural advantage in knowing the strategies for manipulating complex rules? Easy way out. Strip out the requirement for unanimous consent. And all the rules based on majority faction-minority faction assumptions. Make the arguments the merits not the procedures. What is the minimal set of rules necessary to get the business of deliberation done and gain closure on a decision? Of course it won’t happen because it will… Read more »
This seems like as near a perfect plan as we’re going to get. It ends the filibuster we’ve come to know and hate, while allowing the minority a chance to show the depth of their opposition by the sacrifice of time and energy they’re willing to make and their willingness to accept responsibility for trying to block bills and appointments.
It seems better than Reid’s plan, but maybe that’s because the details were never explained. Or are they basically the same thing?