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When the 112th session of the Senate begins tomorrow morning, Democrats' first order of legislative business will be an effort to change the Senate rules, limiting the minority party’s ability to filibuster or block legislation.
But Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is reminding Democrats they fought this fight before, almost 15 years to the day, and lost soundly.
In a op-ed written for Wednesday's Washington Post, McConnell recalls the first vote of the 104th Congress on January 5, 1995. It was a bill offered by Democratic Sen.Tom Harkin that would have allowed a simple majority of 51 votes to break a filibuster instead of the 60 this is required under current Senate rules.
That proposal failed by a vote of 76-19.
When the vote was taken in 1995, Republicans had just regained the majority for the first time in 40 years. In the short term, it would have been advantageous for the newly empowered Republicans to support the rule change, thus giving the GOP an extraordinary opportunity to push their agenda without a threat of a Democratic filibuster.
But every Republican voted against it.
"What every Republican senator, and many Democratic senators, realized at the time was that any attempt by a sitting majority to grasp at power would come back to haunt us," McConnell writes. "Even worse, any rule change aimed at making it easier for one party to force legislation through the Senate with only a slim partisan majority would undermine the Senate's unique role as a moderating influence and put a permanent end to bipartisanship."
Of the Democrats who voted with Republicans back in 1995, ten are still serving: Majority Leader Harry Reid, Daniel Akaka, Max Baucus, Kent Conrad, Dianne Feinstein, Daniel Inouye, Herb Kohl, Carl Levin, Barbara Mikulski, and Patty Murray.
Sponsors of filibuster reform will officially introduce their plan Wednesday, although no action is expected until after the Senate returns from their two week recess. But it's unclear if backers of the changes have the votes to change the rules. And while Reid has not vocally discouraged the proposal, his support so far appears lukewarm.
"Senator Reid understands the concerns of Senators and the American people about the ability for a small minority of the minority to prevent the Senate from legislating,” said Reid spokesperson Regan Lachapelle, adding that reform is “an issue that Senator Reid will continue to look at.”
In the waning days of the last Congress, retiring Sen. Chris Dodd acknowledged his Democratic colleagues’ "anger with the repetitive use and abuse of the filibuster," but he noted that many of the most vocal supporters of the rules change are first term senators who have never served in the minority.
“Whether such temptation [to change the rules] is motivated by noble desire to speed up the legislative process or by pure political expediency, I believe such changes would be unwise," Dodd said.
Msnbc.com's Carrie Dann contributed to this report.
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republican's say they want the rule to continue so that they can slow down everything. the problem is that life doesn't slow down for the people of america and the rest of the world. while they play politic, people lives are being affected. they democrates need to pass this rule change. the rule say when a new senate take power, they can make their own rules. so if the republican's don't like it, then they can change it. saying no and blocking every peice of bill, is not a way to govern. if you don't like something, vote no, don't block it from a vote. what kind of country are we living in, where a few not even a few, one person can change the course of the rest of the country. when one republican held up unemployment for months, he affected millions of people. why allow that, why give so much power to one person. make the changes and let all the backup bill from the congress get an up and down vote. simple.
the republican's are going to get kicked out come 2012, because again, the fools that voted them in are going to realize they are not good at governing and don't have any idea that doesn't only favor big business at the expense of the middle class.
Did anyone else catch the interesting part of this BS of Congress.....they reconvene tomorrow for ONE day, then take another two weeks off before getting to work? And we taxpayers are paying their salary and their staffs' salaries during all of these breaks? That's worse than all of the government days off here in the USVI where we know we get nothing done by the government from December 15 to January 10 on St. Croix and from April 15 to May 10 in St. Thomas (carnival celebrations.)
There is no filibuster in the original Constitution. Get rid of the damned thing. ALL it does is allow gridlock
There is no public mandate allowed in the original constitution, nor IRS or fed imposed income tax of any kind, nor entitlements or earmarks or lobbying. No central bank or fed bank. Now you want to cite the constitution in it's original form? How convenient!
The problem is the 1975 new rule filibuster, not the real filibuster.
A real filibuster can only delay an eventual vote, delay is fine. It is the fake "procedural" filibuster which is destroying representative democracy. Let us be rid of the fake filibuster and keep the real one. The dems should be allowed the same number of abuses of the Procedural filibuster before it is abolished for them. They should have 200+ fake filibusters in their quiver to be used against Republican legislation before we are back to even.
David,
Actually it can be easily argued that the U.S. Constitution does in fact make allowance for filibuster based on the text in Article I, Section 5, Paragraph ii where it states "Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings..."; thereby compelling the Senate to set the rules of its governance, one of which is the filibuster.
Further I would submit that gridlock is preferable to capricious legislation rushed through the process without proper vetting and consideration where upon it is then foisted upon an unsuspecting public.
Regardless of one's political philosophies and in light of how the governing pendulum swings isn't it better to wisely take enough time to properly consider a piece of legislation? As well, is the ability to filibuster a tool to protect minority interests against being steam rolled by a frothed up majority; and usually a not very well informed minority at that. After all, is not one of the basic tenets of American society to protect the minority, weak and disenfranchised against the mentality of mobs and masses?
given how the republicans kept using the filebuster on every thing including the lame duck. session. the dems not only should fix it so they lower the number need to break them but also make the next time the dems run things the republicans wind up with their one weapon out of power weaken so more stuff can get done. instead of blocked or having to be revoted on.
I think this is an important issue that needs to be dealt with. On one hand, it is dangerous to mess too much with these types of rules because, after all, the Senate is structured to operate a bit slower. But, when you have a party of "no" who is unwilling to hear debate, you've got a other problem. It seems to me that several Senators are scared to even allow certain issues on the floor, which is the problem I find to be paramount. All issues should be heard on the floor. Maybe allowing for filibuster reform will allow actual debates to take place, because if you haven't noticed, Senators do not "debate" on the floor hardly at all.
I support filibuster reform.
Any senator who wants to filibuster should be allowed to do so!! He should take the floor and start debating without any interruption. When he decides to stop, he gives up the floor and the filibuster is over. THAT is the only reform needed---- going back to the original rule!!
Isn't that what the Democrats are trying to achieve?
why dont they make it 50 to bring to a vote and 60 to pass, instead of 60 to bring to a vote and 50 to pass, of course that would be like taking things seriously enough to put their names to a vote on everything
Reid! Just do it. You are turning out to be the Biggest WHIMP since George Bush Jr. If you don't wake up soon! You better submit your retirement papers. You will not be back after this term. I am unfortunately a DEMOCRAT and am outraged on the beating we took because of the SKIRT WEARING DEMOCRATS running this party. Have you heard of the new group that has formulated to counteract the Tea Party. It's called GUNS N ROSES. Enough of the gun totting Republicans. They better BEWARE of us.
I would rather Al Qaeda be elected over a republicans. The republican party does not deserve the power it has.
I agree with Senator McConnell that the Senate rules should remain the same in order to maintain our system of checks and balances. Bear in mind that for about 200 years, cloture required the votes of sixty-seven Senators as opposed to the sixty needed today. Given that the size of the necessary majority changed only thirty-five years ago (in 1975 with Rule 22), I think we should refrain from further tinkering with Senate rules.
Colin, are you just going to ignore the procedural filibuster's unique ability to table legislation forever?
The real filibuster doesn't have that power, but the fake one does.
67 cloture votes were relatively easy to get when no one could go home during a real filibuster.
With the fake filibuster, everyone gets to go home, so no one changes their minds about their postitions. The pain of the real filibuster is supposed to stimulate attention and compromise.
Rule 22 was intended to allow the Senate to move along doing two things at once. They didn't anticipate that it would be used by the minority of 41 senators to TABLE every bill that came to them after passing the House. The speed enhancement backfired. Instead of speeding the passage of bills which had bipartisan support, by skipping over legislation which didn't have enough of that bi-partisan support, it made the Senate behave as a more partisan body.
Hence we got the gridlock of the empowered MINORITY. This favors the status quo and conservatism over our democratic principles.
We either tinker some more, or eliminate the procedural fake filibuster entirely, once the dems have abused it as many times as the Republicans have.
Colin..... but at THAT time, a Senator launching a filibuster had to continually hold the floor without giving it up---- in other words, keep speaking and the business of the Senate STOPPED!!! ! If the Senator stopped speaking or gave up the floor, then the filibuster ended. The current rules make to far to easy to stop a bill, which was not the original intent. The Rule of the Senate is unlimited debate unless the Senate voted for cloture or the objecting senator stopped the debate. That is what we should return to!
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
The political system is broken - congress was never meant to be a career, fundraising was never meant to take up the majority of an elected term, districts were never meant to be surrendered, and filibusters were never meant to provide an abusive minority the ability to bring governance of the country to a complete standstill.
There are straightforward ways to fix all these problems, although I doubt it will ever happen.
We should impose term limits - say, allow one term below age 30 and one term above age 30, in each branch of congress.
Funding for campaigns should be strictly public and strictly even, so voters choose based on policy positions and not on who throws around more money.
Districts should be reset - easy enough to use a computer to set evenly distributed districts, so once again votes are based on policy positions and not on where you live.
Finally, filibusters should apply to voting only, not blocking debate; the person doing it should have to stand there and talk, with 40 other objecting members present, and secret hold should be completely eliminated.
Then again, all that would make sense and besides, career politicians could no longer swill huge globs of money from the "sponsor" trough, so don't hold your breath waiting
The voting rules should not change but we must put the 'pain' back in the filibuster. Keep the senate in session and make the senator speak continuously. They would not be so willing to filibuster if they could not just go home.
" Of the Democrats who voted with Republicans back in 1995, ten are still serving: Majority Leader Harry Reid, Daniel Akaka, Max Baucus, Kent Conrad, Dianne Feinstein, Daniel Inouye, Herb Kohl, Carl Levin, Barbara Mikulski, and Patty Murray" . Harry Reid voted against it then. Harry should keep his party members in line.
The principal charge against the filibuster is that it is anti-democratic. It is not. Instead, the the filibuster is one of the many checks that prevent intense, but temporary, majorities from tyrannizing the rest of us. The filibuster is one of the structural checks that moderate and thus thus sustain our durable republican form of government. In the last Congress, the House mistook the voters dislike of Bush and frustration with the wars as enthusiasm for their statist agenda, and the House passed hundreds of bills that languished in the Senate. If, however, a durable majority -- one that lasts through several election cycles -- desires to change a major policy obstructed by a minority filibuster, the next election is there to change the composition of the Senate, the ultimate democratic way of invoking cloture.
The fake procedural filibuster is unconstitutional. It is not a check or a balance.
here we go again the demons want to controle everything. if it don't go their way then change it , the dems are new socialist party no suprise.
Gary. do you have any idea just how silly you sound when you call the Democrats "Socialists". I would think you'd realize that it is a old republican trick, meant to conjure the communist scare of the early 50s! Dont forget, it was a DEMOCRAT that saved this country from a possible socialist revolution at the polls. During the Great Depression, there was a strong socialist movement in this country so that the economic pain could end. FDR, by acting with government programs that put a lot of people to work, actually SAVED capitalism in this country. The right wing ( major corporations and the monied elite) , afraid of a government takeover, AND acting in a VERY partisan manner, actually plotted a coup against FDR to stop him! They actually wanted to Have a Marine General Smedly Butler run the country under their guidance while keeping FDR in a "safe " place! ( See: Business Plot). So you see, it all sounds very silly to be braying "socialist"!!