Resolved: Fix the Filibuster

By WALTER F. MONDALE
NYT

Minneapolis

WE all have hopes for the New Year. Here’s one of mine: filibuster reform. It was around this time 36 years ago — during a different recession — that I was part of a bipartisan effort to reform Senate Rule 22, the cloture rule. At the time, 67 votes were needed to cut off debate and thus end a filibuster, and nothing was getting done. After long negotiations, a compromise lowered to 60 the cloture vote requirement on legislation and nominations. We hoped this moderate change would preserve debate and deliberation while avoiding paralysis, and for a while it did.

But it’s now clear that our reform was insufficient for today’s more partisan, increasingly gridlocked Senate. In 2011, senators should pull back the curtain on Senate obstruction and once again amend the filibuster rules.

Reducing the number of votes to end a filibuster, perhaps to 55, is one option. Requiring a filibustering senator to actually speak on the Senate floor for the duration of a filibuster would also help. So, too, would reforms that bring greater transparency — like eliminating the secret “holds” that allow senators to block debate anonymously.

Our country faces major challenges — budget deficits, high unemployment and two wars, to name just a few — and needs a functioning legislative branch to address these pressing issues. Certainly some significant legislation passed in the last two years, but too much else fell by the wayside. The Senate never even considered some appropriations and authorization bills, and failed to settle on a federal budget for all of next year. Votes on this sort of legislation used to be routine, but with the new frequency of the filibuster, a supermajority is needed to pass almost anything. As a result the Senate is arguably more dysfunctional than at any time in recent history.

(More here.)

You have read this article with the title Resolved: Fix the Filibuster. You can bookmark this page URL http://ogbcommunity.blogspot.com/2011/01/resolved-fix-filibuster.html. Thanks!