President Joe Biden\u2019s announcement last week that he would
\nsupport an exception to the filibuster to protect abortion rights made
\nheadlines, but two Democratic U.S. senators soon dashed any hope that they
\nwould waive the rule that blocks almost all partisan legislation from moving forward.<\/p>\n
A similar story played out over U.S. Senate Democrats\u2019
\nattempts to pass national voting rights laws in October and January. The
\nfilibuster effectively requires at least 60 members of the Senate to support a
\nmeasure. Democrats Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona
\nwon\u2019t agree to end it or support exceptions.<\/p>\n
Oregon\u2019s U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, the Democrat leading the
\nparty\u2019s filibuster reform efforts, contends that he has a better solution. So
\nfar, he hasn\u2019t persuaded Manchin, Sinema or any Republicans, but the 47 other
\nDemocrats support his proposal. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen people say \u2018Jeff, you\u2019re leading the effort to get rid
\nof the filibuster,\u2019 I\u2019m like, \u2018No, I\u2019m leading the effort to reform the
\nfilibuster,\u2019\u201d Merkley told the Capital Chronicle. \u201cWe want the minority to have
\na voice. We want them to have leverage. We want the Senate to be where every
\nsenator counts, but not a place that encourages partisanship and paralysis,
\nwhich is what we have now in this current silent, secret filibuster where
\nnobody even has to speak on the floor.\u201d <\/p>\n
His solution? Make senators talk.<\/p>\n
Today, the filibuster doesn\u2019t look much like the famous
\nscene from \u201cMr. Smith Goes to Washington,\u201d where an idealistic and politically
\nnaive freshman senator played by Jimmy Stewart spent nearly 24 hours on his
\nfeet arguing against corruption and reading from the U.S. Constitution. At the
\ntime of the 1939 film, and until the early 1970s, senators had to stand and
\ntalk if they wanted to block a vote. <\/p>\n
Now, all it takes is an acknowledgement that 41 senators
\nwill oppose moving to a vote on a bill. Senators don\u2019t need to make their case
\nin speeches from the Senate floor, or even be there \u2013 just sending an email is
\nenough to prevent a bill from coming to the floor.<\/p>\n
Merkley said he was shocked by the \u201cparalysis\u201d in the Senate
\nafter his 2008 election. The Senate wasn\u2019t this gridlocked ??when he interned
\nin 1976 for Sen. Mark Hatfield, a former Oregon governor. Nor was the Oregon
\nLegislature, where he had served as House Speaker.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Senate of 1976 and the Oregon Legislature both
\noperated under majority rule, but any business in the modern Senate requires a
\nsupermajority vote. That means bills take much longer, and any major
\nlegislation that stands a chance of passing ends up in a \u201cmega-bill,\u201d Merkley
\nsaid. The latest major voting rights legislation congressional Democrats
\nproposed this spring is more than 700 pages, and the bipartisan infrastructure
\nlaw passed last year takes up more than 1,000. <\/p>\n
These days, the majority party does most of its work through
\nbudget reconciliation bills that aren\u2019t subject to filibusters. The scope of
\nthose bills is somewhat limited to raising or spending money \u2013 but both parties
\nhave used reconciliation for major policy changes, including large tax cuts in
\nthe Bush and Trump administrations and last year\u2019s Covid relief measure. The
\nAffordable Care Act, the Obama administration\u2019s signature health care law,
\nwasn\u2019t passed through budget reconciliation, but Republicans tried to use
\nreconciliation to repeal it. <\/p>\n
The filibuster gives whatever party is in the minority an
\nincentive not to compromise, Merkley said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was an idea introduced by (former Speaker Newt)
\nGingrich in the House: you don\u2019t try to get your stuff passed in the minority.
\nYou just try to paralyze the majority,\u201d Merkley said. \u201cAnd in the Senate,
\n(Republican Leader Mitch) McConnell had a super-weapon for this goal of
\nparalyzing the majority. So the current filibuster encourages paralysis and
\npartisanship; the talking filibuster gives an incentive for both sides to be in
\ndialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under his proposal, a simple majority of senators could vote
\nto start debate on a bill in its final form. Every senator would have two
\nchances to speak, and for an unlimited time period. It could take weeks, like
\nthe stalemate over the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when a group of southern
\nsenators spent two and a half months delivering speeches and forcing votes on
\namendments until a bipartisan majority ended their filibuster. <\/p>\n
A talking filibuster means the minority would have to do the
\nhard work of having people on the floor continuously talking and making their
\ncase, he said, and it would provide an incentive to the majority party to
\nnegotiate deals to avoid losing days or weeks of time as their colleagues
\nprotest. <\/p>\n
Merkley said he would still support such a change if he were
\nin the minority. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur institutions are in deep disrepair,\u201d he said. \u201cHaving a
\nsystem in the Senate that encourages partisanship and paralysis is a horrific
\nsituation, and I\u2019m just immersed in trying to change that. I have 48 votes to
\nchange it. We need 50.\u201d <\/p>\n
Oregon\u2019s senior senator, Ron Wyden, said he supported ending
\nthe filibuster altogether.<\/p>\n
\u201cArcane Senate rules like the filibuster shouldn\u2019t stand in
\nthe way of protecting abortion rights,\u201d Wyden said. \u201cAnd yes, I have called for
\nthe end to the filibuster as well for voting rights \u2014 the essential building
\nblock of democracy. It\u2019s no small irony that an esoteric procedure to thwart a
\nmajority vote is weakening that fundamental voting right for all Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u2013 Capital Chronicle Editor Lynne Terry contributed
\ninformar<\/i><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Joe Biden\u2019s announcement last week that he would support an exception to the filibuster to protect abortion rights made headlines, but two Democratic U.S. senators soon dashed any hope that they would waive the rule that blocks almost all partisan legislation from moving forward. A similar story played out over U.S. Senate Democrats\u2019 attempts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n