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Sunday, September 26, 2010

Still Hope for Reform of the Senate Filibuster

The Hill:
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin said Tuesday's failed cloture vote on a military policy bill has strengthened Democratic hopes to change the chamber's filibuster rules next year…. "I don't think a filibuster before has ever prevented the Senate from getting to a defense authorization," Levin said. "These filibusters on motions to proceed cannot be allowed to prevent us from getting our work done." Democratic Conference Vice Chairman Charles Schumer (N.Y.) held a Rules Committee hearing Wednesday on ideas to change the Senate's filibuster rules. The hearing -- the committee's fifth on the topic -- featured Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who has been pushing for filibuster reform since 1995. Levin said Tuesday's vote was "a very powerful argument for why we should change the rules."

If Democrats retain their Senate majority they can change the filibuster rule (like other comparable procedural rules) at the opening of the next session with that simple majority -- although any time after that such a rules change would require the prohibitively high bar of a supermajority. It is even more likely that the Democrats will retain their Senate majority than that they will manage the feat in the House (though I still have my fingers crossed that Democratic majorities will be retained in both houses, but slimmed of a few odious Blue Dogs), and so it seems to me rank and file Democrats like us should be devoted not just to GOTV in these last weeks but also writing letters to our representatives letting them know that filibuster reform is very much on the minds of constituents who want electoral mandates to enable the enactments of the change we voted for, whatever the irresponsible obstructionism of the opposition and the shenanigans at the right-most edges of our caucus.

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