Democratic Solution To The Filibuster: Make Them Talk

[unhappycamper]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/15/democrats-filibuster-reform_n_2141382.html

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Democratic Solution To The Filibuster: Make Them Talk
Ryan Grim
Posted: 11/15/2012 10:20 pm EST Updated: 11/15/2012 10:20 pm EST

WASHINGTON -- The next time a minority of senators find something the majority supports to be objectionable, they may be required to take the Senate floor and explain just why they object. And when they're done with that, they'll have to keep talking, and talking, and talking.

The most persistent advice that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he gets from liberals he meets across the country is as simple as it is frustrating: "Make them actually filibuster!"

The advice grew loud enough in 2009 that Reid's office leaked a memo to HuffPost explaining why exactly Senate Democratic leaders can't force Republicans to talk out their filibuster, Mr. Smith-style. In 2011, Reid flirted with filibuster reform, but backed off at the last minute, striking a handshake deal with Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) instead. That agreement -- that the two would cooperate to make sure the chamber ran smoothly -- lasted as long as one might expect.

Now, Reid is ready to pull the trigger on a change. "I was wrong," Reid said recently about his unwillingness to back a handful of junior senators who were pushing for reform.

[Warren Stupidity]

1. How about just abolish the whole thing.

Lets take our chances with regular representative democracy.

[ladjf]

2. yes.

[cyclezealot]

9. This is a good compromise.

Imagine making the Goobers actually have to defend their ideas.. Unlimited talking would put them at great risk. Since they talk in soundbites.. This is fair. And likely to drastically reduce the threats of filibusters..
Remember should the Goobers ever take over the Senate, they are a vindictive lot.. They will strike at the heart of a potential Democratic filibuster, if given the chance.
Republicans might fear unlimited talking, Democrats would excel since far fewer of them talk in soundbites.

[JDPriestly]

18. No. To move Congress, we have to make sure that

members of Congress are held responsible to the public for their negative, delaying filibuster.

Requiring filibustering senators to stand up and talk until they can't talk any more, to require them to explain their opposition to the laws that are supported by the majority would help speed up the processes in Congress.

It also might help insure that members of Congress are really physically and mentally fit to serve. I remember back when the filibuster meant that people stayed up and talked on the floor of the Senate all night. The filibustering senators had to invest some energy in time in doing that and were much more inclined to compromise.

I support returning to the full filibuster. It would actually improve representation in Congress because constituents would have a chance to judge for themselves whether their senators were just being obstructive as a sort of gamesmanship or whether the issues they were debating were really worth the trouble.

Remember, we pay these obstructionist senators not only to just do nothing themselves at times on important matters but to force the rest of the Senate to stop their work on certain bills. Sometimes the filibusters really are necessary. But most of the time the Senators of the Party of No idly gain their paychecks. One thing we would all agree on: Democrats and Republicans work hard to earn the money that they pay in taxes. In the real world, our bosses make sure we work hard. We forget this, but we are the bosses of our Senators. We might as well make them work, visibly work, as hard as all those Walmart and other employees of big, greedy companies do.

I'm for the spoken, standing, suffering filibuster. Make the obstructionists earn their money. They are wasting ours with their negativity. And sometimes the public learns something from the filibustering folks. I wish someone had filibustered the resolution that permitted us to get into the Iraq War.

[HereSince1628]

23. No. The filibuster does protect the voice of the minority. Yes it's been abused

in recent years through a campaign of obstruction.

But, the guarantee that a minority as small as 1 senator can plead a case is worth finding a way to preserve.

The filibuster will not always be used to good ends, but then neither is the will of the majority.

[Warren Stupidity]

24. "the guarantee that a minority as small as 1 senator can plead a case"

they don't "plead a case", they obstruct. The history of the filibuster has been almost non-stop obstruction of progressive reform. It has rarely been used to good ends, frequently to block and obstruct everything our party has stood for the last 100 years.

yes there is a risk that a republican dominated congress will also be able to advance their legislation - but they've been able to do that anyway for the last 30 years.

[HereSince1628]

26. Well, that's the current circumstance yes. And yes, there is no doubt it is a tool to delay.

I think that's partly the intent of having a filibuster. The other parts have to do with using the delay to make legislation better.

The way it's been used in the past 4 years has been an abuse. There is nothing honorable about using a tool to prevent tyranny of the majority for sabotage of government by the minority.

Yet, silencing the opposition by destroying the filibuster, to fix a set of poor rules that make the abuse possible is essentially throwing the baby out with the bath water.

[Warren Stupidity]

29. It isn't the last four years, it is the last 100 years.

This theory that only lately has the filibuster gone bad is not substantiated by the facts. For example, southern Dixiecrat racist Democrats routinely used the filibuster to obstruct civil rights legislation. The obstruction was so rampant that the Mansfield reforms were implemented in the 70s, bringing the vote count required for cloture down to 60.

[HereSince1628]

34. It's sort of difficult to look at this graph and not see an increased use of filibuster

rising over the past 30 years to a peak in the past 4.

[Warren Stupidity]

36. I did not claim that we aren't in a filibuster storm.

That is true. My point is that this stupid rule has been used almost exclusively to stall progressive legislation and hamstring democratic presidents, and not just for the last four years. Get rid of it. Completely.

[Egalitarian Thug]

27. If they eliminated the rule that allows them to merely declare a filibuster without actually having

to do it, that lone Senator can only hold up the Senate for a short time. Now, what you might want to look at is the anonymous hold, that's a much more effective and abused rule that should go.

[Panasonic]

32. The Republicans has been abusing the system for 35 years.

It's time for karma payback.

Big time.

The House Republicans will go down in 2014, and will give Obama both houses and Senate.

2014 is the death year for all GOP. And so is 2016. They will lose in massive numbers.

[DefenseLawyer]

28. That's easy to say when we are in power

But if the wingnuts get control of the chamber and nominate Glenn Beck to the Supreme Court, the filibuster would look downright heroic. I like the compromise.

[Warren Stupidity]

30. Yup, that is the downside.

I'll take my chances on democracy. Yes there will be bad with the good. Oh well. Better than the permanent stalemate, a situation that only benefits the entrenched corrupt plutocracy.

[Panasonic]

31. Then the Republican minority continues to become a super-minority

and eventually declared endangered under the Wildlife Protection Act.

The filibuster has to go. We're done being nice. It's past time to push the Republicans into the cliff.

[CanonRay]

3. I'm happy he can admit he was wrong

No pull the damn trigger, Harry!

[City Lights]

4. Good!

Make them stand there until they lose their voices or wet themselves!

[loyalsister]

35. That's right...

Bring out the old school encyclopedias and let them do the real work of a filibuster.

[ProudProgressiveNow]

5. Bout time...

long overdue...

[OnionPatch]

6. This makes me very optimistic for our future.

But I am pretty damn pissed to learn that it was some backroom deal that kept this from being done before. We could have had a jobs bill and who knows what else.

[patrice]

7. Make them actually filibuster.

[phantom power]

8. At the risk of sounding unkind... duh.

It was always a total mystery to me why anybody would let somebody just *say* they'll filibuster, and let them have their way. Fuck that. You wanna try and get your way by fillibustering, then cowboy up and start reading that phone book.

[srican69]

10. I was watching a documentary on LBJ last night ( A must see BTW) on Netflix

The Republicans talked for 83 days on a single issue day in and day out .... that is right EIGHTY THREE EFFIN DAYS ..before they voted to end the debate.


My understanding is that the current mechanism allows the senate to work on other bills and that a single bill does not become a roadblock for other ( perhaps important ) bills


So should we force them to talk - I dont know.

[Kaleva]

15. But that was an extremely rare event

Now, all it takes is for a single senator to make a phone call in order to hold up legislation or a confirmation.

[SHRED]

11. Don't we need Senator Sanders to filibuster...

...if the Congress makes cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and/or Medicaid in potential "fiscal cliff" legislation?


---

[JDPriestly]

19. The thought of Senator Sanders filibustering makes me very happy.

Maybe the Republicans and the general public (or at least the many C-Span viewers) would finally hear what this brilliant, wonderful man has to say. I think his ideas would gain a lot of acceptance if he filibustered once in a while. Maybe some other senators would help him out. They might be scared not to because I'm sure most Americans would support him if they knew more about his ideas.

[Warren Stupidity]

25. Can't happen: cloture vote would have the required 60 votes.

[RomneyLies]

12. Use McCain's craptastic threat to filibuster a Rice nomination as the perfect excuse

End this shit now. Shut down the GOP forever.

[sulphurdunn]

13. I would only suggest

they be required to restrict their talking to their objections.

[librechik]

14. Reduce the number of votes needed to overcome the fuckybuster from 60 to 53.

although, really it should go away and be a simple majority. The Senate is such a bunch of spoiled primadonnas--I wouldn't mind if it went away entirely. What"s wrong with straight un-tricked up democracy in this day and age? I'm tired of everything revolving around the 19th century ownership class, which is what the Senate was and is.

[PoliticalBiker]

16. Been sayin' that for years and years...

even sent Mr. Harry an email on it once.

Too many things have been *streamlined* or *glossed over* or done in interest of *expediency*.
It's no wonder congress has found itself stuck in the mud.
It's time the dems grew a pair and forced the r's to do their duty to the people of this country.... you don't like something? Tell me why and not just talking points or spin or no comment, no comment, no comment, no comment.

[MyOpinion-2]

17. Mr Reid, my suggestions for the opposing party filibustering are as follows:

When Congress is not doing their job, and instead spends their time filibustering bills that need to get passed or blocking a person that needs to get approved, such behavior prevents the country from moving forward. My suggestions for the opposing party filibustering are as follows:

1. When an individual from the opposing party filibusters a decision or a bill that needs to pass
they should not get paid for the time that is spent filibustering.

2. In order for a person to filibuster a decision or a bill they should be required to talk for the
full duration of the filibuster. If more than one person wants to filibuster that same bill or
someone waiting to be approved for a position, the previous person should not be allowed to
come back to the floor to pick-up from the last person.

3. In order for anyone to filibuster, from either party, there should be a requirement of at least
a 51% bipartisan majority to agree to a filibuster before it can be implemented.

4. There should be a time limit on how long filibuster rules can be used before new rules can
be voted on. Example: Maybe every four years the rules can be reviewed by both parties
and agreed on.

[rhett o rick]

20. I will believe it when I see it. I think the good Senator has acted tough before with

no follow through. I do not believe that he is naive enough to believe the word of a Republican, esp. McConnell. Pullezz

[ProgressiveEconomist]

21. One potential BIG problem with this reform: QUORUM CALLS could keep way more

Democrats up all night than Republicans.

Doesn't a minimum number of Senators have to be present to keep the filibuster going and prevent the filibusterer from achieving his or her goal of stopping the bill in question?

And, unless they are specifically required by Senate rules to maintain a minimum number of Republicans to answer any quorum call, why should Republicans (other than the filibusterer) ever show up? Why wouldn't they just let Democrats carry the burden of answering quorum calls from the filibusterer?

If this reform is to go forward and not have unintended consequences for Democrats, special quorum rules will have to be attached. Ideally, a quorum call would apply only to the filibusterer's party, only one member of the other party would have to be present. and no member of the filibusterer's party would be able to issue a quorum call.

Have the Democrats thought through the quorum rules that would apply to a reformed filibusterer?

[ProgressiveEconomist]

22. Reference on quorum calls during filibusters: a 2011 CRS paper st senate.gov:

See the section on "Scheduling Filibusters", on PDF page 11 of http://www.senate.gov/CRSReports/crs-publish.cfm?pid='0E%2C*PLW%3D%22P%20%20%0A :

"Filibusters and Cloture in the Senate

...Scheduling filibusters

...late-night or all-night sessions put as much or more of a burden on the proponents of the question being debated than on its opponents.

The Senators participating in the filibuster need only ensure that at least one of their numberalways is present on the floor to speak. The proponents of the question, however, need to ensure that a majority of the Senate is present or at least available to respond to a quorum call or roll call vote.

If, late in the evening or in the middle of the night, a Senator suggests the absence of aquorum and a quorum does not appear, the Senate must adjourn or at least suspend itsproceedings until a quorum is established. This works to the advantage of the filibusteringSenators, so the burden rests on their opponents to ensure that the constitutional quorum requirement always can be met."

[Panasonic]

33. Time to go nuclear on them.

Way past time.

It's time to stomp the Republicans out of the way and for good.

If the Republicans don't want to play the game, then they can hand Reid and their governors their resignations and request a Democrat replace his current position.

[Courtesy Flush]

37. Someone please explain this to me

I had learned in school that a filibuster was a lengthy speech to delay action.

But what has it evolved into? How do they filibuster without filibustering?