Rules Reform Clips - Jan 17th
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Dave Johnson
Jan 17, 2011, 1:07:44 PM1/17/11
to cotsco...@googlegroups.com
Passing along:
RULES REFORM CLIPS – JAN 17th
States
(AR) Arkansas News: Senators Propose Weaker Filibuster
By Alex Daniels
January 17, 2011
http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2011/jan/17/senators-propose-weaker-filibuster-20110117/
As their first order of business when senators return to Washington on Jan. 25, Senate Democrats will attempt to weaken the minority party’s ability to block legislation.
Led by New Mexico’s Sen. Tom Udall, they argue the Senate is broken, a result, Udall told his colleagues earlier this month, of “partisan rancor and the Senate’s own incapacitating rules.”
They would like to weaken the ability to filibuster, a Senate tactic that allows the minority party to stall a bill unless a 60-vote threshold is cleared, and to prohibit the practice of placing secret “holds” on legislation.
Both of Arkansas’ senators, Democrat Mark Pryor and Republican John Boozman, oppose weakening filibuster provisions.
To break a filibuster, 60 Senators must vote for “cloture” - that is, to stop debate and hold a final vote - rather than the simple majority required for most legislation. So-called Rule XXII, which introduced cloture, was first agreed to by the Senate in 1917. Back then, it took a two-thirds vote of the Senate to end debate.
Democrats argue that Republicans abused the filibuster last Congress. During the past two years, Republicans forced cloture votes on 91 bills, up from 58 during the 106th Congress 10 years ago.
Republicans argue they had no choice: Democrats blocked Republican amendments from being considered, they say, relegating them to junior partners in the chamber.
Republicans and some Democrats say protecting the rights of the minority party in the Senate protects against a majority acting too quickly on contentious legislation.
Ordinarily, it takes a two thirds vote to change Senate rules. But when the Senate convenes at the start of a new Congress, changes can be passed by a simple majority.
Although the current Congress began when the Senate went into session Jan. 5, members did not take a vote on new rules. Using that lower threshold, Udall and other Democrats will call for a vote.
Udall’s rules package would end secret holds, limit the time for debate allowed before and after a cloture vote is held and, perhaps most importantly, require that a Senator engaging in a filibuster actually continue speaking nonstop on the floor of the Senate.
In 2005, Arkansas’ Sen. Mark Pryor was a group of senators known as the “Gang of 14,” which successfully negotiated a truce on judicial nominations. Then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., had threatened to use the rule-changing technique similar to the one now being promoted by Udall to push President George W. Bush’s nominees through the chamber.
Now a member of the Senate Rules Committee, Pryor has advised against changing the rules.
“We must protect the minority’s right to debate and amend legislation here in the Senate,” Pryor said.
He noted that the balance in the chamber, which is tilted 53-47 to the Democrats, could lean the other way in the future.
“We should not make these decisions based on what party is in power at the moment,” he said.
Changing the rules on filibusters “would be a big mistake,” agreed Arkansas’ Sen. John Boozman, a Republican Senate freshman.
Both Pryor and Boozman said they were undecided on another part of Udall’s proposal, getting rid of “secret” holds.
“That’s something I need to become more familiar with,” Boozman said.
Pryor said that before the use of secret holds, senators made their objections to a nominee or bill known, allowing members to work things out.
While senators should have the prerogative to block things, doing so anonymously makes negotiations difficult, Pryor said.
Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the chairman of the Republican Senate Conference, criticized the “brazenness” of the Democratic effort to change the rules.
“It is essential to our country that cooler heads prevail,” he said.
Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., has proposed that the rules for cloture be changed to a three-fifths vote of those actually present on the Senate floor.
In an e-mail to supporters, Udall said his proposal makes sense, regardless of who is in power.
“Don’t get me wrong: I have a deep respect for the Senate, and I also realize that the winds of political fortune change,” he wrote. “But the simple fact is that, in recent years, the filibuster has been used to bring the people’s business to a halt in order to score political points - and I can’t stand by and let that happen.”
Boozman noted that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., used legislative maneuvers to limit Republicans’ ability to add amendments during debate on last year’s health-care legislation. The only way to shape the proposal, he said, was to bring the Senate to a halt.
“They’re leaving us no other alternative but to filibuster,” Boozman said.
(FL) Tampa Bay Online: Founders and Majority Rule
Op-Ed by Joyce Appleby
January 16, 2011
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2011/jan/16/PVWOPINO1-founders-and-majority-rule/
“When the Senate reconvenes Jan. 24, it will have to decide whether to accept the rules reform introduced by Sens. Tom Udall, Tom Harkin and Jeff Merkley. The target of the rules change is the filibuster, which Republicans invoked more than a hundred times in the session that ended in December.
The three senators' reforms are mild correctives of this abuse of majority rule. They would eliminate filibusters to prevent legislation from coming to the floor for debate, while retaining filibusters to block passage of a bill. More significant, the proposed changes would require that senators who filibuster actually filibuster, that is, hold the floor by continuous speaking.
If Udall, Harkin and Merkley want radical reform, they should follow tea-party members right back to the founding era when it took only a simple majority to stop debate or pass a law.”
(MA) Attleboro Sun-Chronicle: Brown Will Oppose Change in Filibuster
By Jim Hand
January 16, 2011
http://www.thesunchronicle.com/articles/2011/01/15/news/8691756.txt
“Calling the filibuster "a great check and balance," U.S. Sen. Scott Brown said Friday he will oppose attempts by Democrats to weaken the procedural roadblock…Brown said he would only accept ending anonymous filibusters.”
(SC) Myrtle Beach Sun-News: Don’t Let One Person Hold Up Progress
Op-Ed by Timothy Cunha
January 17, 2011
http://www.thesunnews.com/2011/01/17/1925114/dont-let-1-person-hold-up-progress.html
“So I urge my fellow Americans to plead with their respective senators to vote to eliminate the filibuster from the Senate rules, particularly because of the affront to democracy. And, if our senators will not support filibuster repeal, then they should at the least reduce the cloture requirement to 55 votes and require that any filibuster be "real." It's time to stop frustrating the will of the American people and to get our democracy moving forward once again.”
National News
Associated Press: Presidential Nominees Stymied; Senate Mulls Change
By Jim Abrams
January 15, 2011
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/15/AR2011011500739.html
“Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican leader Mitch McConnell, in a rare moment of agreement, opened the new Congress this month by endorsing a bipartisan effort to find ways to improve an unwieldy, unproductive system…
…Reid, D-Nev., and McConnell, R-Ky., suggested that the chairman and the top Republican on the Senate Rules Committee - Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn. - lead a working group to study ways to streamline the confirmation process. But progress probably depends on Democratic-led efforts to change Senate rules to make it harder for single senators to hold up legislation and nominees and to reduce the number of filibusters.”
Politico: Tom Daschle to Barack Obama: Meet, Eat with GOP Leaders
By Jonathan Martin
January 16, 2011
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47224.html
“As for whether the Senate he led as both majority and minority leader is broken – as has been suggested by some observers - Daschle asserted that the last two years disproved any such notion.
“It was really one of the most productive Congresses we’ve seen,” he said. “And so, I believe history is going to judge it from a productivity point of view as having accomplished a great deal, even though it was messy, it was loud.”
The former leader takes a traditionalist view of the Senate rules that are now being called into question by more junior members of the body. But he did say he’d like to see a return to the old-fashioned filibuster where senators would actually have to hold the floor.
“That is, you didn’t set aside the bill and take up something else,” he said. “You stayed on the bill as long as there was a filibuster going. And you resolved it one way, and that was the hard way. I think that would bring down dramatically the number of filibusters that we have.””
DailyKos: Uh Oh, Democrats Negotiating on Senate Rules
By Chris Bowers
January 14, 2011
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2011/1/14/936343/-Uh-ohDemocrats-negotiating-on-Senate-rules
“We’re close to making the filibuster a real filibuster, and to putting an end to Republican obstruction on judicial and executive branch nominations. Only 51 Senators are needed to make this happen. Already, 26 have become co-sponsors of our proposed reforms, including some of the most conservative members of the Democratic caucus. Last month, all 53 Senate Democrats signed a letter in favor of filibuster reform of some sort.
We can achieve big-time reforms to Senate rules without Republican approval. But, in order to make that happen, the Democrats leading the negotiation need to be more focused on achieving those meaningful reforms than on reaching a consensus agreement for the sake of it.”
Opposition News
Red State.com: What is Wrong with Democrat Senate Rules Changes
January 16, 2011
http://www.redstate.com/mikehammond/2011/01/16/what-is-wrong-with-democrat-senate-rules-changes/
“Reid has corruptly used the Senate rules to cram liberal legislation like ObamaCare down the American people’s throats. And, now that his Democrats have been repudiated in the elections, he wants even more power to cram even more liberal legislation -– thereby nullifying the November election results.
Nevertheless, we’re still getting Fox interviewers asking questions like: “What’s wrong with a Mr.-Smith-goes-to-Washington-filibuster?”
So here’s, specifically, what Senator Udall of New Mexico and nine other Democrats are proposing, what’s wrong with what they’re proposing, and a GOP alternative..”
RULES REFORM CLIPS – JAN 17th
States
(AR) Arkansas News: Senators Propose Weaker Filibuster
By Alex Daniels
January 17, 2011
http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2011/jan/17/senators-propose-weaker-filibuster-20110117/
As their first order of business when senators return to Washington on Jan. 25, Senate Democrats will attempt to weaken the minority party’s ability to block legislation.
Led by New Mexico’s Sen. Tom Udall, they argue the Senate is broken, a result, Udall told his colleagues earlier this month, of “partisan rancor and the Senate’s own incapacitating rules.”
They would like to weaken the ability to filibuster, a Senate tactic that allows the minority party to stall a bill unless a 60-vote threshold is cleared, and to prohibit the practice of placing secret “holds” on legislation.
Both of Arkansas’ senators, Democrat Mark Pryor and Republican John Boozman, oppose weakening filibuster provisions.
To break a filibuster, 60 Senators must vote for “cloture” - that is, to stop debate and hold a final vote - rather than the simple majority required for most legislation. So-called Rule XXII, which introduced cloture, was first agreed to by the Senate in 1917. Back then, it took a two-thirds vote of the Senate to end debate.
Democrats argue that Republicans abused the filibuster last Congress. During the past two years, Republicans forced cloture votes on 91 bills, up from 58 during the 106th Congress 10 years ago.
Republicans argue they had no choice: Democrats blocked Republican amendments from being considered, they say, relegating them to junior partners in the chamber.
Republicans and some Democrats say protecting the rights of the minority party in the Senate protects against a majority acting too quickly on contentious legislation.
Ordinarily, it takes a two thirds vote to change Senate rules. But when the Senate convenes at the start of a new Congress, changes can be passed by a simple majority.
Although the current Congress began when the Senate went into session Jan. 5, members did not take a vote on new rules. Using that lower threshold, Udall and other Democrats will call for a vote.
Udall’s rules package would end secret holds, limit the time for debate allowed before and after a cloture vote is held and, perhaps most importantly, require that a Senator engaging in a filibuster actually continue speaking nonstop on the floor of the Senate.
In 2005, Arkansas’ Sen. Mark Pryor was a group of senators known as the “Gang of 14,” which successfully negotiated a truce on judicial nominations. Then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., had threatened to use the rule-changing technique similar to the one now being promoted by Udall to push President George W. Bush’s nominees through the chamber.
Now a member of the Senate Rules Committee, Pryor has advised against changing the rules.
“We must protect the minority’s right to debate and amend legislation here in the Senate,” Pryor said.
He noted that the balance in the chamber, which is tilted 53-47 to the Democrats, could lean the other way in the future.
“We should not make these decisions based on what party is in power at the moment,” he said.
Changing the rules on filibusters “would be a big mistake,” agreed Arkansas’ Sen. John Boozman, a Republican Senate freshman.
Both Pryor and Boozman said they were undecided on another part of Udall’s proposal, getting rid of “secret” holds.
“That’s something I need to become more familiar with,” Boozman said.
Pryor said that before the use of secret holds, senators made their objections to a nominee or bill known, allowing members to work things out.
While senators should have the prerogative to block things, doing so anonymously makes negotiations difficult, Pryor said.
Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the chairman of the Republican Senate Conference, criticized the “brazenness” of the Democratic effort to change the rules.
“It is essential to our country that cooler heads prevail,” he said.
Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., has proposed that the rules for cloture be changed to a three-fifths vote of those actually present on the Senate floor.
In an e-mail to supporters, Udall said his proposal makes sense, regardless of who is in power.
“Don’t get me wrong: I have a deep respect for the Senate, and I also realize that the winds of political fortune change,” he wrote. “But the simple fact is that, in recent years, the filibuster has been used to bring the people’s business to a halt in order to score political points - and I can’t stand by and let that happen.”
Boozman noted that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., used legislative maneuvers to limit Republicans’ ability to add amendments during debate on last year’s health-care legislation. The only way to shape the proposal, he said, was to bring the Senate to a halt.
“They’re leaving us no other alternative but to filibuster,” Boozman said.
(FL) Tampa Bay Online: Founders and Majority Rule
Op-Ed by Joyce Appleby
January 16, 2011
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2011/jan/16/PVWOPINO1-founders-and-majority-rule/
“When the Senate reconvenes Jan. 24, it will have to decide whether to accept the rules reform introduced by Sens. Tom Udall, Tom Harkin and Jeff Merkley. The target of the rules change is the filibuster, which Republicans invoked more than a hundred times in the session that ended in December.
The three senators' reforms are mild correctives of this abuse of majority rule. They would eliminate filibusters to prevent legislation from coming to the floor for debate, while retaining filibusters to block passage of a bill. More significant, the proposed changes would require that senators who filibuster actually filibuster, that is, hold the floor by continuous speaking.
If Udall, Harkin and Merkley want radical reform, they should follow tea-party members right back to the founding era when it took only a simple majority to stop debate or pass a law.”
(MA) Attleboro Sun-Chronicle: Brown Will Oppose Change in Filibuster
By Jim Hand
January 16, 2011
http://www.thesunchronicle.com/articles/2011/01/15/news/8691756.txt
“Calling the filibuster "a great check and balance," U.S. Sen. Scott Brown said Friday he will oppose attempts by Democrats to weaken the procedural roadblock…Brown said he would only accept ending anonymous filibusters.”
(SC) Myrtle Beach Sun-News: Don’t Let One Person Hold Up Progress
Op-Ed by Timothy Cunha
January 17, 2011
http://www.thesunnews.com/2011/01/17/1925114/dont-let-1-person-hold-up-progress.html
“So I urge my fellow Americans to plead with their respective senators to vote to eliminate the filibuster from the Senate rules, particularly because of the affront to democracy. And, if our senators will not support filibuster repeal, then they should at the least reduce the cloture requirement to 55 votes and require that any filibuster be "real." It's time to stop frustrating the will of the American people and to get our democracy moving forward once again.”
National News
Associated Press: Presidential Nominees Stymied; Senate Mulls Change
By Jim Abrams
January 15, 2011
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/15/AR2011011500739.html
“Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican leader Mitch McConnell, in a rare moment of agreement, opened the new Congress this month by endorsing a bipartisan effort to find ways to improve an unwieldy, unproductive system…
…Reid, D-Nev., and McConnell, R-Ky., suggested that the chairman and the top Republican on the Senate Rules Committee - Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn. - lead a working group to study ways to streamline the confirmation process. But progress probably depends on Democratic-led efforts to change Senate rules to make it harder for single senators to hold up legislation and nominees and to reduce the number of filibusters.”
Politico: Tom Daschle to Barack Obama: Meet, Eat with GOP Leaders
By Jonathan Martin
January 16, 2011
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47224.html
“As for whether the Senate he led as both majority and minority leader is broken – as has been suggested by some observers - Daschle asserted that the last two years disproved any such notion.
“It was really one of the most productive Congresses we’ve seen,” he said. “And so, I believe history is going to judge it from a productivity point of view as having accomplished a great deal, even though it was messy, it was loud.”
The former leader takes a traditionalist view of the Senate rules that are now being called into question by more junior members of the body. But he did say he’d like to see a return to the old-fashioned filibuster where senators would actually have to hold the floor.
“That is, you didn’t set aside the bill and take up something else,” he said. “You stayed on the bill as long as there was a filibuster going. And you resolved it one way, and that was the hard way. I think that would bring down dramatically the number of filibusters that we have.””
DailyKos: Uh Oh, Democrats Negotiating on Senate Rules
By Chris Bowers
January 14, 2011
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2011/1/14/936343/-Uh-ohDemocrats-negotiating-on-Senate-rules
“We’re close to making the filibuster a real filibuster, and to putting an end to Republican obstruction on judicial and executive branch nominations. Only 51 Senators are needed to make this happen. Already, 26 have become co-sponsors of our proposed reforms, including some of the most conservative members of the Democratic caucus. Last month, all 53 Senate Democrats signed a letter in favor of filibuster reform of some sort.
We can achieve big-time reforms to Senate rules without Republican approval. But, in order to make that happen, the Democrats leading the negotiation need to be more focused on achieving those meaningful reforms than on reaching a consensus agreement for the sake of it.”
Opposition News
Red State.com: What is Wrong with Democrat Senate Rules Changes
January 16, 2011
http://www.redstate.com/mikehammond/2011/01/16/what-is-wrong-with-democrat-senate-rules-changes/
“Reid has corruptly used the Senate rules to cram liberal legislation like ObamaCare down the American people’s throats. And, now that his Democrats have been repudiated in the elections, he wants even more power to cram even more liberal legislation -– thereby nullifying the November election results.
Nevertheless, we’re still getting Fox interviewers asking questions like: “What’s wrong with a Mr.-Smith-goes-to-Washington-filibuster?”
So here’s, specifically, what Senator Udall of New Mexico and nine other Democrats are proposing, what’s wrong with what they’re proposing, and a GOP alternative..”
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