Harry Reid Comments & Renewed Outside Coalition Highlight Momentum for U.S. Senate Rules Reform

Washington, DC – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is reiterating his intention to pursue meaningful rules reform in the U.S. Senate in light of the continued unprecedented obstruction from Senate Republicans.  On the Ed Schultz radio show last Friday July 13^th, Reid made a commitment to pursue Senate rules reform if the Democrats maintain control of the Senate and President Obama is re-elected, and also provided extensive rationale for his remarks.

Referring to Senator Reid’s past comments supporting renewed Senate rules reform, Suzy Khimm of the Washington Post notes, “Reid has now gone a step farther: the Senate Majority Leader is now openly promising to pass filibuster reform in the beginning of the next Congress if Democrats manage to hold onto a simple majority in the Senate and if Obama is reelected.”

On last Friday’s Ed Schultz radio show, Reid said, “We can’t go on like this anymore. I don’t want to get rid of the filibuster, but I have to tell you, I want to change the rules and make the filibuster meaningful. The filibuster is not part of our constitution, it came about as a result of our wanting to get legislation passed, and now it’s being used to stop our legislation from passing.”

Referring to the effort to reform Senate rules, Reid noted, “We could have done it in the last Congress.  But I got on the Senate floor and said that I made a mistake and I should have helped with that.  It can be done if Obama is re-elected, and I can still do it if I have a majority, we can do it with a simple majority at the beginning of the next Congress.”

When host Ed Schultz asked, “Think the President will go along with that?” Reid replied, “You damn betcha.”  When Schultz then asked, “Would you make that as a commitment if Barack Obama were re-elected and the Democrats keep the Senate?”  Reid said, “Yes. I don’t know how many people watch C-Span on any given day, but I’ve said so right before everybody there, and that’s what I would do.”

In May 2012, Reid said on the Senate floor, “if there were ever a time when Tom Udall and Jeff Merkley were prophetic, it’s tonight.  These two young, fine senators said it was time to change the rules of the Senate, and we didn’t. They were right. The rest of us were wrong — or most of us, anyway. What a shame...If there were anything that ever needed changing in this body, it’s the filibuster rules, because it’s been abused, abused, abused.”

Reid’s frustration is understandable.  According to research by David Waldman of Congress Matters and Daily Kos, this current 112th Congress already has witnessed the third highest total of cloture motions ever filed in the Senate. The only two sessions to see greater levels of obstruction were the immediately preceding 110th and 111th sessions (see this chart).

At the start of this 112^th Congress, the Communications Workers of America (CWA), Common Cause and the Sierra Club led a broad coalition of progressive organizations, dubbed Fix the Senate Now, to support the rules reform effort championed by Senators Jeff Merkley, Tom Udall, and Tom Harkin.  CWA is now leading renewed conversations about a new external coalition to back substantial reforms and will be convening strategy discussions and meetings in coming weeks on the topic.

Despite the fear-mongering one hears about the goals of Senate rules reform, CWA and other backers of reform are simply seeking a range of common-sense changes that add needed accountability and transparency to the legislative process. 

As congressional scholars Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann suggested recently, “Restoring the filibuster to its traditional role of allowing an intense minority to temporarily hold up action on issues of great national import — and away from its new use as a regular weapon for obstruction — should be a top priority.  Senate rules should allow only one filibuster on any bill (now there can be two or more).  Currently, the burden is on the majority to provide the 60 votes to break a filibuster; instead, the minority party should have to take the floor and hold it via debate, and provide the 41 votes needed to maintain the filibuster.” 

###

Contact: Michael Earls: 202-261-2388