Why the Senate Isn't Working Cont'd

Did you catch President Obama on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart? Stewart asked if “government still has the ability to be agile enough to do change?” President Obama replied that the current rule on the filibuster “makes it very difficult for us to move forward” and get the American people’s business done.

And in an on-the-record meeting with bloggers Oct. 27, President Obama said:

“I will say that as just an observer of our political process that if we do not fix how the filibuster is used in the Senate, then it is going to be very difficult for us over the long term to compete in a very fast moving global environment.

What keeps me up at night is China, Germany, India, Brazil -- they’re moving. They make decisions: ‘we’re going to pursue clean energy,’ and the next thing you know they’ve cornered half the clean energy market. ‘We’re going to develop high-speed rail in the span of five years,” -- suddenly they’ve got high-speed rail lines going. ‘We’re going to promote exports, here’s what we’re going to do,’ — boom, they get going.

And if we can’t execute on key issues that will determine our competitiveness over the long term, we’re going to fall behind.

The filibuster is not part of the Constitution. The filibuster, if you look at the history of it, may have arisen purely by accident because somebody didn’t properly apply Robert’s Rules of Procedure and forgot to get a provision in there about what was required to close debate. And folks figured out very early, this could be a powerful tool. It was used as a limited tool throughout its history. Sadly, the primary way it was used was to prevent African Americans from achieving civil rights...

And so if we’re going to call for reform, it’s got to be with open eyes and an understanding that that also means that if Republicans are in power, it’s easier for them to move their agendas forward.

But my general view is, what that does at least is it opens it up to serious public debate. Things don’t get bogged down in the kinds of procedural nonsense that makes it just hard for us to do business. During the financial crisis, half my Treasury slots weren’t filled -- couldn’t get them filled. And this is a time when we were worried that the entire financial system was melting down. I believe it’s something that we’ve got to take seriously."