They take key roles in debate over rule change
Updated: 01/24/2011 10:44:24 PM CST
Changing laws is difficult enough. Changing how laws are made? Those are fightin' words.
Yet Democrats in Washington, D.C., are angling to do just that. They could begin debate today on the first changes to the Senate's filibuster rules since 1975, when Minnesota's then-Sen. Walter Mondale engineered a controversial reduction in the number of Senate votes needed to override a minority objection to legislation — from 67 to 60.
This time, Minnesota is again playing a big role in the debate. Though spearheaded by Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M, Minnesota's two Democratic senators have been key:
"The people in this country want us to get some things done in Washington that matter to them," Klobuchar said. "Time and time again, when we have big things to tackle, we get delayed from tackling them."
Furthermore, Mondale himself is playing a background role. He wrote a New Year's Day editorial in the New York Times that helped kick-start the debate. Even former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman, a Republican, is in on the discussion. He is using the platform of his Washington, D.C., think tank to argue that Democrats are bent on silencing the minority.
"Amending rules on a purely partisan basis would destabilize the Senate and make it resemble the House
of Representatives, which changes course on the basis of transient majorities," Coleman argued this month in the National Review. "The Senate's crucial role as a check and balance within the legislative branch would be damaged."
The filibuster is a procedural rule that exists only in the Senate, already known as the more deliberative of the two houses of Congress. But critics contend that limitless filibusters, which can be overcome only by a three-fifths vote, have ground the nation's business to a halt.
From 1919 through 1970, cloture — or votes to overcome any of the numerous procedural tools known as filibusters — was invoked 56 times. During the 2009-10 Congress, it was invoked 136 times, the culmination of a spike in cloture motions during the past few years.
"We have not seen anything like this in the history of the Senate," said Norm Ornstein, a congressional scholar with the American Enterprise Institute, noting the highly politicized environment in Washington. "The rules allow the (partisan) culture now to run rampant."
Democrats blame the Republican minority for filibustering everything from major pieces of legislation — the nuclear disarmament treaty, START, was the last to get the treatment — to low-level presidential appointees. Republicans contend the rules are meant to preserve the minority's voice in debate.
The new Democratic proposals have included everything from removing anonymous holds on legislation or nominees to forcing the minority to eventually revert to Mr. Smith-Goes-to-Washington-style filibusters where senators must talk and hold the floor to halt the progress of legislation.
Democrats also have floated extra guarantees for the minority in a, thus far, unsuccessful attempt to draw Republican support, including the right to amend bills. Klobuchar said talks with Republicans continue, and she has spoken several times to New York Democrat Charles Shumer, who also is working on filibuster reform.
Franken has offered a kind of attendance rule for filibusters — rather than have the majority find the 60 votes needed to invoke cloture, Franken's proposal would force the minority to find 40 votes to uphold the filibuster.
"We've designed something that we think actually makes the Senate more functional and doesn't create an advantage for the minority or the majority," Franken said. "We're doing something that we think is fair."
No one is talking about reducing the number of votes needed to end a filibuster, an effort Mondale led in 1975.
"We hoped this moderate change would preserve debate and deliberation while avoiding paralysis," Mondale wrote in the New York Times. "And for a while it did."
Supporters say the new proposals would remove the temptation to hold up lesser business to prove a point, no matter how provincial it may be. Last year, for example, Sen. Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican, put a blanket hold on all Obama nominees until two billion-dollar earmarks for his home state were approved.
"You'd cut away a lot of the underbrush," Ornstein said.
Much of the focus right now is on how the Senate's Democratic majority appears set to change the rules. It normally takes a two-thirds vote to force through Senate rules changes, but under a procedural loophole Democrats are floating a plan to change them with just a majority vote.
Coleman could not be immediately reached, but he argued that if Democrats changed the rules by "fiat," they would rue the day. He argued for them not to do it.
"If the Democrats lose their Senate majority in 2012, they will be thankful that precedent and common sense prevailed in deciding how Senate rules are amended," he wrote.
Franken and Klobuchar say they aren't trying to curtail the rights of the minority, but to get the Senate working again.
"I consider these proposals meaningful but moderate," Klobuchar said. "I think it's difficult to say we're stifling the minority."
Franken agreed, saying there's a reason Democrats aren't interested in changing the number of votes required to invoke cloture.
"I don't want it to be a power grab," Franken said. "I think we all respect the right of minority to continue debate, if they feel strongly enough about it."
Jason Hoppin can be reached at 651-228-5445.
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