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Sen. Byrd defends the filibuster
Planet Washington
Posted by David Lightman
Sen. Robert Byrd, the dean of the Senate who’s been serving since 1959, says colleagues should be willing to engage in lengthy filibusters.
Too often, the West Virginia Democrat said in a letter to colleagues Tuesday, efforts to dilute the filibuster’s impact are “grossly misguided.”
“If the Senate rules are being abused, it does not necessarily follow that the solution is to change the rules,” he said. He called “occasional abuse” of the filibuster rule “a painful side effect of what is otherwise the Senate’s greatest purpose – the right to extended, or even unlimited, debate.”
Sixty votes are needed to cut off debate, and Democratic leaders for the past 13 months have had to cut off filibusters, both real and threatened, on a wide variety of legislation.
Byrd said if a senator wants to filibuster, he or she should be ready to go to the Senate floor and talk, as lawmakers did years ago, “instead of finding less strenuous ways to accomplish the same end,” he said.
If they abuse the rules, he said, “and senators exhaust the patience of their colleagues, such actions can invite draconian measures. But those measures themselves can, in the long run, be as detrimental to the role of the institution and to the rights of the American people as the abuse of the rules.”
But remember, said Byrd, “extended deliberation and debate – when employed judiciously – protect every senator, and the interests of their constituency, and are essential to the protection of the liberties of a free people.”
What you thought about lawmakers is true
Planet Washington
Posted by Kevin Hall
Anyone who’s an avid watcher of C-SPAN or otherwise a follower of Congress got firm proof Wednesday of what most Americans have long suspected, that lawmakers speak before they think.
This proof came during a hearing in which Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke testified before the House Financial Services Committee. Somewhere after the three-hour mark, Bernanke was greeted by Texas Democrat Rep. Al Green.
Green, a lawyer and second-term congressman from Houston, is given to long run-on questions and often asks some of the most pointed questions among committee members. But on Wednesday, as he welcomed Bernanke he warned that he was about to ramble on and there might not even be a question in there for the Fed chief.
Then he said something to the effect of, “I don’t know what I’m going to say until I’ve said it.”
Voila! Haven’t most of us thought that about our elected officials? And there’s the proof.