{"id":309126,"date":"2010-02-11T20:30:01","date_gmt":"2010-02-12T01:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/firedoglake.com\/?p=66651"},"modified":"2010-02-11T20:30:01","modified_gmt":"2010-02-12T01:30:01","slug":"dodd-biden-acknowledge-broken-senate-system-need-for-filibuster-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/309126","title":{"rendered":"Dodd, Biden Acknowledge Broken Senate System, Need for Filibuster Reform"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Mike Stark captured a good interview<\/a> with Chris Dodd yesterday about the dysfunctional Senate and how it has to change. What’s crucial here is that Dodd is basically a lion of the Senate, someone who for years has preferred the institutional rules that slow things down. He’s defended the filibuster, and other Senate rules. And now<\/p>\n

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Dodd: This is all evidence of a dysfunctional institution. So I’m saddened in a way. The reason the Senate works is because of the chemistry of the members to make it work. That’s why it takes unanimous consent to do almost anything. And the essence of the Senate was basically a longer, slower look at things. Which I fundamentally agree with, I think that’s important, otherwise you create two chambers and a unicameral system. Because that’s the point where they get rid of one of the chambers, why would you constantly have two chambers to do what you can do in one… because we\u2019re frustrated right now over an abusive use of a historic vehicle that led to the essence of what the Senate is, we\u2019re about to abandon the essence of the Senate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This all came in a defense<\/em> of the Senate and its “essence” and its rules. Now, I actually agree with Dodd about moving to a unicameral system, although that’s not what he argued. But he talked about abandoning the essence of the Senate as if it’s a foregone conclusion.<\/p>\n

It’s interesting seeing all these warhorses coming to grips with the fact that the Senators on the other side aren’t respecting the rules laid out for themselves, and how time may just be marching on by such rules. Joe Biden<\/a> has a similar perspective.<\/p>\n

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I was a senator for 36 years. I got there when I was 29 years old. So I\u2019ve been through seven presidents \u2014 eight now. And I\u2019ve never seen a time when the operating norm to get anything passed was a super majority of 60 votes. No matter what \u2014 no matter what the bill is, it\u2019s filibustered. It\u2019s required to get 60 votes.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t rule by a super majority. You can\u2019t govern if you require a super majority. And I think it\u2019s getting to the point where it\u2019s been abused, this idea of the filibuster or the threat of extended debate.<\/p>\n

And I think the public is taking it out \u2014 the \u2014 the Congress as a whole, Republicans and Democrats, are \u2014 are extremely low on the polls, in the Congress.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Neither Biden nor Dodd, who is retiring, will determine the future of the Senate rules process. Dodd may get a vote on Tom Harkin’s plan<\/a> to gradually lower the threshold for filibusters over a period of weeks, but such a rule change would take 67 votes in the middle of a session, and if we could get that many votes, there wouldn’t be any need for the rule change. Harry Reid said as much<\/a> today.<\/p>\n

The only way you’re really going to change this is by allowing the Senate to set their own rules at the beginning of the next Congress, similar to what Tom Udall is proposing. But the talks that even the old warhorses are having amongst themselves, the internal dialogues being made public, allude to the fact that even they know a change has to come.<\/p>\n

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Mike Stark captured a good interview with Chris Dodd yesterday about the dysfunctional Senate and how it has to change. What’s crucial here is that Dodd is basically a lion of the Senate, someone who for years has preferred the institutional rules that slow things down. He’s defended the filibuster, and other Senate rules. And […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4406,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-309126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4406"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}