Momentum For Senate Filibuster Reform Builds

Sam Stein/Ryan Grim

Momentum is building to reform Senate rules that allow silent filibusters and force a 60-vote requirement for virtually any action, interviews with Democratic candidates and sitting senators indicate.

Democratic candidates said that they hear regularly from voters about abuse of the parliamentary tactic, which is likely to come up as the first vote new senators face in 2011. The supermajority requirement in the Senate has become such an obstacle to reform that it infiltrates policy discussions at every step. Last week at the Netroots Nation political conference, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) gathered environmental writers to discuss energy legislation; the first few questions were related to energy, the rest of the conversation was dominated by the filibuster.

"The use of the filibuster and the way it's led to backroom deals has created the impression in the heartland that the Senate is dysfunctional," said Jack Conway, a Democratic candidate facing Republican Rand Paul in Kentucky. "They don't understand why Washington can't address the issues people care about. People in Kentucky wanted people focused on jobs -- 14 months [of the health care debate] laid bare how broken the system was."

Conway was joined in his backing of filibuster reform by the three other Senate candidates who HuffPost interviewed for this story: Paul Hodes of New Hampshire, Elaine Marshall of North Carolina and Roxanne Conlin of Iowa. Sitting Senators Al Franken (D-Minn.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) also said they supported reform.

"It's not constitutional. It's not statutory. It's a rule," said Hodes, adding that he wasn't certain what the new rule should look like exactly, but the current ones needed to be reformed. "Everywhere I go, they say, 'Make 'em bring out the cots and the telephone books.' People are eager for real backbone and some toughness from Democrats."

Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), a leader in the effort to reform the filibuster, said that support is strongest among new members and those running now. "They're all tuned into it," said Udall, elected in 2008, of the freshman and sophomore senators. "The core of support will by those: 2006, 2008, and whoever comes in in 2010." Merkley, Cardin and Franken have all been elected since 2006.

Merkley said that he's been canvassing his colleagues to determine how strong support is for reform. "I think we will be able to pull a couple dozen senators into the debate," he said. "Now is the time to heat up this conversation. Going into this election cycle with people running for office...it is important for people to remember that there was no supermajority requirement till 1917."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), during an address to the Netroots Nation conference, expressed his support for filibuster reform, comparing the situation to baseball's decision to ban the spitball and basketball's move to implement a shot clock. Neither rule had been needed before pitchers and basketball coaches abused the process, he said.

Reid has let the filibuster opponents know he's on their side. "Senator Reid has now said that he thinks that at the beginning of the next Congress there needs to be some kind of reform," said Udall. "There's a sense that we need to do something. Exactly what it is nobody quite knows yet."

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has been holding Rules Committee hearings to study the issue of reforming the filibuster. What was recently considered impossible is now looking inevitable.

"There is a lot of talk around the country and senators are hearing it. I think there is more interest in it in the caucus. I don't know if it is an issue we will deal with this cycle, but...I think its time is coming," said J.B. Poersch, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. "Some of it is because, around the country, several of our candidates have adopted similar platforms and you have an opportunity to elect new Senators who have that on their agenda, too."

Udall said that the discussion has radically changed in the Senate. "The tone has changed. It used to be, when I first got here, people would say, 'Why are we doing this this way? This doesn't make any sense. And they would be referring to the procedure and the rules. And the saying always was, 'Oh, we're stuck with these rules. You can't change them. You need 67 votes. It's part of the filibuster. You just can't change it.' And people don't say that anymore," said Udall.

They don't say that anymore because it's not true and Udall, along with Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), has effectively made the case to his colleagues that it is entirely constitutional to change the rules.

The Constitution gives the vice president the power to break ties - not break 60-40 splits. Why would such a vote matter if the institution was not designed to be run by a majority?

Opponents of reform argue that the Senate is a continuing legislative body and that its rules can only be changed with 67 votes. But three vice presidents have previously ruled otherwise in the past - two Republicans and one Democrat.

If Vice President Joe Biden -- who has spoken out against abuse of the filibuster and has been studying ways to reform it -- were to rule on the first day of the next session that the Senate has the authority to write its own rules, Republicans would immediately move to object. Democrats would then move to table the objection, setting up the key vote. If 50 Democrats voted to table the objection, the Senate would then move to a vote on a new set of rules, which would be approved by a simple majority.

The simple act of holding the vote would have a therapeutic effect on the Senate even if it fails, said Udall, as it would inspire fear that abuse of the rules could lead to their destruction.

"People would then realize on both sides that if we abuse the rules, then they might change, because you do have an option of changing them. So I think there's a very healthy effect that flows from having the ability to adopt rules by a majority vote," he said.

Republicans in the Senate have performed more filibusters during the current congressional session than any minority in Senate history.

Unemployment Benefits Bill Fails In House, 261-155

Arthur Delaney

Democrats in both chambers of Congress are scrambling to pass legislation to reauthorize expired unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless before a looming July 4 recess. One such measure failed in a 261-155 House vote on Tuesday.

Bill cosponsor Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.) said Democrats will return to the measure on Wednesday, when it will face a much lower simple-majority 219-vote threshold. "It will pass," said Levin, who added that he is coordinating with his counterparts in the Senate. (The House bill required a two-thirds majority on Tuesday because it was brought to the floor under a suspension of the rules.)

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has been shuttling back and forth between Democrats and Republicans in the upper chamber in hopes of winning 60 votes for the Senate's own version of a standalone unemployment benefits bill.

"Sen. Reid has had some conversations with Republicans to see what we can do to get UI on the floor and passed," said Reid spokesman Jim Manley. Moderate Republicans have resisted supporting domestic aid bills in recent weeks because of deficit concerns. Only Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) has said she'd be willing to vote for a bill that reauthorizes extended unemployment if doing so adds to the deficit. With Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson demanding that any spending bill be deficit neutral, Reid apparently needs at least three Republicans, and he might be considering funding offsets to win them over.

[UPDATE 8:30 P.M. Reid and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) filed for cloture Tuesday evening on a bill to reauthorize extended unemployment benefits through November and also the first-time home-buyer tax credit until October. A spokesman told HuffPost a vote could happen as soon as Wednesday. The measure is not paid for and would add roughly $33 billion to the deficit.]

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told HuffPost on Friday that Democrats have indeed been mulling paying for the benefits. "One of the debates that goes on now -- which I completely resist, but it's one of the debates going on -- is at the end of the day, these people have to have their benefits, and should we begin paying for unemployment benefits?"

The measures under consideration would preserve through November the extended benefits originally put in place by President Obama's stimulus bill at the beginning of 2009, which in some states provided checks for up to 99 weeks -- an unprecedented amount of help for the unemployed. Historically, Congress has always designated extended benefits "emergency spending" during times of high unemployment, and has never allowed extended benefits to lapse when the national unemployment rate stands above 7.2 percent.

Levin said Republicans' resistance to helping the unemployed made them look "callous," and he lamented the fact that the media doesn't put much of a face on the current congressional jobs jam -- despite the more than 1.2 million people out of work for longer than six months who since June 1 have missed checks because of congressional dithering, a number that will reach nearly 1.7 million this Friday.

Levin called complaints about adding to the deficit to pay for benefits "lame."

"The problem that exists -- 20 years ago I took a USA Today reporter out to an employment office and he interviewed the people in line waiting for their checks and it was a wide diversity of people, and it was a front-page story," Levin said. "The problem I have and you have is there's no place you can go to talk to the unemployment. They get their checks through the Internet -- the money's sent to them. So it's hard to put a human face on this, but there are 1.7 million human faces, plus their families, so we're determined to find a way to humanize this."

Republicans and even some Democrats have suggested that the extended benefits aren't worth keeping because they're making people lazy. "The message from a lot of our Republican colleagues is that there are a lot of people who aren't looking for work," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). "That's just not true. In order to qualify for unemployment, you have to demonstrate that you're making a determined effort to look for work."

House Democrats Mulling Standalone Jobs Bill After Senate Failure

ANDREW TAYLOR and STEPHEN OHLEMACHER |

WASHINGTON — The demise of Democrats' jobs-agenda legislation means that unemployment benefits will phase out for more than 200,000 people a week. Governors who had counted on fresh federal aid will now have to consider more budget cuts, tax increases and layoffs of state workers.

Democratic officials said the House may try to revive the long-stalled jobless aid bill next week as a stand-alone bill shorn of controversial tax and spending provisions that prompted Senate Republicans to filibuster it on Thursday.

But the Senate may not have enough time to clear the measure for President Barack Obama's desk before leaving Washington for the Fourth of July recess. The impasse has meant that more than 1.2 million people have lost unemployment benefits averaging $300 a week.

The aides required anonymity to speak freely about internal party strategy.

Stymied by Republicans, Democrats are at a loss as they struggle to help pump up the economy in the run-up to congressional elections this fall.

Senate Democrats cut billions from the bill in an attempt to attract enough Republican votes to overcome a filibuster. But the 57-41 vote Thursday fell three votes short of the 60 required to crack a GOP filibuster.

"Democrats have given Republicans every chance to say 'yes' to this bill and support economic recovery for our middle class," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "But they made a choice to say 'no' yet again."

President Barack Obama will keep pressing Congress to pass the bill, his spokesman said. But Democrats haven't shown they can come up with the votes.

That's leading Democrats to consider breaking the jobless aid measure from the catchall bill and try to pass it as a stand-alone $33 billion measure next week before leaving Washington for a weeklong Independence Day recess. Key Senate Republicans, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, are pressing the idea.

But a Reid spokesman said the majority leader is committed to passing a Wall Street reform bill next week and predicted Republicans would block any move to do a stand-alone jobless aid bill after that measure passes.

The stand-alone approach proved to be the way forward for a measure to temporarily spare doctors from a 21 percent cut in Medicare payments, which Obama signed Friday.

The Medicare funding had been a part of the larger bill to provide extended unemployment benefits for laid-off workers and provide states with billions of dollars to avert layoffs. When it became clear Senate Republicans would block the larger bill, Democrats begrudgingly voted for the smaller Medicare fix.

"It is clear that Senate Republicans have no intention of passing any jobs legislation, whether it is tied to physician payments or not," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Congressional Democrats began the year with an aggressive agenda of passing a series of bills designed to create jobs. One has become law, offering tax breaks to companies that hire unemployed workers. Others stalled as lawmakers, after hearing from angry voters, became wary of adding to the national debt, which stands at $13 trillion.

"The debt is out of control," said Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass.

Republicans said the bill would have expanded government, not boosted the economy.

"The only thing Republicans have opposed in this debate are job-killing taxes and adding to the national debt," said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. "What we're not willing to do is use worthwhile programs as an excuse to burden our children and our grandchildren with an even bigger national debt than we've already got."

The rejected bill would have provided $16 billion in new aid to states, preserving the jobs of thousands of state and local government workers and providing what White House officials called an insurance policy against a double-dip recession. It also included dozens of tax breaks sought by business lobbyists and tax increases on domestically produced oil and on investment fund managers.

Sen. Max Baucus, the bill's chief author, said Friday that Democrats may wait a week or two before attempting again to push the bill through.

"There 's a lot of people not getting their unemployment checks. There's going to be consequences of that," he said, adding that could put additional pressure on Republicans to support the bill.

Baucus said "we'll wait and work on other legislation in the interim. ... There were some bitter partisan feelings when we left. Maybe a little cooling off will help."

The legislation had been sharply pared back after weeks of negotiations with GOP moderates Snowe and Collins, but they were not persuaded to support the measure. The latest draft would have added $33 billion to the deficit.

The Medicare bill signed by Obama delays cuts in payments to doctors until the end of November – after congressional elections – when lawmakers hope the political climate is better for passing a more permanent, and expensive, solution.

There was some urgency to approve the funding because Medicare announced last week it would begin processing claims it had already received for June at the lower rate. Lawmakers said some doctors have already stopped seeing new Medicare patients because of the cuts.

The bill increases payments to providers by 2.2 percent. The legislation, which costs about $6.5 billion, is paid for with a series of health care and pension changes that both Democrats and Republicans agreed to.

The Medicare cuts were required under a 1990s budget-cutting law that Congress has routinely waived. The latest extension expired May 31 after concerns about adding to the budget deficit held up the larger bill that also included unemployment benefits.

Obama praised Congress for passing the measure, while urging lawmakers to work on a more permanent solution.

M.C.L Comment: When I hear people like A.B. Stoddard talk as if there is a massive surge for the Republicans I gotta ask her based on what? Going back when Barack Obama was president elect Obama, the Republicans told the American public what they plans were and it's saying no to everything.

And the Republicans show how petty they are for example look at Pay as you go Republicans were for it but once President Obama signed on for it, the Republicans turned around and went against it. What the Republicans are doing is very well should be the final nail for them, they slow walking things up in hopes things get worst between now and election eve night.

The Republicans are willingly let this country go into the seventh level of hell to help them win elections and for that people should vote more of them out.

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Obama slams GOP ‘obstruction’ on jobs, stimulus

By Agence France-Presse

President Barack Obama slammed Republican opponents Saturday for their "obstruction" in Congress and called for a "willingness to score fewer political points" in order to deal with the nation's problems.

The United States "is facing a host of big and difficult challenges," Obama noted in his weekly radio and Internet address, saying Americans need a "willingness in Washington to put the public's interests first."

Obama said he was "disappointed" at obstacles put up by opposition lawmakers this week to the Democrat's economic recovery efforts in the US Senate, including legislation to extend unemployment benefits.

Hailing the bill as vital protection for workers, as well as the bill's other provisions such as homebuyers' tax credits, Obama lamented that Republican leaders would not "even allow this legislation to come up for a vote."

If the "obstruction continues, unemployed Americans will see their benefits stop. Teachers and firefighters will lose their

jobs... All we ask for is a simple up or down vote. That's what the American people deserve," he said

In a stinging hit back at the White House, Republican Senator Roger Wicker delivered his party's weekly response in a bid to reinforce perception that Obama was too late getting involved in the massive oil slick hitting the Gulf of Mexico.

"I'm glad President Obama is finally putting this catastrophe at the top of his agenda, but his response has been too slow," said the Mississippi lawmaker.

"He was slow in listening to state and local leaders, slow in getting skimmers to the Gulf, slow in understanding the seriousness of this crisis, and slow in taking ownership and responsibility for the recovery. Many of his actions have actually taken us in the wrong direction," he said.

Wicker said Obama's primetime Oval Office address on Tuesday about the oil spill disaster and US energy policy was a failure because "now is not the time to push a controversial, job-killing, partisan agenda through Congress."

This video is from the White House, published Saturday, June 19, 2010.

DeMint Claims That Republican Senators Just Wanted ‘Some Debate And A Vote’ On Obama’s Nominees

By Amanda Terkel

Yesterday, President Obama announced his intention to recess appoint 15 qualified nominees who have faced an “unprecedented level” of GOP obstruction to fill “critical” administration positions. From a statement by White House Communications Director Jen Psaki:

Many of these fifteen individuals have enjoyed broad bipartisan support, but have found their confirmation votes delayed for reasons that have nothing to do with their qualifications. … Because of political posturing, these fifteen appointees have waited an average of 214 days for Senate confirmation. [...]

To put this in perspective, at this time in 2002, President Bush had only 5 nominees pending on the floor. By contrast, President Obama has 77 nominees currently pending on the floor, 58 of whom have been waiting for over two weeks and 44 of those have been waiting more than a month.

One of the people receiving a recess appointment is Craig Becker to serve on the National Labor Relations Board, which protects workers from unfair labor practices. As Psaki explained, although the “five member board has been trying to operate with only two members,” Becker has “been waiting for 261 days or over 8 months” to be confirmed.

Becker, who has spent much of his distinguished career as a lawyer for the AFL-CIO and SEIU, has been one of the GOP’s top targets. Republicans have been using his nomination as a proxy battle for the Employee Free Choice Act. As The Wonk Room’s Pat Garofalo has explained, they seem to believe that “Becker will somehow institute EFCA all by himself, which is, of course, nonsense.”

Today on CBS’s Face the Nation, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) tried to make the GOP obstruction sound reasonable, claiming that all they wanted was “some debate and a vote”:

DEMINT: Craig Becker, who was in the group that he appointed by executive fiat yesterday, is someone who has worked for unions his entire career. He put him on a board that is supposed to be unbiased arbitrators between businesses and unions. Democrats opposed this nomination. So, there’s bipartisan opposition. All we had asked for is some debate and a vote on this nominee. He decided to circumvent Congress again — which has become his style on so many issues — and just appoint him while we were out of town.

Watch it:

Despite what DeMint is saying, the problem is that Republicans were preventing Becker from receiving an up-or-down vote. Becker, in fact, has never received such a vote, thanks to a GOP filibuster (which was joined by Democratic Sens. Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln). In February, the motion to file cloture on his nomination was defeated by a 33-52 vote (with 15 senators missing the vote), eight short of the 60 needed to proceed to debate and a final vote. Even if all of the non-voting members had voted no, Becker still would have received the approval of a majority of the Senate.

There’s a similar story for many of other Obama’s nominees, including Erroll Southers, the man Obama chose to lead the Transportation Security Administration. DeMint led the opposition to Southers — in an attempt “to prevent TSA workers from joining a labor union” — who eventually chose to withdraw from consideration because of the delays.

Transcript:

SCHIEFFER: One of the things the President said when you all said that we’re going to continue to oppose this, he said “bring it on.” He was ready for the fight. And I suppose one of the ways he is doing that is he announced last night that he is going to, what they call “recess appoint,” 15 nominees for government jobs that have been appointments that are being held up in the Senate — he’s going to appoint them during this recess. And for people who don’t quite understand what that means, what it means is they can go to work, fill out those positions, and continue to work in those positions until the next Congress is seated next year. What’s your response to that?

DEMINT: Bob, the President is mocking Americans who continue to be against this bill. He said “bring it on.” That’s what we intend to do. Now his recess appointments belie the fact that hundreds of his nominations have been confirmed unanimously by the Senate. But he has had mixed in with these batch of nominations some pretty radical folks.

Craig Becker, who was in the group that he appointed by executive fiat yesterday, is someone who has worked for unions his entire career. He put him on a board that is supposed to be unbiased arbitrators between businesses and unions. Democrats opposed this nomination. So, there’s bipartisan opposition. All we had asked for is some debate and a vote on this nominee. He decided to circumvent Congress again — which has become his style on so many issues — and just appoint him while we were out of town.

Republicans Block Senate Committee Hearings, Including On National Security Matters, For Second Day In A Row

By Amanda Terkel

ThinkProgress yesterday reported that all of Tuesday’s Senate committee and subcommittee hearings had to stop after 2:00 p.m. because of Republican objections. There is a little-noticed Senate rule that says committees need permission to meet anytime after two hours after the Senate convenes. Without permission, even a committee already in session has to stop meeting. No committee meetings are allowed to occur after 2:00 p.m.

The Senate generally waives this rule by unanimous consent at the start of business each day. But to protest health care legislation, Republicans have refused to give their consent this week, bringing committee work in the Senate to a virtual standstill. Today, the Senate convened at 9:00 a.m., meaning that hearings after 11:00 a.m. were blocked. One hearing canceled today was a Senate Homeland Security subcommittee session on “Contracts for Afghan National Police Training.” Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), chair of the subcommittee, went on the Senate floor and called out the GOP tactics:

McCASKILL: Mr. President, I’m just confused about why the hearing that we had scheduled this afternoon cannot go forward. The subject matter of this hearing is oversight of the contract that is engaged in police training in Afghanistan in the Contracting Oversight subcommittee. This is a hearing that is getting to the heart of the matter that we have a real problem with the mission part in Afghanistan on police training because of problems with these contracts, problems with oversight of the State Department.

We have now canceled the hearing because we can’t have it. The witness from the State Department has been canceled. The witness from the Defense Department has been canceled. The inspectors general that were coming to testify about a GAO report that just came out last week — that was damning in its criticism of the oversight of these contracts. … I don’t get it.

Also on the Senate floor, Carl Levin (D-MI) asked permission for the already-scheduled Senated Armed Services Committee to go forward — a request supported by ranking member Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). Levin pointed out that a couple of the commanders had traveled long distances to attend today’s hearing, from as far away as Japan. Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), speaking on behalf of Republicans, objected and blocked the request:

BURR: As a member of the committee — and I side myself with the chair and the ranking member — that I have no personal objection to continuing. There is objection on our side of the aisle. Therefore, I would have to object.

Watch the clips:

The Senate Judiciary Committee also had to cancel its hearing considering President Obama’s judicial nominations, which included Goodwin Liu for the Ninth Circuit. Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) put out a statement today blasting Republicans for their petty partisanship:

Senate Republicans’ tactics of obstruction and delay know no limit. They have objected to reasonable timetables to consider President Obama’s qualified judicial nominees, and now they are objecting to allowing the Judiciary Committee to conduct hearings in connection with these nominations. Senate Republicans continue their ill-advised protest of meaningful health reform legislation by exploiting parliamentary tactics and Senate Rules, to the detriment of the American people and, in today’s instance, at the expense of American justice. I urge them to reconsider and allow this hearing to proceed as scheduled.

In response to the GOP maneuvers, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) spokesman Jim Manley replied, “So let me get this straight: in retaliation for our efforts to have an up-or-down vote to improve health care reform, Republicans are blocking an Armed Services committee hearing to discuss critical national security issues among other committee meetings?”

Democratic sources on the Hill told ThinkProgress that they expect Republicans to continue this tactic all week. Republicans used this tactic as recently as June 2008, attempting to shut down at least two Judiciary Committee hearings on torture and how Supreme Court decisions had restricted protections of American workers and consumers.

Here is a full list of hearings the Senate was supposed to hold today. ThinkProgress learned that of those committees, Commerce and Agriculture were able to finish their hearings. Veterans and Environment and Public Works had to stop their hearings, and Small Business was postponed.

Update Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Daniel Akaka (D-HI), whose hearing was stopped abruptly at 11:00 a.m., replied, "The Senate should be a place for debate, but I cannot imagine how shutting down a hearing on helping homeless veterans has any part of the debate on the health insurance reform. I am deeply disappointed that my colleagues chose to hinder our common work to help end veteran homelessness."

Update McCaskill addressed the issue again on the Senate floor this afternoon, shortly after 2:15, saying, "I don't get what the purpose of saying 'no' is. I don't get what we accomplish. We're sent here to work. We're paid by the people of this country to work."(Motor City Lib quick hit: And Independent voters are you really thinking about giving these people power again? Based on what?) Watch it: