Call Senator Reid TODAY for filibuster reform

This might be a decisive week for the U.S. Senate that will determine if it can carry on the routine business of the body to approve or not approve Presidential nominations to head agencies and to serve on the courts. 

According to a story in The Hill this morning, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will meet with members of the Senate Democratic Caucus today or Thursday to gauge support for reducing the number of votes needed to change the rules of the Senate from 67 to a simple majority of 51.    

Without this rule change important appointments to head major agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the National Labor Relations Board will continue to be stalled by filibusters that prevent even an up or down vote on the nominations.  This is no way to run a railroad let alone the most powerful country in the world.

Earlier efforts this year were made to convince Senator Reid that all the filibuster rules of the Senate needed to be changed, possibly requiring a “talking filibuster” as I argued for in an opinion editorial in The HiIl.  While that effort failed, ending filibusters for nominees to head agencies or serve on the courts is a big step.

Call Senator Reid’s office today and leave him a message to change the filibuster rules.  Call him at 202-224-3542.  You can either ask to talk to a staff person or simply leave a voice message.

Call now.  202-224-3542. 

Sign the petition to fix the U.S. Senate

Please join with Senators Jeff Merkley, Tom Udall and Tom Harkin, by telling Senate leaders to include a real, talking filibuster in any package of Senate rules reforms.

Clickhere to sign our petition—Sens. Merkley, Udall and Harkin will see to it thatSenate leaders hear your message.

Between now and January 22, Senate leaders will meet to discuss whether senators will continue to be allowed to silently stall any nomination or legislation, or whether the public accountability of a real, talking filibuster will be required from now on.

During these meetings, the grassroots need a way to send a message about our frustration with unaccountable obstructionism directly to Senate leaders.

Tell Senate leaders to include a real, talking filibuster in any package of Senate rules reforms. Sens. Merkley, Udall and Harkin will deliver your message.

If we’re ever going to reinvest in America, hold Wall Street accountable, fight global climate change and reform our broken campaign finance laws, we need a Senate that works. At a bare minimum, that means senators must be required to publicly make their case for why they are blocking legislation to the American people.

As the climactic January 22 vote on filibuster reform approaches, no one can deliver your message about the need for a talking filibuster better than Sens. Merkley, Udall and Harkin. They can make it clear to the leaders of the Senate, and to all of their colleagues, that the grassroots have had enough of unaccountable obstruction.

Please join Jeff Merkley, Tom Udall and Tom Harkin by telling Senate leaders to include a real, talking filibuster in any package of Senate rules reforms.

What Does it Take to Filibuster?

The U.S. Senate is scheduled to vote on reforming its filibuster rules on January 22. 

Here are 5 Senators that need to hear that you are tired of a dysfunctional body that doesn’t get anything done on the problems facing our country including promoting economic development.

Senator Harry Reid
Senator Max Baucus
Senator Dianne Feinstein
Senator Barbara Boxer
Senator Jack Reed

Pick up the phone and call one telephone number:  202-224-3121

This is the number of the Senate switch board that can transfer you to any Senate office.  Call each of these Senators with this simple message:

“I would like the Senator to vote in favor of the Udall-Merkley Resolution Number 4 that requires a Talking Filibuster.  And I want the Senator to support the Constitutional option for this vote.”

Read more about this issue by clicking here. 

You can make the difference between 2 more years of dysfunctional government and a Congress that gets things done.

Thank you for your support.

Action Alert! Filibusters should be for talking, not hiding

If you believe that the U.S. Senate is dysfunctional, nobody gets along, there is no cooperation, important legislation never gets approved….you’re not alone.

But there is hope.  Read my op.ed below that ran in The Hill today.  It describes the Senate filibuster rules problem and what is being proposed to fix it.

Then pick up the phone and call one telephone number:  202-224-3121

This is the number of the Senate switch board that can transfer you to any Senate office.  If you want the Senate to function and really get to work on addressing big issues like strengthening the economy, then call this number 11 times.  Each time ask for a different key Senator listed here. 

Your message is simple.  “I would like the Senator to vote in favor of the Udall-Merkley Resolution Number 4 that requires a Talking Filibuster.  And I want the Senator to support the Constitutional option for this vote.”

The actual vote on this won’t happen until January 22 but those who want to maintain the minority’s ability to keep the Senate dysfunctional are trying right now to get Senators to support a very week alternative resolution. 

This is truly about Senate traditionalists and nay-sayers who want to keep the old dysfunctional ways versus the public that wants an effective, efficient Senate to address the nation’s problems.
Here are the key Senators to call:
Max Baucus, Barbara Boxer, Thomas Carper, Dianne Feinstein, John Kerry, Patrick Leahy, Carl Levin, Ben Nelson, Mark Pryor, Jack Reed and Harry Reid
You can make the difference between 2 more years of dysfunctional government and a Congress that gets things done.
Thank you for your support.

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The Hill’s Congress Blog
January 4, 2013

Real Senate filibuster reform needed
By Frank Knapp, Jr., vice chairman, American Sustainable Business Council Action Fund - 01/04/13 11:00 AM ET

Dysfunctional!

This is the term that almost everyone has used to describe the 112th Congress even after the New Year’s Day passage of the “fiscal cliff” legislation to responsibly address some pressing taxation issues. However, the public and media understand that this final bi-partisan act was only a temporary pause from Congress’s dysfunctional ways.

Much of this problem lies with the voters rewarding extreme partisanship over cooperative problem solving and Congress making policy decisions that guarantee later stalemates.

However, there is one self-inflicted structural problem in the U.S. Senate that magnifies both these electorate and policy decisions — the filibuster.
Except for rare occasions, the Senate is ruled by the minority. With 60 votes needed to end a filibuster that can essentially be “called-in” by the minority, the American public is being deprived

There is no transparency or accountability under today’s Senate filibuster rules. Consequently we have had an abusive and undemocratic use of filibusters in recent years at every step in the legislative process. The Senate has become frozen in its ability to address the nation’s problems, especially when it comes to promoting a healthy economy. That is why many business organizations like the American Sustainable Business Council, a national coalition of business organizations that together represent over 150,000 small and medium businesses, strongly supports filibuster reform.

With the new 113th Congress there is an effort underway in the Senate to put filibuster reform on the agenda for January 22 in an effort to create a more functional chamber. Two competing proposals are being offered but only one does the job.

Democratic Senators led by Jeff Merkley and Tom Udall have proposed a filibuster reform package that does not eliminate the filibuster or even decrease the number of votes needed for cloture. But it would require “talking filibusters”. No more simply phoning in an objection to a bill thus requiring an almost unattainable 60-vote supermajority of Senators to end debate, a debate that actually never takes place.

This “lazy filibuster” would end with a “talking filibuster” rule in which the Senators objecting must hold the floor and actually debate continuously as the definition of a filibuster indicates. If no filibuster supporter is talking, a majority of Senators present can vote to end the debate and move forward on the bill.

Recently Senator Udall indicated that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had 51 votes to make this change using the “Constitutional option”. Requiring only a majority of Senators to change rules at the beginning of a new session has been both upheld by the Supreme Court and used by previous Senates.

However, the “Constitutional option” raises a concern with some Senators who believe that it would make bi-partisanship even worse and that it doesn’t protect the minority’s ability to impact legislation. Thus a counter proposal has been offered by Senators John McCain and Carl Levin, who suggest using a temporary “Standing Order” to make slight changes to filibuster rules. Unfortunately, the changes offered do virtually nothing to stop filibusters on bills when the minority leader determines that a dysfunctional Senate better suits the minority’s cause.

Today’s Senate filibuster rules must be changed. Instead of creating a more toxic atmosphere in the Senate, a “talking filibuster” might encourage more bi-partisan cooperation on bills and improve the productivity of the chamber. Such a rules change will create a more functioning and efficient Senate that will return it to its rightful position of influence in the legislative process.

The “talking filibuster” will still protect the minority’s opinion. And legislative dissenters will still be able to voice their opinion to House, president and Supreme Court. And if all this fails the minority, there will be the next election. This is actually how our democratic system was meant to be.

Elections do have consequences. But when those consequential actions are hidden from voters and the public is denied the right to see their elected leaders in action in order to hold them accountable, then we perpetuate the public’s voting decisions that feed dysfunctional elected bodies.


Knapp is vice chairman of the American Sustainable Business Council Action Fund.
Source:
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/275475-real-senate-filibuster-reform-needed

Harry, Fix the Senate

Action Alert!

Call NOW to push filibuster reform

Possibly as early as today U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will make a decision that will determine if the Senate will remain a dysfunctional body that can’t address any of the nation’s problems for the next two years.

Senator Reid is putting together his filibuster rules reform package today to be presented to the Senate immediately.  If that package doesn’t contain at a minimum the requirement that all filibusters must be a “talking filibuster”, then the Senate will continue to be paralyzed from taking any meaningful actions.  More background on this issue is below.

Call Senator Reid’s office NOW.  202-224-3542 and press 1 to leave this message:

“Please include a “talking filibuster” requirement in Senator Reid’s rules reform package.”

This could be the most important call you will make for moving the nation forward.

 

Background

Current U.S. Senate rules require 60 votes out of 100 to end a filibuster and allow the Senate to proceed on an issue.  Filibusters in the Senate are at an all-time high: during the six years that Senator Harry Reid has been the Majority Leader, he has had to file cloture motions (to break a filibuster) 386 times. During the six years prior to his time as Majority Leader, cloture motions had to be filed 201 times. During the six years that Lyndon Johnson was Majority Leader, he had to file a cloture motion only once.

Filibustering is also occurring at steps of the legislative process that used to be noncontroversial. There has been a major increase in filibustering motions to proceed, which is filibustering against the beginning of debate. In the last six years there have been 130 filibusters used to block the beginning of debate -- more than a third of all such filibusters in the 20th century.

The following rule changes are under consideration:

The Talking Filibuster

The most significant reform currently under consideration is known as the "talking filibuster." It simply proposes that if a Senator or group of Senators want to block the majority from getting to a decision on a bill (or nomination or other business before the Senate) by insisting on their right to unlimited debate, then they need to be on the floor and debating. Under current rules, a Senator can literally phone in an objection. Simply notifying a party leader that the Senator would object to the Senate acting on a given bill is a filibuster, and that's enough stop further progress. To overcome that objection, the Senate has to invoke "cloture," the official process for ending a filibuster, which not only requires a supermajority of 60 Senators to agree to end debate, but also four days of procedural time.

The "talking filibuster" would say that if a majority of Senators want to end debate, but not 60, then the filibustering Senators would be required to hold the floor and debate continuously. If at any point no one is debating the bill that the minority is insisting requires more debate, then a majority of Senators (51 if all Senators are voting) can end debate and move toward final passage.

There are two goals here: One is to put the burden of obstructing the Senate on those who would obstruct. Requiring more time and energy in order to block the majority from passing legislation should move the Senate back toward the earlier more balanced situation where filibusters were a rarely-used procedural tool. In addition, this would bring transparency, debate, and deliberation to the process. If Senators want to object to bills coming to a vote, they should not be able to do it quietly, with the public unable to know who is objecting or why. They should stand on the floor, make their case, and let the public and other Senators judge their arguments.

 

No More Filibustering Simple Procedural Steps

Motions to Proceed

The current minority has brought filibustering to a whole new level, not just in terms of the number of bills and nominations filibustered, but also in filibustering procedural votes where the minority's right to make sure their voice is heard has little relevance. For example, a "motion to proceed" is the way the Senate decides to start debate on a new bill -- by deciding to "proceed to" the consideration of the bill. There have been an escalating number of filibusters against motions to proceed. If the filibuster is a tool for the minority to insist on further debate, it makes little sense that the question of whether to even start debate should be filibustered. This behavior does not encourage debate, it blocks it. So one proposal is to eliminate filibusters against motions to proceed.

 Motions to get to Conference Committee

Another example is sending a bill to conference committee. After the Senate has passed a bill, if the same bill is passed in a different form by the House of Representatives, a conference committee is appointed to reconcile the differences. In the Senate, three separate motions have to be adopted in order to set up a conference committee, each of which can be filibustered. This too makes no sense: a majority of the Senate has already agreed to pass the bill (which in recent years almost universally means 60 Senators have already voted to end a filibuster against the bill), so there's no justification for filibustering against the next routine step in the legislative process. So the second proposal in this category is to eliminate filibusters on motions to proceed.

 

Other Ideas

Expediting Confirmation of Nominations

The last four years have seen an unprecedented level of obstruction against nominees submitted by the President for Senate confirmation. Until recently, non-controversial nominees were relatively filibustered and were often confirmed by unanimous consent (without even a vote) after committees vetted them. Nominees are now routinely held up only to slow the progress in getting the President's choices confirmed -- in the past year there have been multiple judges who had 90 or more Senators vote for their confirmation after the cloture process was used. Since there were far more than 60 votes for the nominee, the filibuster is being used in these cases simply to slow down the process. The most likely proposal to address this problem (beyond the Talking Filibuster, which should make this kind of filibuster much more rare) is to eliminate the 30 hours of debate that are allowed after 60 Senators have voted to end a filibuster against a nominee. Since nominations aren't subject to amendment, there is no rationale for further debate. Furthermore, this would allow the Senate to vote on nominations back-to-back so that even if they need to use the cloture process on the first nomination, they could move on to rapidly confirm multiple nominees in a row.

Shifting the Burden

Under the current rules, the burden of ending the filibuster falls on the majority -- 60 senators must show up and vote for cloture in order to bring debate to a close. This is one reason filibustering is easier on Senators trying to obstruct than it is on Senators who are working to pass legislation. If the burden were changed so that 41 Senators had to show up and vote against cloture in order to keep a filibuster going, the burden would shift to those who seek obstruction.

 

The 99% need help

Yesterday the Senate failed to move forward the President’s plan to invest $35 billion in the states to help keep teachers, law enforcement personnel and firefighters from being fired due to budget shortfalls.  The 60 votes were needed to keep the measure alive but all 50 of the GOP Senators voted against it.

So what was the reason for voting against keeping more of these essential workers on the job and thus keeping more money on Main Street for our small businesses? 

The plan would have been funded by a 0.5% increase in taxes on income over $1 million.  That’s not five percent; it’s one half of one percent.   But in spite of 64% of the public agreeing that asking millionaires to pay just a little more to help with jobs, the Senate Republicans said no.  Not only did they say no, they said that they were just protecting 300,000 small business owners having a hard time with cash flow and credit. 

Now, I don’t know if that 300,000 figure is accurate or not.  The real number of taxpayers with some business income and making over $1 million is only 1% according to the Tax Policy Center.  I’ll let someone else do the math.

But using any small business owner making over $1 million a year as an excuse not to help our nation’s economy is a ridiculous and illogical argument.

Any small business owner taking home this kind of massive income is not struggling with cash flow and credit problems.  Period. 

If a small business can afford to pay its owner over $1 million in compensation, that owner can afford to pay a half a penny more in taxes on every dollar over a million to help keep teachers and first responders on the job and more customer demand for the other 99% of small businesses.