Associated Press
Maybe there's something about retirement that helps "moderate" senators gain some perspective on filibusters. Two years ago, after then-Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) announced the end of his Senate career, he became an articulate supporter of institutional reforms, most notably involving filibusters.
This year, Sen. Olympia Snowe is wrapping up her career, and as Suzy Khimm reported, the Maine Republican is also willing to "do something to fix the political deadlock and dysfunction that drove her to retire in the first place."
"I've been sorting through the aspects, procedurally, that contribute to locking down the process," Snowe said. First and foremost: abuse of the filibuster.
In her final months in office, Snowe is now talking to some of her Senate colleagues -- Democrats, she says -- about what, if any, procedural reforms could deter the chamber from turning routine votes into weapons of mass political destruction.... The minority side's use of cloture has "increased exponentially, especially compared to the last three Congresses," Snowe lamented.
If memory serves, Snowe has killed a lot of worthwhile legislation by joining her party in filibusters, but if she's now open to reforming the broken process, I'm delighted.
Snowe's comments, incidentally, come just two weeks after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), a traditionalist who's resisted changes to the way the chamber operates, also expressed support for institutional reforms.
Of course, the devil is in the details. Snowe may lament what's become of the Senate process, but what, exactly, is she prepared to do about it?
Khimm's report suggests the retiring senator isn't thinking big.
Snowe is now looking at ways that Senate procedure could be reformed to help alleviate partisan gridlock. "I'm doing some research on how cloture has been used" since it was put into effect in 1917, she explains. In classic Snowe form, her hope is to try to find a procedural fix that would also be a compromise between the minority and the majority -- "so that neither gets the upper hand," she explains.
That's always been the biggest stumbling block in past attempts at filibuster reform: The majority might complain about minority abuse of the filibuster today, but their party could be in the minority tomorrow and want that additional protection. The only politically tenable fix that would "do something for both sides ... a procedural mechanism so that neither gets the upper hand," Snowe said.
To be sure, I'm glad Snowe believes the system doesn't work, and has at least begun preliminary talks about making improvements. That's more than I can say about most her of colleagues. If there are real talks about reform this year, it's probably a good idea to have someone like Snowe at the table.
But if she's looking for a solution to a dysfunctional mess that's going to satisfy everyone, I suspect she'll be looking for a very long time, and won't get anything done before she leaves the chamber at the end of the year.
Leave a Comment:
For the 4,00th time this year in GOP politics, Steve, it's not a bug, it's a feature. This way, they get Beltway "bipartisanship" points without having to, you know, actually do anything.
Too little, too late.
She's not going to find redemption.
I second that sentiment.
Sen. Snowe can, if she wishes, think really small: Simply return "Filibuster" to mean you must actually hold the floor by talking.
The filibuster has never really meant this.
It should.
@fargazmo
So those really were not cots on the Senate Floor and in the cloakrooms during the Civil Rights debates of the 1950's and 1960's?
Gee. I'll tell LBJ and Sen. Richard Russell of GA they were just dreaming...
Cloture requirements really had nothing to do with the grandstanding speeches of old. The cots were on the floor because when a filibuster was being mounted, if a quorum call were made, Senators needed to be on hand so that their side would be represented and the opposing side wouldn't be able to profit from their absence. But all in all, it's always been a matter of delay and vote requirements. The Mr. Smith Goes to Washington element has been a combination of mythology and misconception.
Steve, I know the money is good, but please get the @!$%# out of this job. Ed Kilgore is awesome, but I miss your work. Take a step back and look at this post;
Shorter: "Lifelong Republican water-carrier decides to feign sanity once it's no longer of any use to the people she's supposed to be serving." Really? Snowe doesn't like the way the Senate runs? Gosh, it's a crying fuggin' shame that she never had any national platform from which to broadcast these concerns! Do you see what I'm saying here?
Not trying to knock you, I love your work, & am in awe of your Rate of Output, but a few more years of this, you'll be writing articles about how sweet and noble Karl Rove is because he let you eat on his porch that one time...
Really not fair attack at the poster of this blog piece, Shaun. Olympia Snowe is part of a dying breed - Republicans who think for themselves and aren't afraid to cross party lines (even if it is only 1/100 votes) to do what is right for the American people.
Utter horse@!$%#! Name a single occasion that grandstanding, self-righteous hag stood up to the extremist elements of her party in the last four years! Even one!
That's an interesting take on the matter, Bolbis. Care to provide me with ONE instance where Snowe took a political risk to buck her party? From where I'm standing, she comes off as just another political whore willing to throw her voters under the bus in exchange for SuperPAC money. She says quasi-sane things on the TV sometimes? Wow, how courageous! How does she vote?
@!$%# Olympia Snowe. If she can look herself in the mirror while spouting that obvious bull@!$%#, more power to her. I, on the other hand, know the difference between chicken salad, and chicken @!$%#....
One thing that's maddening is that among those who vociferously defend the filibuster, when they're pinned down and their most ridiculous arguments are put to bed, they don't have any positive argument to make for the tool other than that it's just the way it is.
"If memory serves, Snowe has killed a lot of worthwhile legislation by joining her party in filibusters,..."
Exactly which is why this gesture rings so hollow! Had she even bothered to show a spine and vote against her party I might be impressed, but that's not how it's happened - right now I'm just so unimpressed!
Some Organized Religions find deathbed conversions useful to guarantee the "Faithful" entrance into "Heaven".
(A large donation helps speed passage thru "Purgatory".)
Wait a minute. Let's consider the Apocalypse Scenario.
Suppose all those hundreds of millions from the right-wing nut job billionaires end up buying the Senate and the presidency. A horrible thought, but given Citizen's United, we have to at least consider it.
Don't we want to be able to clog up all the hate legislation that will come pouring out of the teabagger congress?
Maybe Harry was on to something when he didn't push for major reforms after the 2010 election cycle?
Regardless of partisan considerations, why in the world would we want a system by which a minority can obstruct a majority from doing anything? This is not to say that there aren't concerns about pure majoritarianism, but this is not that. If people vote in a majority of one party, then that party, crazy though it may be, deserves to try to implement their agenda; after that, if people don't like them, they can vote them out.
Do you seriously doubt that a Republican majority in the Senate next year would even hesitate to ditch the filibuster if they also have the other two Houses?
We essentially had that situation as it regards the Senate especially. That was one reason for the 17th Amendment -- which, not surprisingly -- many on the far right are now saying should be repealed to "return power to the States as the Framers intended."
On the other point of
My answer is because unfettered majority rule is NOT a good thing. However neither is an unfettered , or maybe just barely fettered, minority veto.
We don't have unfettered majority rule, and if the filibuster were gone in the Senate, we still wouldn't.
I have more respect for the Tea Party Caucus members than for this soulless, self-righteous bitch. They at least have the courage of their convictions. Olympia Snow, a woman of no moral or ethical character whatsoever, has spent her entire career marketing herself as a moderate centrist and yet all it takes is for Mitch McConnell to snap his fingers and she abandons whatever "moderate" beliefs she claims to have in order to grovel at his feet like a cringing beaten dog! DIAF, Snowe!
What Alan said...
yeah, me too.
Right. Because the last thing we'd want would be for the majority in a legislative body to "get the upper hand" over the minority. That wouldn't be democratic.
The Senate was set up as a states check on the federal government so that a simple majority couldn't run the country like a dictatorship. The House of Representatives is already majority rule. Look at how one sided the legislation that has been passed out of there in the last 2 years...you really want that in the Senate as well? Reform the filibuster, fine, but you can't get rid of it completely - it is just being abused in this current congress.
Please. I'm tolerably familiar with the text of Constitution, American history, the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention, and the political history of the last 200 years. If the Founders had intended for every single damn bill to require 60 votes, they would have put it into Article I. They did not.
There has never been a time in history when the filibuster was used routinely to block even middling political appointments necessary to keep the government running, to block even the most uncontroversial judicial appointments, and to block on every single important piece of legislation bill proposed by the majority and by the president.
The Founders were responding to the weak, ineffectual government and, yes, gridlock, engendered by the Articles of Confederation. Whatever the Founders intended the Senate to be--and the truth is that they intended it to be a way of keeping big states from dominating small states, blissfully, perhaps willfully unaware that the real source of division in the developing Republic was going to be between North and South rather rather than Virginia and Pennsylvania ganging up on Delaware and New Hampshire--they never intended for it to be a legislative house where a minority could impede the ability of a duly elected majority to govern.
The only thing more worthless than a wingnut Republican is a "moderate" Republican. Don't look at the modifying adjectives, pay attention to the noun. There is no such thing as a "good Republican" who is still breathing. Snowe(job) is the perfect example.
Why does everyone cry "We must reform" on the way out the door? That's just pandering.
Here's a great way to reform the filibuster, Senator Snowe: Stop voting with your party to support filibusters!
If one Republican would break ranks, the pressure on others would quickly erase the current lunacy. But I'll bet that next month, Senator Snowe, while pondering ways to reform the institution, will march in lockstep with the rest of her party is filibustering at the moment.
Filibuster reform just in time to overturn the 20th century.
Filibusters should require 40 vote minimum to maintain, and roll call votes should be allowed at any time once a filibuster is initiated--this means during shame "recess" sessions too.
A sensible suggestion.
A filibuster requires 40 votes. A filibuster consists of 40 votes against cloture. Do you understand?
Ms. Snowe is a coward to now that she leaving she having second thoughts... My what a revlation.... When came time to show strength of conviction her's was hiding in the shadows where they remain today.....