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Merkley campaigns for filibuster reform in newly elected Senate
Thanks to the Senate filibuster,
workers can’t choose to unionize by
card check, tax rules continue to make
it easy to offshore jobs, and a pro-labor
legal scholar can’t make rulings on la-
bor law despite a presidential appoint-
ment. The Employee Free Choice Act,
the Bring Jobs Home Act, and President
Obama’s appointment of Craig Becker
to the National Labor Relations Board
had majority support in the Senate, but
never got voted on because of threat-
ened filibusters — the Senate rule that
it takes a three-fifths supermajority (60
votes) to cut off debate and move to a
vote.
Labor isn’t the only constituency un-
able to move legislation because of the
filibuster. Senate work has ground
nearly to a halt. The filibuster is why
Congress can’t pass budgets on time or
at all, and why hundreds of judicial and
executive jobs have lain vacant, their
appointees frozen out by a legislative
body that the Constitution says is sup-
posed to provide “advice and consent”
to the president’s appointments.
But this January, says U.S. Senator
Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), filibuster reform
has a real prospect of enactment.
The Constitution gives the Senate
the ability to direct itself, and that means
a newly seated Senate can set new rules.
In the past, changing the filibuster rule
with a 51-vote majority has been de-
NOVEMBER 16, 20
U. S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (center) checks out results during an election-watch
party at the Hilton Hotel in downtown Portland. With him are Oregon AFL-
CIO President Tom Chamberlain and Carrie Wynkoop of Mandate Media.
scribed as the “nuclear option,” because
it would limit the historic ability of mi-
norities to block legislation, and thus
would poison the collegiality needed to
get business done in a body that oper-
ates by “unanimous consent.” But crit-
ics of the filibuster say that the chamber
isn’t getting its business done now —
precisely because minorities are gum-
ming up the works.
“The Senate accords privileges to
each member that if abused, paralyze
the Senate,” Merkley told the Labor
Press. In the past, filibusters were rare,
Merkley said, “because unless you had
an incredibly powerful objection, a once
or twice in a career objection, it was
considered interference with the basic
majority operation of the Senate. How-
ever, it has now become a routine tool
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
of obstruction. And therefore the social
contract that made it work in the past is
gone.”
Lyndon Johnson, in six years as Sen-
ate majority leader, faced only one fili-
buster. Harry Reid, in six years as ma-
jority leader, has had 380.
“People say, ‘Didn’t the rules used to
be different? Didn't they used to have to
debate?' and the short answer is ‘no,’
Merkley said. “But when they chose to
object to majority decision vote, they
felt it was important to stand up and ex-
plain it to the nation, take responsibility
for it, and brag about it back home if it
was popular back home.”
Merkley's proposed reform, “the
talking filibuster,” is modest. If a bill
can’t get 60 votes to cut off debate, then
senators would have to actually remain
on the Senate floor and debate. “The
moment there was no one who wanted
to speak to the bill,” Merkley explains,
“that period of extended debate would
be ended, and you would go on with a
simple majority vote.”
The advantage, Merkley says, is the
public sees the delay, and thus public
feedback becomes a valuable part of the
process: “If a judge nomination is going
to pass by a 95 to 3 vote, I’m not sure
how many members would want to stay
the night to keep up the debate. You’d
get rid of a lot of the frivolous fili-
busters. And if they did do it, it would
give the public a chance to weigh in and
say, ‘you’re heroes,’ or ‘you’re bums.’”
Senators Merkley, Tom Udall of
Utah, and Tom Harkin of Iowa are seek-
ing filibuster reform, and may have
Reid’s support as well; Reid has pub-
licly said he was wrong to oppose the
same reform two years ago. Seven
newly-elected Democratic members of
the Senate are also committed to the
cause: Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin,
Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Heidi
Heitkamp of North Dakota, Mazie Hi-
rono of Hawaii, Tim Kaine of Virginia,
Chris Murphy of Connecticut, and Eliz-
abeth Warren of Massachusetts. And
Maine’s Independent candidate, former
Gov. Angus King, won on a platform
that included filibuster reform as a ma-
jor campaign issue.
The U.S. Senate could get a whole
lot more interesting if Jeff Merkley's fil-
ibuster reform is enacted.
“The American people want their
elected officials to debate and address
the major issues of our time and to
move past obstruction for obstruction’s
sake,” said CWA Legislative Director
Shane Larson at a post-election meeting
of American Constitution Society in
Washington DC. “ Now with newly
elected senators pledging to overhaul
the chamber’s filibuster rules, it’s time
to act.”
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