The new No. 2 Republican in the Senate says that if history is any judge, the chamber’s leaders will likely work out a deal and not pull the trigger on the “nuclear option” to change the Senate rules with a simple majority vote.
“The history of this has been that people get up to the edge of the abyss and they look into the abyss and they pull back because what majorities realize is that majorities are transient and that today¹s minority can become the majority,” Texas Sen. John Cornyn told CQ Roll Call last week. “So what they do to the minority is what they will have to live with in the future. Usually what that does is prompt some sort of negotiation and some sort of agreed outcome, and I certainly hope that is what happens here.”
He noted that discussions between Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., are continuing “and I hope does not result in the imposition of the nuclear option.”
Negotiations between the two party leaders and their staffs could result in a proposal coming to the floor as early as Jan. 22. The Senate, however, may agree to further delay action by again extending the first legislative day of the 113th Congress, as Reid did to preserve his procedural options on Jan. 3.
Supporters of the procedural maneuver to make changes to curb filibusters argue, however, that any agreement this time would need to go much further than the handshake “gentlemen’s agreement” at the start of the last Congress in 2011. Those supporters include a group of Democratic senators led by Tom Udall of New Mexico, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Tom Harkin of Iowa.
Merkley and Udall said Jan. 3 that if Reid brought a package to the floor without a deal in place, he could get the simple majority.
Outside groups aligned with the Democratic side have pushed for enactment of the changes envisioned by Merkley, Udall and Harkin. The coalition of groups are backing more substantial changes to the Senate rules than anything likely to be the result of a negotiated agreement between Reid and McConnell, and they sought to press their case further last week.
A group known as Fix the Senate Now sent a letter signed by a coalition of left-leaning public interest groups, unions, environmental, immigration and other organizations to Senate offices Jan. 10 endorsing a package of changes (S Res 4) pushed by the Democratic rules overhaul leaders. The AFL-CIO sent an email to activists last week pressing for them to become engaged on the effort to halt what it called a “silent” filibuster that does not require senators to hold the floor in order to block legislation.
“Believe me, this filibuster abuse is a real problem. Bills that would have stopped rewarding corporations for outsourcing jobs, made it easier for workers to organize for a voice on the job, required corporations to disclose contributions to politicians, ended subsidies to big oil companies and other critical initiatives all passed the House and had majority support in the Senate,” AFL-CIO Digital Strategies Deputy Director Nicole Aro wrote. “But they didn’t become law because of the silent filibuster.”
A man from Kentucky attends a Tea Party Patriots rally on the West Front of the Capitol to protest the IRS' targeting of conservative political groups.
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