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VIDEO: Udall promotes plan to reform Senate
U.S. Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC Tuesday evening to promote his idea to reform the way the Senate does business.
Udall wants to change the rules in the Senate so the mere threat of a filibuster can’t stop debate on a bill. As Maddow pointed out, some 290 bills that have passed the House are languishing in the Senate because of the threat of filibuster.
“The filibuster is being used as a weapon of partisanship, and so we’ve got to focus on how to change it,” Udall said.
When he was in the House and running for Senate in 2008, Udall said he was seeking to move from one chamber to the other in part because he was tired of working to pass a bill in the House only to have it die in the Senate.
Many of Udall’s colleagues believe it takes 67 senators to amend Senate rules – so, essentially, the threat of a filibuster can stop any attempt to change the rules on fillibusters. Udall and some others have argued that the U.S. Constitution allows the rules to be changed by a simple majority vote of senators.
And Udall intends, at the start of the next Congress in 2011, to make a motion to amend the rules and see what happens.
“We’re gaining momentum every day. … There is a real concern about the way the rules are being used right now,” Udall told Maddow. “What we need the American people to do is speak out. You need to contact your senators and say, ‘Get down to business.’”
Here’s video of the interview:
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Maybe Mr. Udall should take a look at the history of the use of the filibuster. After all, it was members of his own party that used the filibuster to try and block civil rights legislation during the 1950s. This is another example of Democrats not liking the rules that are established and wanting to enact their own, or ignoring the established rules, for their own political gain. Sounds familiar to New Mexico!
I wonder if Udall ever thought that government isn’t the solution, it’s the problem. I applaud the Republicans for standing up with the American people and stopping some TERRIBLE legislation from passing.
He needs to stop whining and start doing the job that the people elected him to do, which is not to whine.
While writing what I was going to say, I came across this video that sums it all up for me.
http://www.breitbart.tv/obama-dems-in-2005-51-vote-nuclear-option-is-arrogant-power-grab-against-the-founders-intent/
I hope Senator Udall’s staff watches this too.
What a whiner. The Senate has had this rule for many decades and legislation still got done in a timely way and the country didn’t collapse. And the vast majority of bills have passed with neither party having a 60 vote edge, it’s called compromise and bipartisanship. It seems to me the good Senator dost protest too much. He is just trying to cover the fact his party is disfunctional and can’t agree on things, much less engage the Repubs in true bipartisanship and get things done the public wants. The whole problem with the agenda rammed through the House so far is that the majority of the citizens don’t want them. The Senate knows that. The Senate was designed by the Constitutional founders to slow down the knee-jerk partisanship in the House and an overbearing and tone-deaf executive branch. It is functioning as it should, I would rather trust the framers of the Constitution than Tom Udall.
How long has this rule been in affect? My recollection is that both sides have used this bill, while they were in the minority, to slow things down – as pointed out, to even stop things – to get a better hearing or prevent legislation from moving forward. The Majority is not always right and the minority is not always wrong. Both sides of the aisle like the rule when they are in the minority and demonize it when they are in the majority. While I regret that good legislation has been stopped over the years – I am exhaulted by the bad legislation that never saw the light of day in Senate.
If THIS particular senator gets his way … yikes.