Sen. Harry Reid Vows to Change Senate Rules

Senate Majority Leader today confirmed that he will move to change the Senate’s rules and blunt the impact of the filibuster in the next Congress, an effort spearheaded by Sen. Tom Udall a year ago.

Udall, a Democrat, has long contended that constant filibuster threats have rendered the Senate ineffective. Reid apparently agrees.

“We’re going to change the rules,” Reid said today, according to the Washington Post. “We cannot continue in this way.”

Udall isn’t the first New Mexico senator to push for Senate rules changes. Sen. Clinton P. Anderson lobbied for Senate rules changes in the 1950s and finally convinced then-Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson to agree to some small tweaks.

Last year, Udall told me his dad, the late Stewart Udall, encouraged him to read Anderson’s book “Outsider in the Senate” when the younger Udall was elected to the upper chamber two years ago, and that book inspired him to seek rules changes himself.

He and nine other Senators developed a three-pronged approach to change the rules last year. The effort ultimately failed but it would have changed the rule that requires 60 votes to invoke “cloture,” or to move onto debate on a bill.  Republicans, in the Senate minority, opposed the move to make the magic number 50 votes for cloture.

Udall had also proposed disallowing the practice of using secret holds to stall legislation, and to begin requiring senators to actually stay on the floor talking when engaging in a filibuster. It’s unclear what approach Reid will take in the new Congress.

It should be noted that excessive filibuster threats are not the exclusive domain of the Republican Party. Senate Democrats also used the tactic repeatedly when Republicans controlled the Senate during the past decade. But there is no question that filibuster threats are at an all-time high.