At 12:45 a.m. last Thursday morning, freshman Kentucky Senator
Rand Paul sat down. For 12 hours and 52 minutes, the
liberty-minded Republican had held the Senate floor, with the
occasional help from a handful of Republican and Democratic
colleagues, delaying the nomination of John Brennan to head the
Central Intelligence Agency. Paul admitted early on that he didn’t
have enough votes to derail the nomination. His decision to
exercise a senator’s right to speak without time limit forced the
Senate, the press, and the American people to focus on a
controversial issue.
Paul’s filibuster was motivated by Attorney General Eric
Holder’s controversial claim that the President has the authority
to kill American citizens on American soil without due process of
law. It also showed Washington what a real filibuster looked
like.
For the past several years, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
has been complaining about Republican obstructionism, claiming that
the GOP is preventing the Senate from getting anything done by
filibustering every significant piece of legislation Reid brings to
the floor. The problem for Reid is that until Rand Paul stood up to
speak on Brennan’s nomination, Republicans hadn’t actually
filibustered anything in years.
A quick look back at how the Senate has operated in the past
highlights the extent to which Reid, an admittedly skillful
political maneuverer, has brought meaningful legislative activity
to an effective halt in the Upper Chamber.
Senate business is usually conducted under “unanimous consent”
rules. Strict limits are placed on, for example, what bills will be
considered, which amendments are in order at which times, and
limits on debate. But all of these rules can be set aside if no one
objects. Unanimous consent agreements, also known as “time
agreements,” set out which amendments will be debated and how
much time Senators have to debate them, and when the final bill
will come up for a vote.
When the majority and minority leaders, or the senators they
designate to lead the floor debate on major legislation, have the
rough outlines of a unanimous consent agreement in place, they
notify each senator’s office. Individual senators then have a few
hours to register any objections. A senator may want to propose a
minor amendment or seek an up or down vote on another, more
controversial amendment. Once every senator is satisfied with how
the debate will proceed, the majority leader seeks unanimous
consent from the floor to proceed with the bill under the agreed
conditions.
In exchange for consideration of their amendments, the minority
surrenders its right to filibuster the bill, and all senators know
that the legislation will soon get a final vote. That’s how things
in the Senate have traditionally worked. Harry Reid has
abandoned the practice, much to the advantage of his party and the
president.
Instead of agreeing to the terms of debate at the beginning,
Reid has consistently sought to shut down all discussion
of major issues and prevent Republican amendments from
ever making it to the floor. Using the strict Senate rules that
govern in the absence of unanimous consent, Reid offers a series of
amendments to every bill he brings to the floor using a practice
known as “filling the tree.” No new amendments can be offered until
one of Reid’s is considered or withdrawn. (Reid, of course,
never actually brings any of his amendments up for
consideration.) Simultaneously, Reid files a cloture motion to
close debate on the bill that hasn’t even been debated yet.
Until a century ago, a lone senator could hold up any
legislation indefinitely. In 1917, the Senate adopted its first
cloture rule, allowing senators to end debate with a two-thirds
vote. This means Mr. Smith wouldn’t have been able to hold the
floor as long as he did if Frank Capra had done a little more
research. In 1975, the Senate reduced the threshold for cloture to
three-fifths. Now a vote from any, 60 of our current 100 Senators
will bring a filibuster to an end.
Reid has been filing cloture motions against filibusters that
don’t exist. Republicans haven’t been clogging the Senate
floor, or staying up all night reading from phone
books. They’ve voted against closing debate before it’s even
started. They’ve insisted upon their right to offer amendments to
pending legislation.
Reid has refused. He doesn’t want to expose his Democratic
colleagues to tough votes on Republican alternatives. He likes to
demagogue against what is in reality his own willful
obstructionism. And in the long run, he’d like to abolish the
supermajority rules that prevent him from wielding the same
majoritarian power as the speaker of the House.
Sen. Paul’s filibuster showed why Senate traditions need to be
protected. He and a few colleagues forced the Senate to consider a
complex issue in a thoughtful way. For what it’s worth, they also
made the president wait one more day to get his new CIA director.
Both parties are to blame for Washington’s problems. Loose talk
about a lack of bipartisanship is misleading: for decades
we’ve had a long-standing bipartisan agreement to spend more
money than we actually have, ignore mounting entitlement
insolvency, and not enforce our immigration laws.
But the Senate’s failure to pass a budget, or get much of
anything worthwhile done, is almost entirely the fault of Reid
and the Senate Democrats who continue to accept him as their
leader. They are the real obstructionists.
Photo: UPI
