Tom Harkin May Reintroduce Legislation To Kill Filibuster

[dtotire]

Tom Harkin May Reintroduce Legislation To Kill Filibuster


UPDATE: Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) told the Washington Post that he would introduce legislation to reform the filibuster in January.

I'm going to reintroduce that again in January. And people are going to say I only worry about this because I'm in the majority. But I come with clean hands! I started when I was in the minority! ...
We've entered a new era here of outright stoppage at all costs. So that's what I'm trying to address with this amendment. I doubt anything will happen. But at least we'll start the process.

With the news that Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) plans to filibuster the current health care bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-Nev.) options are looking increasingly limited. But one Democratic senator may introduce legislation that would make health care reform a lot easier.

Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa told reporters this weekend that he might reintroduce legislation to end the filibuster, something he first proposed in 1994. The Hawk Eye reports:

"I think, if anything, this health care debate is showing the dangers of unlimited filibuster," Harkin said Thursday during a conference call with reporters. "I think there's a reason for slowing things down ... and getting the public aware of what's happening and maybe even to change public sentiment, but not to just absolutely stop something."

"You could hold something up for maybe a month, but then, finally you'd come down to 51 votes and a majority would be able to pass," Harkin said. "I may revive that. I pushed it very hard at one time and then things kind of got a little better."

When Harkin fought the filibuster 15 years ago, one of his top allies was none other than Joe Lieberman.

" are fed up -- frustrated and fed up and angry about the way in which our government does not work, about the way in which we come down here and get into a lot of political games and seem to -- partisan tugs of war and forget why we're here, which is to serve the American people," Lieberman said at the time. "And I think the filibuster has become not only in reality an obstacle to accomplishment here, but it also a symbol of a lot that ails Washington today."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/14/tom-harkin-to-introduce-l_n_391188.html

[ixion]

1. I didn't condone it when the rethugs threatened the Nuclear Option, and I don't support it now

[CoffeeCat]

2. Don't do it, Tom...

Harkin is smarter than this. As an Iowan and as a Progressive--I am pleading with him NOT
to do this. It's the craziest idea he's had in a long time.

It's wrong. You can't just change the rules because you don't like them--when you attain power.

Furthermore, it's the most short-sighted idea I've heard of in a long time. We won't be in the
majority forever. We won't have the White House forever either.

Don't do it...

[bfarq]

3. They don't need to change the rules. They need to grow a pair

and use reconciliation the way the Republicans have. Most of the important items from the HCR bill could go through reconciliation.

For example, the Medicare buy-in age 55-64 could run under reconciliation because it would have a significant impact on Medicaid costs and other Federal expenditures that result from having 45 million uninsured.

The reconciliation rules might give this an automatic sunset, like the Bush tax cuts, but that is not a bad thing. I'd love to see that debate after 5 or 10 years of allowing people to buy into Medicare.

The items that don't fit under reconciliation rules can go through normal rules. If they can't pass that way, we're no worse off than we are now.

[dtotire]

4. He does not want to abolish it; just to modify it

He does not want to abolish it; just to modify it. Read his reasons;




End the filibuster! An interview with Sen. Tom Harkin

>snip<
Health-care reform has, in part, focused a lot of attention on the seemingly dysfunctional process that produced the bill. Your colleague Sen. Jeff Merkley has begun talking about it. Paul Krugman and Andy Stern have focused on it. Bloggers have turned their attention to it. But you've been making some of these arguments since the 90s. Is the situation worse now than it was then?

It's becoming impossible. The situation in the Senate is an offshoot of the old Newt Gingrich philosophy. Back in the 1980s when I was in the House with Gingrich and the Republicans won the presidency and the Senate, Gingrich was asked if the Republicans would ever take the House, too. He said yes, but we'll have to tear it down first. So that's what they did. Took them 10 years, or even more. But it was a constant attack. And now it looks like they're trying to do that in the Senate.

In the past, we've always had one or two or three senators who would try to block something. The most famous was Jesse Helms. He could tie people up in a conniption. But the thing is, when he went too far, his leader, Bob Dole, wouldn't put up with it. Neither would Trent Lott. And later on, even Bill Frist. You allow him to do so much, and after awhile, you say, that's enough.

Now we have more of the Jesse Helms. The Vitters and DeMint and Coburn, and maybe throw in Inhofe and a couple other newcomers, and they now run the minority. You don't have a minority leader putting them in check, saying we have to work together. Dole would never put up with what's going on over there. Neither would Trent Lott. We've had 101 objections from Republicans to proceeding.

>snip<


more:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/12/end_the_filibuster_an_intervie.html

[Joanne98]

5. YAY