Before the week is done, one of the longest single “days” in Senate history is expected to finally come to an end.
Amid a long-running dispute over decades-old filibuster rules, Senate leaders have used a parliamentary trick to leave the chamber in a state of suspended animation — in reality adjourned since Jan. 5 but officially considered in a long recess that’s part of the same individual legislative day.
This nearly three-week break has taken place in large part so leadership could hold private negotiations to consider how to deal with a group of Democrats agitating to shake up the foundation of the world’s most deliberative body, right down to challenging the filibuster.
Filibuster likely safe
To the dismay of a younger crop of Democrats and some outside liberal activists, there is no chance that rules surrounding the filibuster will be challenged, senior aides on both sides of the aisle say, because party leaders want to protect the right of the Senate’s minority party to sometimes force a supermajority of 60 votes to approve legislation.
Instead, rank-and-file lawmakers will receive pitches from Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who have been negotiating more limited changes, such as with “secret holds” that allow an anonymous senator to slow legislation.
In addition, some modifications could be made to how confirmations are handled for agency nominees who don’t have direct roles in policymaking.
Sens. Tom Udall, D-N.M., and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., both elected in 2008, have been pushing a never-before-tested option of changing the rules on a party-line vote and are considering demanding a vote on their proposal. That would require Vice President Joe Biden, in his capacity as Senate president, to rule on whether the chamber can change its rules at the start of each new Congress.
“I’m told that the leaders are talking about possible changes and the way the floor works,” Biden said in a brief interview last week. “I may have to rule, so I’m going to keep that opinion to me.”
Roles can reverse
Neither Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., nor Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., would comment on the status of the talks, which have effectively ground the Senate to a halt.
With the 47 Republicans opposing any changes to filibuster rules, Udall, Merkley and Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, their most senior supporter, remained far short of the votes needed to nullify the rule known formally as “cloture,” requiring 60 senators to vote yes to end debate so a final vote can be held.
Many senior Democrats, who have watched the majority flip back and forth a half-dozen times in the past 20 years, balked at taking away minority rights for fear Democrats could soon find themselves in the minority.
The last time a change-the- filibuster debate occurred, the parties were on opposite sides. In 2005, then-Minority Leader Reid led the successful effort to defend the filibuster and rejected the idea that the Senate’s rules could be changed in such a manner.
