Under current practice in the Senate, no measure is brought up unless it is filibuster-proof -- unless it has the support of 60 Senators willing to vote for cloture. Thus, a minority of 41 (usually all of them Republicans) can block consideration of legislation. It is almost as if the Constitution had been amended to require a 60 vote supermajority in the Senate. Of course, the Constitution has not been amended, but there is a powerful force at work that creates that effect. That force is based on bluff. All the minority has to do is threaten to filibuster and the 60 vote "rule" comes into play. What can be done about this?
Rule 22 (providing for the cloture vote) was instituted years ago when actual filibusters took place. To mount a filibuster, a group of Senators would have to take the Senate floor and hold it 24 hours a day for as long as they could. These Senators had to be intensely concerned about an issue to go through this grueling exercise. It rarely happened. When it did happen, the debate could be ended with 60 votes for cloture. Today, the minority does not have to actually filibuster; all they have to do is threaten to filibuster and the Senate leadership scurries around to see if there are 60 votes to end the non-existent filibuster. And the minority doesn't even have to feel very strongly about the issue because they know they won't have to go to the trouble of actually filibustering.
Why doesn't Harry Reid and the Democratic leadership simply call the Republicans' bluff? The leadership should bring up Democratic bills (undiluted, with teeth) and if the Republicans mount a filibuster, so be it. Let the Republicans take the Senate floor day after day and publicly display to every voter that they want to block legislation that would, for example, allow the government to negotiate lower drug prices, roll back tax breaks for the oil companies, provide for lower interest rates on college loans and increase Pell grants, implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, etc. If the Republicans want to self-destruct, let them.
But, you say, it would really look bad if the Senate business were brought to a halt by filibusters. In the first place, the Senate business is already almost at a halt -- it moves at a snail's pace. And the legislation it produces as a result of having to get a 60 vote majority is often so watered down that it is almost useless. Why not try to get strong legislation by waiting out filibusters? Also, if the Republicans filibuster, the public will see clearly that it is the Republicans who are holding things up. As it is now, the public blames the Democratic leadership for the snail's pace.
Remember the time in the mid-1990's when Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton were eyeball to eyeball over the budget and Clinton did not blink? Gingrich held up appropriations and brought some government agencies to a halt. Soon thereafter, Bill Clinton won the 1996 election handily and Newt Gingrich's reputation was badly damaged by this budget incident. Democrats need to learn to call Republicans' bluffs and stop blinking.