While Harry Reid hesitates on changing the silent filibuster, he should remember another congressional leader named Reed -- Thomas Reed.
In 1890, as Speaker of the House, Reed ended the silent filibuster. As he pushed his Reed’s Rules through, members of the opposition, in this case Democrats, shouted “tyrant” and hurled all kinds of threats and insults at him. But he was so determined that if he had failed, he admitted, he was “ready to step down and out.”
A few years later, President Theodore Roosevelt wrote that in destroying the silent filibuster, Reed’s reforms were of far greater permanent importance than any piece of legislation enacted at the time.
Reed himself said that it was a “stride in the direction of responsible government.”
The death of the silent filibuster was discussed in parliaments all over the world and it made Reed a leading political figure and presidential candidate, historian Barbara Tuchman wrote.
Harry Reid should remember that ending the silent filibuster in the senate could secure his own place in history.