While everyone is looking at Hillary’s poll numbers and eagerly awaiting the inevitable demise of Cheetos Jesus’ political aspirations, I've also been watching Senate projections (from the Princeton Election Consortium to be specific)... Currently that shows about an 85% likelihood of Team Blue taking the Senate, meaning that it’s time, once again, to look at the filibuster!
I have a three-part proposal for my fellow Kosacks to tear apart:
1 — The NFL Reform. Each Senator is allotted one (perhaps two, the number is definitely open to debate) challenge. If you want to filibuster a bill, block a nomination, stop a motion to proceed, basically anything subject to a Senate vote, you need to expend a challenge. This means no filibustering every single aspect of the debate process, unless you really want to burn through multiple challenges on a single bill. Party leaders will need to keep a handle on their caucuses, lest they burn through all of their challenges on relatively minor things, leaving none to stop President Clinton’s nomination of Barack Obama to the Supreme Court, for example…
2 — The 40% Vote. Here we flip the filibuster on its head… Instead of taking 60+ votes to end a filibuster, we require 40+ votes to maintain it. The President of the Senate or any sitting Senator would be permitted, at any time the Senate is in session, to call for a cloture vote; a failure by the minority party to come up with the requisite votes results in debate moving forward. The main effect of this part of the reform would be to require the minority party to stay put — no more flying off to a fund raiser in Iowa if Leader Schumer might call for a late-night vote!
3 — Texas Rules. You have to talk, and you have to talk about the actual bill or nominee. You should probably be permitted to cede time over to another caucus member, since the goal here isn’t to turn the filibuster into an essentially meaningless stage show, but rather to end the egregious abuse of the process that the GOP made famous.
Remember, at the start of a session, the rules can be changed by a simple majority!
All right, Kosacks, have at it!