I have seen buzz the last few days about Senate rule changes in the next session. Harry Reid has said they will look at the filibuster rule. And there is talk of doing away with seniority for committee chairmanships, replacing it with elected chairmanships.
Both are good things. Will the Dems have the guts to really make the change?
And I have a suggestion from the world of sports for changing the filibuster.
A change over from seniority based committee chairs to a an elected model I believe is a good thing. I don't have illusions that it will do away with the good old boys club mentality of the Senate, so you will not see a wholesale change out of chairs. On the other hand it should serve to keep the chairs honest, active and accountable for delivering meaningful legislation.
For the filibuster, what kind of reform is Harry Reid talking about? They lowered the filibuster threshold once - from 67 to 60. Lowering it again to 55 or something still leaves you with the same potential for a gridlock. Doing away with it altogether is not practical, nor do I think it is a good idea. The concept of the filibuster was predicated on the fact that some legislation should have a extra bar to hurdle due to their scope or transformative nature. I am okay with that.
Here is my idea for reforming the filibuster. Lets take a lesson from the NFL and their "coaches challenge" for contesting calls made by the referees. Lets leave the filibuster bar at 60, but limit the number of filibusters that a party can invoke in a congressional session. Each party can set rules on how they allocate those "challenges". This would force the opposition party to pick their battles and not tie up all congressional work.
Some may counter argue that with this rule, the majority party may try to force the minority to use up its challenges by putting up a bunch of clearly unacceptable bills early in a session. I don't think that would happen. The majority party still has to be responsible in what it proposes and a President still has to sign any bill that is passed, so there are checks in place to prevent that.
These rule changes are good ideas, but they may be a tougher sell among Dem senators that HCR has been.