Reply #4: For the first time in a year, I have to agree [View All]

[Hamlette]

unless Reid agrees to go nuclear, we're get nothing. Unless they do what Harkin suggested years ago:

“Today, in the age of instant news and Internet and rapid travel—you can get from anywhere to here within a day or a few hours—the initial reasons for the filibuster kind of fall by the wayside, and now it’s got into an abusive situation,” Harkin said.

He and the constitutional scholars agree that the intention was never to hold up legislation entirely.

To keep the spirit of slowing down legislation, though, Harkin’s proposal back in 1995 would have kept the 60-vote rule for the first vote but lessening the number required in subsequent votes.

He said for instance if 60 senators could not agree to end debate, it would carry on for another week or so and then the number of votes required to end debate would drop by three. Harkin said it would carry on this way until it reached a simple majority of 51 votes.

http://www.thehawkeye.com/story/harkin-filibuster-121209