There are two major benefits that would come from the Merkley-Udall Senate Rule reform proposal:
Filibuster reform.Biggest thing here is to shift the onus to maintain a filibuster onto the 41+ minority and away from the model of requiring 60 affirmative cloture votes to limit debate. But also very significant here would be making the motion to proceed non-debatable and ending secret holds. Much has been written about this, I think these are positive improvements and while I would rather just see the Senate move to actual overt majority rule, this is a significant improvement and would have led to a much better 2008-2010 for progressives.
Majority changing the rules at all. Like FDL, I think it would be very important for the Senate to pass changes to the Senate rules on a straight majority on the first day of the new Congress. It remains one of the most baffling self-delusions that the Senate and most Americans accept the fiction that it takes 60 votes to end a filibuster or 67 to change the rules. I have tried to make the point that the 2005 "nuclear option" fiasco proves that the majority can in fact rule the Senate if they so choose, but it is a tough slog. Changing the rules on a straight majority would be a big step forward in forcing everyone to dispel this cherished fable of the "cooling saucer."
Last week, in part one of our two-part series on filibuster reform, we examined the Constitutional Option to allow majority approval of rules changes. This week, in the 15th and final episode of Season 1,we look at the most prominent package of rules changes discussed to date. Roughly a month ago, Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) circulated a "dear colleague" memo outlining a series of changes that are being strongly considered within current Democratic Caucus deliberations.
Enjoy this first season's finale. It's been a fun season for us and we'll be back in January with a whole slate of brand new bills and other policy proposals to summarize!
*Full disclosure: David Waldman, our Public Affairs Director, is an active advisor to the Fix the Senate Now coalition.
Update--Cloture vote will fail: Cloture is about to fail. Collins and Snowe voted for cloture, while Feingold and Cantwell voted against it. Specter and Begich did not vote. So, even when Specter and Begich come back, Dems will need to find one more vote. Hopefully, that will be accomplished by getting Cantwell a vote on her amendment to reinstate Glass-Steagal.
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Wall Street reform legislation continues to unfold in the Senate, with several dramatic developments over the past 24 hours. Here are where things stand at 2:55 pm:
1. Cloture vote delayed The cloture vote on the overall bill had originally been set for 2:00 p.m. today, but is now delayed indefinitely. Senate Democrats are caucusing to figure out what to do next.
2. Susan Collins and Ben Nelson on board, but progressives blocking passage Republican Susan Collins, and uber-ConservaDem Ben Nelson came out in favor of cloture today.
If all other Democrats held together, this would mean there are enough votes for cloture to succeed. However, many progressives--Cantwell (reinstating Glass--Steagal), Dorgan (ending naked credit default swaps), Harkin (capping ATM fees at $0.50), Merkley (reinstating Volcker rule), Levin (same as Merkley) and others--remain angry that their strengthening amendments have not received votes, and as such are not promising to support cloture. In fact, Cantwell just said she does not support cloture, as of right now.
Progressive anger over this turned into chaos--or as close as the Senate ever gets to chaos--on the floor last night. Tom Harkin openly angry at Harry Reid, Senators huddled every which way to strategize, strange procedural moves were employed (see bullet point below for the prime example), and more. Ryan Grim and David Dayen have good rundowns of the events.
3. Big strengthening amendment attacked to big weakening amendment Jeff Merkley and Carl Levin are two of the progressive Senators pissed that their amendment (to reinstate the Volcker rule) did not receive votes. Republicans had been objecting to holding a vote on the Merkley-Levin amendment (unanimous consent is required for amendment votes), and the amendment was also not deemed germane by the parliamentarian for a post-cloture amendment vote. Basically, there was no way to get a vote on their amendment.
So, to "solve" this problem, Merkley and Levin attached their amendment to a horrendous weakening amendment, filed by Republicans, which has been deemed germane for a post-cloture amendment vote. That amendment, filed by Sam Brownback, exempts auto dealers from new consumer protection laws, even though auto loans are the biggest instances of financial malfeasance against consumers, especially military personnel.
Now, to prevent a vote on Merkley-Levin, Republicans would have to also block a vote on the Brownback amendment. From a statement by Senator Merkley:
The Merkley-Levin amendment must now be voted on before the entire Wall Street reform bill receives a final vote. For the Merkley-Levin amendment to ultimately be included in the final Wall Street reform bill, the Merkley-Levin amendment must pass and then the Brownback amendment to which it is attached must pass.
The Merkley-Levin amendment will ban high-risk trading inside our lending and depository institutions to help prevent a future financial crisis and prevent bank capital from being diverted away from loans into trading. The amendment will also end conflicts of interest in cases such as Goldman Sachs and will send a strong message to Wall Street that betting against the best interests of their clients will no longer be allowed.
This leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but it isn't actually a bad bit of gaming from Merkley and Levin. The best way to approach this is to try and get the votes for Merkley-Levin, and simultaneously work to the Brownback amendment anyway. It is still preferable that the Brownback amendment is defeated, thus defeating both amendments, but at least this way there is no way for the Brownback amendment to pass without a big strengthening amendment simultaneously passing (at a 51-vote threshold, Merkley-Levin should be a sure thing). We can't get the best of both worls-passing Merkley-Levin and defeating Brownback, but at least we won't get the worst of both worlds now.
4. Arkansas Senate primary saves derivatives reform (for now) And here is the most dramatic development of all.
Last night, Chris Dodd (who is managing the Wall Street reform bill), introduced an amendment to gut the derivatives regulation that is at the heart of the bill. The original derivatives language had been written by Agriculture Chair Blanche Lincoln. It was pretty strong, as it required the biggest banks to sell off their derivatives departments. Dodd's proposal would delay implementation of Lincoln's language by two years, and probably forever, by requiring a series of studies led by people opposed to those portions of the bill (such as leading Obama administration figures).
Dodd had planned this course of action all along, but had waited on doing so to prevent embarrassing Blanche Lincoln, who faced a left-wing primary challenge from Bill Halter. If Democrats were to strip Lincoln's populist legislation from Wall Street reform, it would cause her real trouble, as Halter is challenging her from a populist and progressive angle. Lincoln can't afford to look ineffective, like a suck-up to Wall Street, or like someone who only wrote the legislation to get elected.
However, now that Bill Halter not only forced Lincoln into a June 8th runoff, but only polled 2% behind her overall, Lincoln is still in real danger of being defeated in the primary. As such, Dodd withdrew his proposal to gut derivatives regulations.
This is a remarkable example of both good timing, and bow primary campaigns are an effective means of changing Democratic behavior in Congress. Without the progressive pressure on Lincoln specifically, and on Senate Democrats more generally, the derivatives portion of the bill would already be gutted.
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More developments as they come in. Everything is up in the air right now.
[Ezra Klein:] It's been reported that you're meeting with other senators to come up with reforms to the Senate rules. What would those look like?
[Jeff Merkley:] Discussions are really at the starting point. To give you a sense of some of the ideas, though, one question we're asking is how do you get two-thirds of the body to agree to change the rules when there's immediate pressure for the minority to protect themselves? Your rule changes could kick in in 6 to 8 years. Or you could have rule changes that are designed to trigger when the two sides are more or less even. So when there's a 55-45 majority, it wouldn't kick in, but it would at 52-48. Or think about with nominations. We're really paralyzing the executive branch. This may be a conversation that doesn't ripen for awhile, but each time I mention to a senator that we're doing this, they say thank goodness.
I say thank goodness, too. That makes three more Senators in two days. The momentum continues! This is getting less quixotic by the day.
The updated whip count chart can be found here. Depending on the outcome of the 2010 elections, there are now at least 20 Senators who will be back in 2011 who are in favor of reform, and as many as 24.
"I was raised in a country where I thought the majority ruled. This is what I hear from my constituents in Maryland. Every single thing we want to do to help people is stopped by the filibuster. Job reform is stopped by the filibuster. Health reform is stopped by the filibuster.
"But when all is said is done, more gets said than gets done. The filibuster means that in order to get something done you need 60 votes. It protects the rights of the minority.
"But it is not being used as intended. It's a dated rule from another century. I'm done with it."
Mikulski is actually becoming a co-sponsor of Tom Harkin's 51-vote Senate proposal, not just a halfway measure of reform. She is a particularly important supporter too, as she voted against it in 1995. So, not only did she flip, but she shows that other Senators can flip, too.
This is the second day in a row with a new supporter of reform. The momentum continues! Here is the new whip count:
Filibuster Reform Whip Count Among relevant current and potential Senators, there are at least 20, and as many as 24, supporters of reform
50 Senators who are currently safe bets for being in Senate in 2011
I'm not saying there aren't plenty of 2010 candidates that need our help. (There are! Please help!) I'm just saying that helping our previous progressive winners to close their books and retire their debts could encourage other Democrats currently running to follow in more progressive footsteps, knowing we have their backs.
I'll leave you with a few reasons to be very, very proud of Senator Al Franken's first months as a U.S. Senator (and very, very motivated to help retire his campaign debt):
There were three Senators who said they spoke up against Lieberman in the caucus today. Merkley, Sanders, and Leahy. All three should be commended, as they were not just exercising a vote but resisting the wishes of President-elect Obama. Most Democrats fell in line, Howard Dean leading the way in his final act of humiliating kowtowing before the DC Democrats who repeatedly undermine him and his backers.
Bernie Sanders is not a Democrat, and Patrick Leahy is a long-standing lion of the Senate. Jeff Merkley is a newly elected Senator, and his very first action is standing up for progressive principles, while trying to maintain a pledge of secrecy he made to the caucus.
I'm very proud of Jeff Merkley today. He did the right thing by speaking out, and while I don't know all the details of what happened, it's important to recognize it when someone tries to open up a legislative body as hidden as the Senate to the public. Was this perfect? No. But it is very very hard as a freshman with almost no standing in the Senate to stand up to both a President-elect and a Senate Democratic caucus whose traditional posture is a supine allegiance to the executive branch the conservative DC chattering class. Merkley did it anyway.
Better Democrat and Senator-elect Jeff Merkley spoke out against Lieberman keeping his gavel. I'll have a statement from his office shortly. Hopefully we can get the 13 Senators who voted no on Lieberman to come out publicly so we can praise them. So far, we know that Sanders, Leahy, and Merkley were against Lieberman keeping his gavel.
Meanwhile, Howard Dean recites Obama's talking points about Lieberman, saying that revenge isn't warranted against Lieberman, that this is what Obama wanted, and that it's pragmatic and smart. It is worth noting that Congress is very much looking to Obama for leadership on nearly every issue, so that there were as many as 13 is surprising. It's also suggestive that there's a real nucleus of independent progressive energy in the Senate, since their votes were directly against the wishes of the incoming President.
I just got off a conference call with Jeff Merkley, the Senator-elect from Oregon. He's as progressive as we hoped, emphasizing energy, climate change (Gore called him last week), media consolidation, and Wall Street regulations. More than progressive ideologically though, Merkley's got a Tester-like middle class background; he was actually worried about health insurance for his family were he not to win the Senate seat.
Though soft-spoken and more of an inside advocate than a firebrand, in response to a question about Lieberman by Sam Stein of the Huffington Post, Merkley said that it was like a "knife through my heart" to see Lieberman attacking Barack Obama, the "most extraordinary candidate he'd ever seen for President in my lifetime". Merkley also said, in terms of forgiveness for Lieberman, that "it's certainly possible, but there's certainly a lot of damage done to overcome." Trust me, for Merkley who is a soft-spoken guy that in the following video talks about being a proud community organizer, that's really really aggressive. Merkley's no friend of Holy Joe.
I pressed him on Larry Summers, and Merkley wouldn't go on the record about Summers or any other specific candidate for Treasury Secretary. he did say that "the process of deregulating at the retail level and Wall Street level did enromous damage", blamed predatory lending for some of the crisis, argued that "we're going to need fierce proponents for transparency" and said that he hopes Obama will "put people in place who have a strong understanding that conflicts of interest at the retail side and on the Wall Street sector are completely unacceptable". Larry Summers, of course, is a managing director of hedge fund DE Shaw. Merkley sees a historical precedent in the 1933 Congress and President addressing a complete lack of oversight in the financial markets, and hopes that "they'll do that again."
And the race is called for Merkley. Excellent. Meanwhile, the No on Prop 8 forces are beginning to create protest groups. As leshrac55 notes in Quick Hits, the ideological makeup of the electorate didn't change, and with Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff, I think we can safely bet that Blue Dogs will have a friend in the White House.
Progressive groups are beginning to mobilize around some of the losses, especially the segregationist loss in California. My guess is that this is going to be a far more difficult time for progressives than many of us expect, so it's good to see movement now.
Hi. Been a crazy night. Things are actually looking pretty good for us right now. There are still 180,000 ballots that have not been counted in Multnomah County. Merkley is leading by 66-29% in Multnomah County, so if the trend stays the same, we should be able to pull out a win. And, Lane County still has to count nearly 100,000 ballots. Both Mult. and Lane counties are the bluest in the state.
Ok, so the big dollar donor match I announced earlier happened with the first $5k, and that money is being moved to candidates as we speak. Congrats, you guys unlocked a bunch of money to great Democratic women. But there's still some money left on the table, since we haven't yet hit $15k that the donors promised to match. This money will be useful for the campaigns; there are last minute cable and TV buys happening and field programs, so if you can put something in, your donations will be doubled.
You can give here. Nearly every woman on the list is in a tough fight, a close fight, and your bit of cash could possibly tip the scales.
Reichert just switched up his ad traffic, substituting this ad for his earlier Harvard Hoax ads. His Harvard Hoax ads were a clear attack on Burner's trustworthiness as a candidate, but this ad, titled 'Denise', is entirely different. It's a female union leader named Denise Spencer saying that she's scared of Darcy Burner and only slightly alluding to the Harvard hoax line of criticism. It is, in short, a change of message three days before the election and after a good number of ballots have come in.
Well, it looks like Republican Senator Gordon Smith was just caught passing a 'please bailout my friend' note to Hank Paulson on behalf of a campaign contributor running a shady business, Sunwest Management, Inc. I'll dig into this more tomorrow, but I think Smith's toast regardless.
In the meantime, if you're considering doing trick or vote and you're a guy, go when it's light out or go with a group. People don't like it when you're out at night canvassing, even on Halloween, unless you are with kids or women. But if you're a kid or an eighth grader or have a group of friends (both guys and girls) that like to dress up, it's a total blast.
Molly the robot helped organize this Trick or Vote event through the Bus Project.
The most fun field innovation I've seen since I've been in politics is Trick or Vote, a Halloween costume party combined with a canvass. Canvassing can be difficult for a lot of reasons, but the biggest one is that people aren't home or are suspicious if you are knocking at their door for no seemingly good reason. On Halloween, people actually expect random visitors, and if you show up in costume they tend to be warm and welcoming. Coincidentally, Halloween is right near election day, so it's a great time to canvass.
Jefferson Smith, the founder of the Oregon Bush Project and current candidate for the state house in Oregon to fill Jeff Merkley's seat, noticed this a few years ago, and created the Trick or Vote event. Smith is one of the most charismatic and entrepreneurial progressive organizers in the country, someone highly respected in Oregon and all over the country. Ron Wyden will be coming by in an hour to speak; here's Smith explaining the project.
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