Udall Proposes Filibuster Deal
TPM reports:
A handful of junior Democrats, including Sens. Tom Udall (D-NM) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR), have done an impressive job building momentum for a package of modest, but meaningful, changes to the Senate's filibuster rules. But their plan could be completely upended and replaced by even more modest reforms, if Democratic and Republican leaders successfully negotiate a bipartisan rules reform compromise.
In a phone interview with me Wednesday, Udall described negotiations between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN) as a "separate track" from his own efforts.
A Senate Democratic aide confirms that those discussions are ongoing, and haven't yet yielded consensus. But if they do, that consensus would serve as a stand-in for Udall's approach, not as an endorsement of it, as previous reporting has suggested.
"I'm not privy to those conversations," Udall said.
Here's how this dynamic evolved. Udall along with several freshman Democrats, and even some senior Dems like Tom Harkin, have been making the case -- and building support -- for rules reform for many months. Their efforts have been successful enough to get just about every Democrat in the caucus on board with the idea of some kind of rules reform. All but one of them -- retiring Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) -- signed a letter to Reid endorsing the idea, citing unprecedented GOP obstruction.
But there isn't party-wide agreement on what should be reformed, or how extensive the changes should be.
That gave Reid the balance of power in this debate. Armed with the letter, and with the fact that the filibuster can be reformed on a majority-rules basis at the beginning of each Congress, he can get Republicans to negotiate under the credible threat that he and the Dems could go it alone, and change the rules more dramatically.
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