Thursday, February 4, 2010

Rules Were Meant To Be Modified

From Time's current-at-the-time write-up of Senate procedural changes in 1975:

The liberal Senate majority, determined not to be blocked by endless argument over legislation in a period of economic crisis, last week approved a compromise that achieved the first new limitation on debate since 1959.

Emphasis mine. At the time of the last effort to curtail the filibuster, the Senate's rules had remained static for 16 years. Since then, we've had 34 years of rule stagnation. Rule 22 wasn't handed down by Moses on a stone tablet; the Senate is populated by adults who can, by consent, change it.

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