Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Changing Senate Rules Is Not Rocket Science

Ezra Klein, again: "If a divided Democratic Caucus ends up settling on filibuster reform that doesn't solve any of the actual problems with the filibuster -- that is to say, it neither reduces the time wasted in constant cloture votes (and their associated three-to-four days of waiting around) nor revises the 60-vote threshold that now applies to everything in the Senate -- they will have fought a bitter and brutal battle over the Senate rules for, well, nothing. ... And that complaint will have costs: Many of them, having gone on record against the filibuster, will find it difficult to argue against a future Republican effort to revise the filibuster rules in a more significant wa."

Rocket science requires many years of advanced math, physics, chemistry, and engineering. Ensuring that the Senate can actually do anything requires getting fifty-one Senators to agree that they're (a) not able to function as a legislative body today, and that (b) something should be done about that. Let's get this show on the road, people.

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