Recently, Minnesota’s former Vice-President Walter Mondale and Sen. Amy Klobuchar called for fixing the filibuster. In today’s Washington Post, Ruth Marcus urges liberal Dems to be careful what they wish for regarding changing the Senate’s filibuster rules:
The junior Democratic senators are fed up, understandably so, with the institution's glacial pace. Liberal activists are demanding filibuster reform - now.They should be careful what they wish for.
The reforms being discussed make complete sense. But they also wouldn't do much to address the fundamental complaint about the filibuster: that it effectively imposes a supermajority requirement for any Senate action. And as a pure matter of partisan politics, these changes could end up causing more problems for Democrats than they would solve, now and in the future.
But then, wouldn’t it be great if our esteemed senators on both sides of the aisle could sit down together and conduct an intelligent debate about the way to reform the filibuster rules that will best serve the American people - or is that expecting too much maturity from our elected officials?
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