Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Mitch McConnell: Filibuster reform? To the mattresses!

(But first try the fainting couch...) Mitch McConnell pitched a drama queen worthy hissy fit over Harry Reid reforming the use of the filibuster. He's appalled that Harry, and his “cohort of short-sighted Senate sophomores,” would use some arcane procedural rule to enact changes that would make it harder for him to evoke arcane procedural rules in order to bring the work of the Senate to a grinding halt.

Contrary to Mr. McCon's overwrought wailing, these changes are not such a big deal.
“The point I would make is that I’ve said from the outset is that a test of a good proposal is whether or not you could live with serving under it in the minority,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR). “That’s why the talking filibuster is the right way to go. McConnell has broken the social contract. His team, under his leadership, uses it constantly and silently, out of public sight. Really the proposal I put forward restores the basic elements that existed in the past, and I’m quite happy to live under that structure as a minority. … [That] has been part of every conversation I’ve had with colleagues. … If we’re in the minority and we’re blocking something, we should be accountable to the public.”
Pretty sure, for Mitch McConnell, raising the concept of being "accountable to the public” is about the equivalent to driving a wooden stake through the heart of a vampire.

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