Bipartisan Senate duo proposes filibuster rules reform to fix gridlock

Sens. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) have teamed up in calling for several major reforms to the Senate rules that they say are needed to restore bipartisanship and bring the slow-moving institution into the modern age.

“Both our parties have been hamstrung by the Senate’s tangled rules,” they wrote in a joint op-ed for The Washington Post. “The world isn’t waiting for the Senate. Technology and the global economy are changing faster than ever before. The Senate needs to be able to keep up to legislate effectively.”

The senators argue that colleagues are abusing the rules by dragging out floor consideration of even routine or robustly bipartisan bills for days to gain leverage for their own pet issues.

They say some of the worst abuse has come in the form of frivolous filibusters that require 60 votes and days to set aside.

“Cloture was created in 1917 as a tool for the Senate to end filibusters and start voting. But the 60-vote threshold generally required for a cloture motion to pass is now deliberately abused to slow down the legislative process and delay voting on big issues,” Daines and Merkley wrote.

Daines and Merkley are proposing eliminating cloture votes — which need the support of 60 senators to pass — on what they’re calling “routine business” such as nominations, amendments and motions to proceed to business on the floor.

They want to get rid of the “intervening day” — the full calendar day that is required to pass between when a cloture motion is first filed and when the Senate votes on it.

They want to shrink the “post-cloture” time that is now required under the rules to elapse on major business after the Senate has invoked cloture to end debate and before a final vote is held. Senators now must wait up to 30 hours on major items before proceeding to a final vote.

The senators also proposed a fast-track process for considering bills on the Senate floor that pass out of committee with strong bipartisan support, noting that more than 650 bipartisan bills have passed out of committee but haven’t received any floor time because of time and procedural constraints. Under this new expedited process, if a bill passes out of committee with the support of a majority of Republican and Democratic senators, it would be eligible for passage on the Senate floor with a simple majority after six hours of debate.

Doing so would require the bill’s supporters to gather the signatures of 16 senators, including at least one from each party, on a petition.

Daines and Merkley say there should also be a two-day fast track for bipartisan spending bills.

Appropriations bills on an expedited path would need to be accompanied by a list of 20 relevant amendments, 10 amendments from each side of the aisle, and each amendment would be subject to only five minutes of debate.

They argued that the Senate has already “recognized the need for fast-track procedures” by using expedited floor procedures several times this Congress to repeal executive branch-imposed rules under the Congressional Review Act and to pass major legislation through the budget reconciliation process.

“For too long, the Senate has been stuck in the muck. Our bipartisan plan will get it moving by letting senators debate, negotiate and legislate again so we can deliver for the American people,” they wrote.