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Senate leaders reach agreement on filibusters
Associated Press/AP Online
By JIM ABRAMS WASHINGTON
Senate leaders say they have agreed to steps to limit use of some filibusters, allow more amendments and take other steps to reduce partisan tactics that often slow business to a crawl.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican leader Mitch McConnell say they have also agreed to promote legislation that would reduce by a third the number of presidential appointments that require Senate confirmations. Carrying out this advice and consent role often takes the Senate months, or even years, to achieve.
The gentleman's agreement between the two came as the Senate prepared to reject stronger proposals to restrict the rights of the minority to filibuster legislation.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
The Senate appears ready to reject proposals to put restraints on the many filibusters that have sewn institutional gridlock, dysfunction and discord in recent years. Instead, it's seems likely to accept a more modest change, making it harder for individual senators to surreptitiously hold up legislation.
Votes were pending Thursday on several measures aimed at changing the practices of a Senate plagued by partisan delay and procedural foot-dragging in recent years,.
Most likely to succeed was a resolution that would effectively end the practice of secret "holds," where a single senator, without revealing his or her name or motive, can block votes on legislation or nominations.
But with Democrats facing the possibility of being returned to minority status in the Senate in the next election, there was little appetite for proposals by several Democrats to undermine the minority's filibuster power.
Two first-term Democrats, Tom Udall of New Mexico and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, and veteran Tom Harkin, D-Iowa., acknowledged they lacked even a simple majority in their attempt to make the Senate a more efficient and less filibuster-driven place. "Reform is not for the short-winded, " Udall said, adding that "I'm committed to making sure the Senate is more than just a graveyard for good ideas."
Merkley noted that when the Senate acted in 1975 to restrict delaying tactics, it followed two years in which there were 44 filibusters. This year, he said, follows a two-year session in which there were 135.
The filibuster generally is a procedural tactic where a supermajority of 60 votes is required to advance legislation to the floor or cut off debate to permit a final vote. Minority Republicans blame the proliferation of filibusters on restrictions imposed by Democrats on the number of amendments they can offer.
One possible development on Thursday could be a gentlemen's agreement between Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, in which Democrats would open up the amendment process in exchange for a Republican pledge to limit filibusters.
That could follow votes on resolutions by Udall, Merkley and Harkin - all requiring supermajorities and expected to be defeated - to end filibusters on motions to bring a bill to the Senate floor, gradually decrease the votes needed to overcome a filibuster as debate progresses and require those conducting filibusters to remain on the Senate floor and continue talking.
Another resolution, by Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., would end the stalling tactic of requiring the reading clerk to recite proposed amendments in their entirety.
What does appear to have strong bipartisan support is the effort, long pursued by Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Charles Grassley," R-Iowa, to end secret "holds" - a strategy in which senators can anonymously block a bill or nomination from reaching the floor. It takes 60 votes to overcome the objections of a single senator. Under the existing practice, the senator doesn't even have to identify himself or herself, much less explain why he or she is blocking a bill or nomination.
Under the Wyden-Grassley proposal, also sponsored by Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., senators would have to make public their objections within 48 hours of placing them and could no longer baton-pass their holds to other senators to avoid having to reveal themselves.
Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the top Republican on the Rules Committee, on Tuesday blocked an attempt by the Udall-Merkley-Harkin team to bring their resolutions to the floor under a procedure requiring only 51 votes for passage.
"We're working on abolishing secret holds. We're working on some other areas that might make the Senate work better," he told reporters. "But what we're not trying to do is to say that the Senate like the House is a place that you can run a freight train through."
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