Filibuster Reform

Joe Biden: The Key To Filibuster Reform?

Brian Beutler | January 24, 2011, 10:50AM

Vice President Biden

This week, a group of Democratic filibuster reformers will face the first big test of their effort to invoke the "Constitutional Option" -- a process by which members can change the Senate rules by a majority vote. The theory underlying their efforts is that the previous Senate's rules aren't really valid until the new Senate has intentionally adopted them.

That's leading to confusion over whether they're truly on the path to invoking the Constitutional Option -- and that, in turn, means Vice President Joe Biden might have to weigh in and settle the dispute.

Here's the issue under contention.

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Filibuster Reform

Filibuster Reform Effort Kicks Off Today

Brian Beutler | January 5, 2011, 10:43AM

Senator Tom Udall (D-NM)

Today, a number of Democrats will launch their attempt to amend the filibuster.

Wednesday afternoon on the Senate floor, armed with a package of reforms, Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) will take the first in a complicated, unusual series of steps that allows a simple-majority of senators to change the Senate rules.

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Filibuster Reform

The Senate's Long, Twisted, Bumpy Road To Filibuster Reform

Brian Beutler | December 31, 2010, 8:50AM

Vice President Biden

At some point on January 5, Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) will take the Senate floor and begin a process that he hopes will end in the successful use of the "Constitutional option" -- the prerogative of a majority of the Senate's members to rewrite its rules on the first day of a new Congress.

He and his allies have been vocal about their plan. But the actual sequence of events that starts with him giving a speech, and ends with filibuster reform, is obscure, fragile, and extremely complicated. In fact, it's so involved that the "first day" of the 112th Senate could actually last for weeks.

There are myriad unknowns and X-factors that could change the course of events, and even upend Udall's ambitions altogether. But what follows is a list of steps he and the Senate will have to take to succeed in exercising the "Constitutional option," so called because the Constitution empowers the Senate to write its own rules.

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