good afternoon.

i'm ben olinsky i'm the senior vice president for structural and governance here at the center for american progress. and it's my pleasure to welcome you this afternoon for an incredibly important conversation on on the filibuster with senator jeff and mike zamore coauthors of the newly released book filibustered how to fix the broken senate and save america. and i want to just take a minute to thank you all for your patience, given the vagaries of senate vote timing, it's thought that president buchanan was the first to call the senate the world's most deliberative body to better understand

characterization. i looked the term deliberative. the cambridge dictionary defines it as involving careful and discussion when making decisions. so, for example, you might say she deliberated over the menu. and incidentally, when someone over the menu, they ultimately on what to order or they go hungry. but when we look to the senate these days, we see less deliberation. we see less real debate and compromise, fewer bills passing, fewer amendments, getting voted on to address the policy concerns of senators and their constituents. and we see the filibuster or rather automatic threat of one as the culprit. for those of you who aren't steeped in arcane senate rules, a allows any senator to hold passage of most bills unless 60 of their colleagues vote to cut off debate. for years, filibuster ers took the form of senators standing and speaking for hours on end to deliberate or often to gum up the works. today, a single senator can signal they want to hold a bill,

prevent its passage. in fairness, that may not always be clear. deliberation gives way to inaction or even obstruction. the recent monthslong blockade of senior promotions by senator tommy seems pretty clear to me. it endangered our military readiness as even senators in his own party. the body's well-known and ignoble uses of the filibuster blocked the codification of anti-lynching laws and. basic civil rights for black americans and all our citizens. but to understand the senate's dysfunction today, we need only look to some basic policy issues that enjoy incredibly broad support among the american people. in some cases 70, 75, 80% of voters take example, background checks for guns protecting voting rights. term and binding ethics reforms. first, the supreme court justices. reproductive rights. raising the wage. lowering prescription drug prices for all americans. despite broad public support on these issues. they never seem to make it to

the president's desk to be signed. as americans become frustrated by congress gridlock, they faith in government to solve their problems and the risk of democratic backslide rises here just as it has overseas. a cap analysis shows just how undemocratic and unresponsive senate is. it would only take the senators from 21 states to mount a successful. if these are the states with the fewest residents, their population would only represent in ten americans. and if you look a more reasonable block of senators who would likely band together to filibuster, they might represent than 25% of americans population suggest this will get worse by 2040 70% of all americans will live in states represented by only 30 senators out of 100. central to our country's vision of government is that is of by and for the people. that is that it pays attention to what most americans want. of course, we also have a proud

tradition of building in mechanisms to ensure the political minority's voice can be heard and won't entirely be drowned out. that's important to the balancing between majority and the protection of the political is not an easy one. but what was never intended and wouldn't be a government of, by and for the people is a government is incapable of acting on important issues, even though there's broad consensus americans. that's why cap vocal in calling for reforms to senate filibuster rules to allow the passage of critically needed democracy legislation called the freedom to vote act and notably championed by senator merkley the right to vote and free and fair elections is among our most sacred rights and is the central mechanism in our democracy for ensuring government is responsive. it's critical for us to build truly multiracial democracy, and that's why kap is supportive of broader reforms to the filibuster. and eager to hear from today's panel on how we might go about doing that. senator senator jeff merkley,

likely needs little introduction in this room to those who have followed efforts to reform the filibuster. representing oregon, the u.s. senate since 2008, senator merkley has fought for issues that matter to everyday americans like living wage jobs, college and secure retirement for seniors. importantly, has also led organizing efforts in the senate to build a coalition to break gridlock and fix the institution so it can be more responsive working people and has been of the key leaders of landmark democracy democracy reform legislation. senator merkley previously served as the speaker of the oregon house of represented lives. his coauthor and longtime chief staff, mike zamore, is a 22 year veteran of capitol hill. he advised senator merkley's efforts to reform the filibuster and quickly became an expert in arcane senate procedure. mike is an adjunct faculty member. american american university's washington college of law and starting this month starts as the national director of policy and government affairs at the. their excellent new book

filibustered how to fix the broken senate and save america was released yesterday by not for profit publisher new press, which lifts up authors working to defend and promote democracy. for those of you with us in person today, you can purchase a copy immediately after. this discussion and i believe the authors will be sticking around to sign those books. i couldn't be more excited to have these two leaders on filibuster here today to tell you about its history and impact on america and we can do to fix it. and most importantly, i'll turn things over to our moderator, laura rodriguez capps, vice president for government affairs and a long time veteran capitol hill. please join me in giving them warm welcome as they come to the stage. is this on? yes. perfect. i love. welcome and happy year. i hope everyone had survived the weather and that we continue to

do in this wacky, wacky. i want to welcome of our esteemed panelists senator merkley and mike zamore to have this really important conversation as been out. really looking to digging in. so i'm just going to go right into it and we'll start at the beginning. you start your book on january six, 2021. can you tell a little bit about why you chose that specific day to start the book? of course, on capitol hill, it was a very dramatic day as. those of us were sitting in the chamber saw someone rush up to the podium running the senate, which you never see a sudden gavel departure the vice president and no knowing what's going on and of course the mob took over the building and super dire consequences just really couldn't have ever envisioned happening. but it's symbolic. the challenge of maintaining the institutions of our democracy and certainly at the heart of,

democracy is the ballot box and the peaceful transfer of power and both are under threat. and, of course, the deliberative aspect of a democracy is that folks can come together share views and make decisions. and the senate, with the minority veto through the 41 vote filibuster is, in fact deeply compromising. the senate, the institution it was designed to be. so these things go hand in hand that. we are challenged at multiple facets of the democracy see, we've been working to improve over a couple hundred years, but the improvements may be what we may be in a more narrow situation of of erosion of their integrity rather than enhancement. thank you for that. i want to. you just touched on how senate was designed to function. and i want to go right into that because you paint vivid.

you both a vivid contrast here between how the senate was designed original, need to function and how is now functioning in the last 15 or so years with, as you said, the 41 vote filibuster. can my can can you start with a little bit about what you think the public needs to know about what the original design of the senate was meant to be? thank you, laura. and thanks to cap for having us and more importantly, for all the advocacy over many years as partners on the effort to make sure our government is working by and for the people, the me, the first most important thing i think the people just need to understand is that if you've been watching senate for the last 15 or 20 years, you have a very, very skewed view of how the is intended to work and how it actually did work. for two centuries. today's is a far cry total anomaly from from what came

before. so the records of the very first senate are actually pretty pretty scant but. there's a diary from this one guy who was sort of like a little known figure on the national stage but became a united states senator. and remember, this senate was populated by. the folks who wrote the declaration of independence wrote the constitution and were there in the in the foundry. they were the capital founders of the country right. and they were figuring out how is the senate to work? and so you read senator william maclay from, pennsylvania's diary, and it's really kind of amusing because it's partly like someone's diary. and he's like, you know, so-and-so is mean to me today. and, you know, the someone was, you know, came to my house. it wouldn't stop talking at me. and i wanted to go to sleep. like there's some of that in there. but there's also the best that we have of the very first congress in what he described is in granular detail, is the day by day functioning as the senate took up its first big policy

bill, which around imposing duties tax, you know, taxes on on imports. and what this senate for the founders did was pondered you gave kind of pondered the amendments wanted to offer they'd plow their way in sometimes tedious fashion through the the minutia people wanted to raise because of their interests or their their ideological interests. they had the votes and at the end of that whole process in mcclay at certain points is despairing. he's like, oh my god. like, these people won't stop is essentially the gist of his diary. but at the end of it they have an up or down vote and at some point, you know, notes, he's like i, you know, i was ready to go in and like say my piece about this thing. but i thought we were going to win that amendment. so i just shut up. and that the way the senate worked and so we called that the code, right? this what emerged out of that

very first senate and and for most of 200 years was the way the senate worked. this was a small group of, you know, kind of elites. a lot of them knew each other. they certainly all came from similar background. and they they sort gave each other the respect that everybody their say they considered a lot of amendments. and then after reasonable amount of time, they all agreed okay, it's time to have the vote and and that that code really is the social contract but it really governed the way the senate for most of 200 years up into the 1990 the partial birth abortion ban and the ban on assault weapons. right. a big left, you know, in a big right like boogeyman issues both passed with fewer than 60 votes in the 1990s. so this was like a normal way of doing business. interrupted. sure. by filibusters at various points. but what we today where everything requires votes, even

things that end up passed in 99 to 1 half to first go through this gantlet of getting the 60 vote cloture process just your time and anything that the minority like just gets vetoed. that is a break and new and very, you know, kind of destructive of phenomenon, if i can add it just a little bit to that, this is very important because throughout opposition to civil rights by southern democrats, they cultivated myth that the senate from the beginning was a super majority body and they said this is part of the cooling saucer analogy, if you will. and of course, we know that that we're elements of the founders designing the senate to be different than the house with six year terms in staggered terms, indirect election. but it came to the question of simple majority versus for legislation. the founders were absolutely clear. they made no question about the fact that it should be a simple

majority, that democracy should never be stood on its. and one of the reasons they felt so about this is because under the confederate congress it required a superman. and they were paralyzed. and they couldn't raise the funds to off shays rebellion. they couldn't the funds to pay the pensions for the revolutionary war veterans. so from beginning, it was simple majority. it was reinforced by thomas jefferson, who had a code for the senate, and it was reinforced by the fact that the presiding officer could call people to order and was reinforced by a previous question motion in the rule that was seven times and sometimes it was to close debate. so there's question about how the senate started, despite the fact of myth building by southern democrats to support the suppression of civil rights. thank you both so much that building is something that we're

seeing throughout our politics in general and. so a hugely important point that you're both making there because of this paralysis in the last 15 to 20 years. senator, we give us can you a little bit about some examples of really popular legislation that being left out on the floor without passage because of this process. well, let's think for a moment about, for example, gun legislation. highly popular. and we even had legislation supported two folks that you might think manchin and toomey. senator manchin and toomey led the effort and said, well, surely can do better background checks. created a very narrow set of provisions compared to what was envisioned after the sandy massacre and. even that failed the filibuster. but think about, for example, drug prices, where 80% of americans think, every drug

should be negotiated so that get the same fair prices as the rest of the developed world does. but we can't. we can't pass it. think about the disclose act, where if you all donate $200 to a candidate, you're disclosed. but if your friend donates it or if you donate to a friend of the candidate, say, $10 million, you're not disclosed. dark money. well, citizens in america hear about this. so that's crazy. but we've lost to disclosure to a filibuster twice. we got 15 nine votes, one vote short. and that's the you could have a vote. of 59 to 0. and the zero wins blocking. the ability to close debate in lawmakers add on the senators very good list of what is blocked. i would add the things that are not blocked, which is, for example, giant tax cuts for corporations, billionaires. why is that? it's because the senate has been

rigged so that the legislation that helps tear down barriers share power, economic, social power, culture, block all those of things need to get through this 60 vote gantlet. but the i don't want jeopardize anyone's c3 status so you know i'm not gonna attribute to the parties but there are certain people who have worked hard to ensure that there are exceptions to the rules around the filibuster for certain kinds of legislation. so in 1974, congress very concerned about deficits and exploding in the wake of the vietnam war passes the budget control and empowerment act, which created the reconciliation process that many of you were probably familiar with. reconciliation, as we all know, sometimes from painful experience, is only a 51 vote. you know, majority simple majority vote to pass, but it's restricted to budget items.

specifically, the legislation was intended be restricted to items that lower the deficit. it was part of a deficit reduction and in creating a whole new set of tools for congress to help bring the deficit down. in 1996, one of the two parties that shall be shall remain unnamed, orchestrated a a what we now call a nuclear option kind of rule change or reinterpret of the rules to say that despite all of the evidence to the contrary, you could actually use this deficit reduction tool to, dramatically increase the deficit, tax cuts and that example is obviously a key one. and then course judicial nominations are, a big priority of of one of our two major political parties. and you they're pretty content right now to a senate where they can pass nominations, the courts pass tax cuts for their for

their primary constituents, primarily concerned about and then block everything that that might help, you know, spread opportunity and and power. some of you describe there also really illustrates how we then get really odd pieces of trying to be shoehorned in because that's the only way and then people get upset but you think, well, how else are we going to do this? or, you know, attached to a big, you know, moving bill for government funding. why are we going to do social policy on their. because it's the only way. right. but you touched on something. i know the senator wants to probably follow up on. i'm going to give him a chance to do so here. senator, can you talk to us a little bit about how i think without getting into too much trouble, how the filibuster affects the parties differently? well sure.

absolutely. so there is a phrase that i heard as a child, probably you all heard it. someone suggests you flip a coin and you say, okay, heads, i win, tails you lose. that's a pretty sweet place to be. and that's the place. and i'll be more explicit than my colleague. that's the place that mitch mcconnell is is in. and why is that? when he's in the majority, he can implement his agenda, tax cuts, because he did a nuclear option to make that possible and he can implement a cultural through the courts and through the nominations to, the courts simple majority. he can use the congressional review act, a simple majority to strike down regulations. he can use a simple majority to put people in to key agencies to undermine from within. he has many simple options. well, meanwhile, the democratic side is a little bit swankier and says we've got better policies for health care, for housing, for education, for

civil rights, for climate, for labor and every policy bill requires a super majority. so that means mitch mcconnell in minority can block all policy ideas and it won't even know was at john legend asked a group of senators you've advocated for these policy ideas, but how are you going to overcome the filibuster? that's a question everyone should ask every candidate in every setting, because why should? we have a senate that's so tilted to advantage the republican agenda by simple majority and yet enable the republican party to block the democrats with a filibuster. and that's that's irresponsible that we sustain that type of imbalance. thank you, senator and on the note of kind of following on the end game here, trying to get

towards solutions. but i wanted to stop one particular piece legislation that ben mentioned, his opening and the cap did a lot work on, which is the freedom to vote act. and we got so incredibly in 2021, we all did a ton of work on it. your staffs and you as well as as a champion of this piece of legislation. we were incredibly close and we were almost there. and i you to talk a little bit about some of the lessons that we could learn from that because we i mean there was no breaking in our in our guess. we were just going for full on and we just couldn't quite make it. what kind of lessons should we learn from that particular or. well, it's a deep, deep breath. because this particular effort involving what began. as for the people act and we

rewrote it and gave it another name working with joe manchin. and so we had 50 sponsors instead of 49 so it became freedom to vote derivative and this was really at the heart of defending core institutions. take on gerrymandering take on dark money. most important, take on the voting process, registration voting vote counting, and make sure that it's fair. america and when it came down to, it we had 50 votes in a vice president to pass bill but. of course, as a policy bill it was subject to the filibuster and so i worked with the leadership and said need to proceed to adjust our interpretation the rules to allow a talking phil buster rather than a straight 41 vote veto and. what this involves is making a point of order and having a

ruling the chair and at the ruling is unfavorable overturn it if it's favorable sustain it and that's actually model that robert byrd used to take on obstruction. and by the way robert byrd did believe in the type of no effort filibuster we have now i mean this is not people having to work hard to block something at great effort it is not public accountability you're in front of the public and they can weigh in on whether you're heroes or bums. since 1975, reform that backfired. it takes no effort to block legislation and there's no public accountable. so using the robert template was the goal and had we had 50 votes to adopt that template, then we would have had a a debate focused solely on final passage of the bill and it would have been on interrupted by quorum calls uninterrupted by motions, and it would continued night and

day until either there was a break in debate in which point the chair could call the question, and that goes as a pillar goes back to the very founding of this of, the senate or until everyone exhausted their ability to speak twice to the issue for as long as they wanted and the issue to speak twice to an issue goes back to the original rules of. the senate and it's in the senate rules today. so we were founding this kind restored vision that would create leverage for the minority and leverage for the majority in a way that could produce compromise because the majority can't afford to have the floor tied up for six weeks, except in very major bills. and the minority can't sustain debate night and day for day after, day, week after week. and so an encouragement to get to a compromise. but in the end, if no compromise is reached. you can finally get to a final

vote and make a decision and the way the inability to complete the loop election and having a majority and making a decision and implementing the law and it out, that's that's how democracy works. but if you can never complete that loop to pass a bill and try it the idea out then it generates not only failure to try to address rising issues in a rapidly changing world, but it also generates tremendous amount of cynicism. so what did we learn? well, we learned that we need 50 votes for reform. we learned that we needed to have the partnership of of our grassroots groups to continuously people about the fact if you want better we have to fix the filibuster. if you government by and for the powerful keep it the way it is. they've got lawyers, lobbyists, media campaigns, regular campaign money like people. they want dark money too to slander people. they don't want smear people they don't want.

and in addition, if all that fails, they have the filibuster or so we need our grassroots groups who care about making a better nation a government of, by and for the people to carry this message that everything they're working on won't happen if we don't fix the senate. well, that was pretty complete. thank you, senator. i will take that and go to the heart of the question, which is what is the forward? and i want to spend some time here because you all advocate for keeping filibuster not just not in its form. and i know that there are lots of folks on the left who are nervous about that and they want to just do away with it altogether. and i wanted to i'll start with mike to ask you what what is what is the process you all are advocating for here? and why? sure. thanks. so, you know i described earlier

the code and idea that the minority has an ability to participate in the process to hold the majority for their positions and to have a say but not a veto. ultimately, you get majority vote. what what we have concluded after 1415 years of working on this is that the the solution that would best serve we think the the legislative process in the senate in particular and has the best chance of actually getting enacted is to try to get the senate back to those roots. when you ask senators they're they're the most hopes and dreams like the biggest epithet you will hear as house of representatives. nobody in the united states wants in the senate wants that place to operate the way the house of representatives does. when you are in the minority and you were a speedboat, the people want there to be a deliberative

process. what they don't want for the most part at least certainly on the democratic side of the aisle is the status quo. so what we have what we have proposed is essentially as senator was sort of describing with respect to, the bill in 2021, 2022 is a holistic change that would bring back the dynamics of the code. so people are never going to just like put their swords back in the sheath and go back to, you know, being polite with each other and giving everyone chance and then saying, okay, well, vote. that's not going to happen. but we by rule could recreate those dynamics, those incentive. so our proposal is built on the idea we should have guaranteed germane so that both parties have a chance to put ideas on the table and get votes on those ideas and hold members accountable for their positions. that's democracy. it's a chance to shape the product and it's it's leverage. senators should be able to speak at length and in do the kind of

talking filibuster that senator was describing where members can hold the floor at length, draw attention to their protest, perhaps change the mind, and certainly extract a price from the majority, but at the end of that process, it has to be a breakable filibuster. it has to be something that at the end can has a has a end point. and an opportunity for the majority to finish the job and if we could get those kinds of changes in place, then you would have a minority with an incentive, which they do not currently have to come to the table and negotiate because ultimately a determined majority can get a bill passed over their objections and the would have the incentive to come to the table and negotiate because floor time is most valuable asset that a majority has and a determined minority exercising all of their right to filibuster really drag things out though that senate the senate that you

know, became the greatest deliberative body in the in the parlance and that that all of the members real opportunity to shape the legislature session and to have their say and to and to be actors on the legislative process. that's what senators want. but, you know, nobody ran office to come and be the h.r. department for executive branch and just vote on nomination cloture all day. so we think we think that there is support for that. but more importantly, we think that would that would get the senate back to serving the function that it has in this legislative process usually. and mostly for further to the good. yeah. then want to add a dimension to this. all may be thinking does this mean every bill's going to have a five or six week debate going night and day? and the answer is no way what would normally happen if you had a bill under debate? you went to a period of debate

where you're focused just on final passage. well, as soon as you went into that, shortly after majority get on the planes on thursday, a couple of people might give a longer speech and then they'd go home. there'd be a break in the debate and you'd come back monday, you'd vote on the bill, think about there's very few bills that people feel strongly enough about to go night and day now let's think about the ones that you would go night and day on. you might be the pro act for labor. it might the equality act that i've been to lead in, in the senate. it certainly would. voting rights has now been demonstrated, dated and but mostly isn't like that. you can take all kinds of bills that have been filibustered that people would not go night day on think about an energy efficiency bill filibuster and time again shaheen portman, democrat and a republican and it would if we had gone to a period of extended

debate that conversation would have been broken within hours. the next day we would have our on the bill and senate talk about eight years or something before we finally were able to find a way to get that base. simple energy efficiency bill passed. you're describing the dangers of just in a practical sense, the dangers of senate not working. but you also touched on earlier the dangers of cynicism because of the senate not working, as mike pointed out, you know, no one wants the senate to be the house. why? because the house is a little bit of a circus. it's a we love it. but boy, is it wacky and it's designed to be run by the majority in only the majority. the minority has very little power. so can you talk to me a little bit about. how what how you feel about the

importance of that the senate working in a large scale to ensure that we continue to move democracy forward in the most fundamental way. well let's think about a host of things that are changing fast. well changing, changing fast, including facial recognition on the verge of becoming a national surveillance by the government. all kinds of risks there. let's think about other aspects of things have changed in terms of the amount of people being killed by automatic rifles in mass shootings around this country. let's think about climate and, its enormous impact and young people are absolutely like this is crazy like you're passing on a world to us where there's enormous change in the in the fires this in the storms just

the the impacts of all kinds of things that make the world less habitable. and you're doing virtually nothing about it. and as long as you have a 41 vote veto, there's no way you're going to address climate change because you have challenge of a fossil fuel that had some $300 billion of profit last year. they spend 1% of that. if they spent 1%. they may have spent more. and the political said that's a that's a $3 billion. and that pretty buys the political system with dark money and campaign donations and media influence. so we now have a senate where you really can't do policy on on climate. so when people look at these issues and say wait. so is this a government by and for the people where we get the issues addressed that we care about i'll tell you what i hear about in my town halls. i hear about fentanyl, i hear

about mental health. i hear the costs of drugs, i hear the cost of of of housing. and i hear whole lot of frustration and cinema's cynicism as people feel like their lives are are slipping away. well, if you have a process where people can propose where where decisions can be made my majority is a chance to address these issues. and let me describe a personal experience on this, which was when i was an intern on the hill, i covered the tax of 1976 for senator hatfield. and because there's no camera on the on the senate at that point and was, of course, no cell phone. and so you had to have a member of your team on the floor. and then you briefed the senator on. each amendment vote, there were 125 votes on that bill. every single one simple majority, which meant any senator who had issue they wanted to raise if, they felt like some industry was getting too big tax break or needed a bigger tax break.

they could propose that. and it was debated and voted on. so the powerful had nowhere to because any senator could call them out with and say it needs to be fixed. here's a problem now amendments can only be done by unanimous consent. so this is piece of that broken senate, which means we have a senate that works great for the powerful, but doesn't work for confronting the powerful, the people and the piece of this what you alluded to earlier was that because each bill by would take so long and by the way the filibuster was set up in its original form when passed in 1917, you file a petition, you wait two days and after after you vote on it. even if you close, you have to have another. it was originally hundred hours, another 30 hours now before you can vote. so it takes a week. so it's also tempting to use just to eat up the clock. so the majority can do very little legislation and so that to enormously damaging as well

just that that and and it's from final passage of bills it has spread to nominations and it has spread to the motion to proceed to legislation it has spread to amendments and think about this when. 1975 reform was debated led by mondale to decrease level for shutting down debate from two thirds or 67 down to to 60 votes, although 60 votes of senators serving rather than senators voting when that done, there had been an average of 12 cloture motions or 12 filibusters a year for three years, and people were there's one every month. these were only supposed happen like once a year. every two years. now we have over 100 per year. and when they do each take up a week, you can do the math.

it means you can paralyze the senate from being able to do the kind of work to serve the people. and that is the big we're in. and just add one thing to look every day, pretty much we get a new poll coming showing a people's in democracy cratering and especially among young people who, by the way, have only seen a government, you know, that works this way. it is not an accident. mean you asked the question at the beginning, laura, like, why we start on january 6th and this is why. because because when governor routinely fails to on the things people about people start doubting the of the government. i mean every is either a crook or incompetent if they're not going to do what you do. people do not understand the structural problems and obviously there are there are bunch of problems with our political system right now. and we don't profess to say that fixing filibuster makes everything hunky dory. but the filibuster is a big

piece of the story. the routine ability of the minority to hijack the agenda, essentially to to to deliver effectively on government by the minority set of government by the majority has that democratic feedback loop like senator merkley said earlier and that directly related to all of the challenges that we are seeing in so many spaces right now that imperil the whole idea of democracy. and the reason people are like, well, we should just have a strong man, at least we get stuff. thank you both for that. that was a dark note to end on, mike, but we have to do something. but no, but i appreciate that very much, both of you, that great answers and hitting the point i think of all this which is the import of this this one tool if it if we can fix this if we can tweak one rule, the

difference that it can make really in not just in people's lives passing legislation, but in faith and democracy again in faith, in government again it working for the people. so thank you much for that. i think it is now time to take questions and billy is going to hand the microphone to whoever wants to ask. uh, i just. when jeff and mike started on this mission to reform the they hardly any allies i mean senators were well you know we don't want to vote want change. it might make us less powerful there are all kinds of excuses and over the years been working

on it more and more democrats came around and we're now at a point where, you know, if we if we have control of the senate, again, you know, our joe manchin is going to be gone. our friend cinema, i think, is going to be gone we actually. i mean, we're within range of getting this done. so i just want to i just want to say the work that you two done has been incredible and and i wanted ask what you think in the mix in terms of actually getting it done. let's say that that we have 50 or 51 democratic senators, we don't have to deal with the two obstruction in this anymore. i know there'll be compromises that have to be that have to be sort of worked through in the process of reforming the filibuster. but where do you think we can get to in in in the next

congress under my you know, realistic but slightly optimistic scenario. thanks, mike i think first of all to pick up on a happier note. i do think i agree with you. i think that we are within range. i think the the work. thank you for your kind words. but this has been a team effort, as it always is when you're trying to storm the castle and so lots of people have done a lot of advocacy over a lot of years to try to get us to where we have now gotten and what happened in the disappointment of january 20, 22 has to be the foundation that we build on to get over the over the line next time the ed talked about this a little bit earlier. but i think that, you know, the the key thing here is for every advocate to build into advocacy, the of how are you going to get

this done what about the filibuster effort if you care about repro if you care about you know trans kids, if you care about climate or guns or, you know, kind of anything else, really, you need to be asking the question, what the filibuster and that you know, i do think that we can get to the 50th the question of what we do is one that i think we've got to lay the groundwork over the coming years so that when we get that trifecta and you're happy scenario, we're ready to roll i think that is the pathway that we lay out in this book. the idea of the talking for some kind of talking filibuster through that that gives the minority some some opportunity but not guaranteed amendments that make sure that everybody is and able to exercise those amending muscles again i think is the the core of what we should be shooting for. for all the reasons i said earlier and i think it's achievable. the thing the the warning have and that i will just sound for

everybody is that any you know there's a lot of talk about carve outs. there were last time around like let's just waive the filibuster for this piece of legislation. and two things that one of two things happens is if if if we're successful in convincing 50 senators to waive the filibuster rules for something, then either the drawbridge comes up after that and everyone's like, oh, i just voted to we can do it again. and so we one bill and the senate broken or possibly and over time the filibuster ultimately goes away entirely. we just sort of go to a simple senate and we wind up with which if that's option versus what we have right now, is a better i think unquestionably. but i do think we all should think about, you know, what it would feel like to have both chambers in republican hands or

in the hands of the party. you don't support and able to run roughshod. having the opportunity to like force this slows things down for some public spotlight get accountability for ideas and provisions is i think a really useful tool that undoubtedly be frustrating to us. if were in the majority. but i think very very valuable for in the minority so that's the case the thing that we want to bring the to the senate of your optimistic future and i think that that i think that that path with senator merkley has been much time talking to his colleagues over many years about these specific ideas and people are bought in and you know people to people the people who are the hardest votes are the people who see themselves as institutionalists and the institutionalist case here is restore of the senate to what you how it used to work. and so i think that we've got i think we got real opportunity when. i first started talking to colleagues about fixing the problem. we had many of them but all we

have to do is force the conversation go all night. and so i want to address that. and here's the thing. you would think that structure would be a weight on the minority that wants to extend debate, but it's not because it takes one person to be talking in the minority, but to keep a quorum takes so the majority which wants to close debate has keep 50 people there the minority which wants to extend debate only has to keep one and so the system is inherently rigged favor of the filibusters. and in our history we've gone night a number of times a straight week in 1964. it has never once broken a filibuster. i had conversation with colleague after colleague after

call. no, it's just let's restore this social code and understanding a better conversation. and yes in theory, that could happen. if you look at committee today, everyone weighs in on an amendment and then they vote and then they go to the next and everybody weighs in and then they vote. that's the senate code and by theory. you could do that on the senate floor. will never happen because the base each party wants, their party won the minority to obstruct that other group that they disagree with and to use the tools available. so you can do this at committee level when it's not a final action, but you can't do it on the code or. you can't restore it by social action. you can't restore it by going all night. we have to modify my understanding of the rules you. are richard coleman, retired from cbp.

i it's pretty obvious that party that have power are interested in democracy. they're interested getting their agenda accomplished. and especially in the dark. there's zero reason. if i was in the minority and i'm getting what i want, that i would be interested or by being a better, more democratic process. so what's the for the people who are making systems work? you're now the russian judges in the basketball game are what they want despite you know all the efforts getting teamwork and sportsmanship back into sports. look at how college football looks. so what's the motivation for the other side to start playing by democratic processes and then and then i'm wondering about the parliamentarian how does that work out that the parliamentary in is even above 100 senators in deciding democratic and what's not.

i'll speak to the parliamentarian in question first which is in the pantheon plays a very interesting role in the senate. but the thing to understand about the senate and the way most of the rules changes have happened over the number of years now is whatever the parliamentarian says is a recommendation to the senator who's sitting in the chair. the vice president of united states. that person is sitting in the chair presiding over the the ruling usually follows the parliamentarian's advice doesn't need to. but more importantly, the senate itself is the judge of what the rules mean. so the questions are put to parliamentarian all time like are you allowed do a tax cut a reconciliation bill for example, or can you pass a nomination? can you cut off debate on a nomination with a simple majority and the chair might say, look, the rule says, you 60 to cut off debate on the nomination. but if the senate votes that that's not what the rule means. that's not what the rule means anymore. and so that is that's has been

dubbed the nuclear option senate. a majority of the senate can at any time of effectively rewrite the rules. so, you know, there's a lot there's a lot of like process and arcane procedure stuff that we try to explain with a little bit of color in the book. but i won't i want with it here but but that point is the important point which is a majority can do it wants if it is determined to do so persuading the majority as we learned in 2021, january 2022, is not always an easy thing to do. the reason that has become the go to mechanism for changing the rules is exactly the point you raised right. senators perspective moves on rule changes tend to certain present company excepted tend to vary quite a bit, depending on the number of seats that they in their colleagues hold in the united states senate at any

given moment. i'm wondering add, though, that actually there are many folks on both sides of the aisle, very unsatisfied people of enormous talent from all of life. come to the senate and expect to be engaged in deliberation and making decisions and they discover to that point, you around a whole lot of time because it takes a week to get a bill to the floor and then it takes a week to get the substitute amendment up for a vote and. then even if it's an a bill that everyone loves, it takes a week to to do final passage because there's somebody one at least one person demands a motion close debate. and that motion eats up a week of time. so you've just spent three weeks doing what would happen. the state legislature probably within about an hour in the oregon state legislature when i was speaker, we would often have ten votes on bills in an evening and every one could speak to the issue and there'd be a lot of

scurrying around the floor consultation and so forth. but everybody a chance to weigh in and then you hold vote. it was kind of the senate code in inaction and you went issue after history and you're like, well, that's an interesting issue and i have an opinion on that. maybe i can change people's minds on that one, or i knew that one was coming up tonight. and so i've organized a coalition to understand that we shouldn't let that happen. but we, by comparison, so ineffective and underuse as senators. so lots senators on both sides are very frustrated with that. but so for a couple of years ago, i had nine republican senators in a conversation about doing a basic reform, like getting rid of the filibuster and the motion to proceed, have one hour of debate on whether to bring a bill to the floor is sort of a week and that's widely supported. but that group eventually went to the leader of the republicans and laid out that and other idea about guaranteed. and he basically said, don't mess with the rules world's rules work great us and they

stood down we become a much more a body that's much more driven by a concentration of power in the majority leader and the minority leader. you can go back in time not that long ago within our lifetimes in which you had essentially people bipartisan strategies that took on the majority leader of the senate and winning. while you would never see that today but there a lot of sense and a lot of frustration but ultimately the basic balance of power so favors one party that that party says leave alone we like it the way it is and so if it's going to be reform it's going to have to be the democrats do it. and so much that power that you're talking about in the minority majority leader are direct glee is directly derived from the amount of money they can raise. and that goes back to your point about dark money and all the issues with that. boy, do we have a lot to fix it all? it's also derived from the fact that they can step on the air

hose any member in terms of getting their legislative done because so much of the legislature to work product of the congress now comes through the leader's office usually in these massive bills precisely because every like ordinary bill gets filibustered. so it just all gets rolled into the must pass stuff. she's got. high. joyce reading from medpage today i just to kind of clarify i thought the whole premise of the book you talked about you know a of people can say that they're going to block something and then that's it they're going to threaten the 60 vote majority what how would it work can you give an example health care how would it work under, you know, your book if things out your best, let's say the new version of for the people bill to the

elections. you'd have a one hour debate on whether to bring that to the floor of spending a week on bringing it to floor. you would have guaranteed germane amendments for both democrats and the republicans because being able to to put forward is a key piece of what it means to a senator. when i was interning for senator hatfield, every senator had that super power of putting up amendments and, getting debate and vote is now virtually gone. you need unanimous consent now, so we be guaranteed amendments, both sides. if you've had at least the opportunity for ten amendments on both sides, it would be in order to go a period of extended debate. and that period of extended debate would be solely on the issue of final passage of. the bill, and at that point, no quorum calls, no motions, would be in order. everybody could speak for long as they want twice. and if in the course of time there is a break in debate, then the chair calls a question

again, as has happened throughout our our history, or if everyone exhausts their their chance to speak to the issue, which has never happened in our history never happened but you reach that point then also that would mean there'd be a break and you'd be able to vote. now during that period, if you reached compromise, you could still use the existing tool of cloture to close debate and wrap things up. so you're not getting rid of cloture, but you're adding this dimension of, the continuous talking, a period of extended debate. well, thank you all so much for being with us today for this fantastic conversation. thank you so much to mike zamore senator jeff merkley. thank you so much for all of your work, both of you in the senate. but for your for your work all these years in the in the oregon state legislature as well.

we're so appreciative of all you do. and we look forward to continuing to work on this issue. well, thank you so much. and again, thank you to the grassroots advocates who are working on all these key issues for the people on health care, on housing, on education, civil rights, on climate, labor law, together, where we have to make sure that is a future senate where every brilliant idea you have for better policy has a chance to actually be debated and voted on. and your ideas are so good. i'm sure they'll all pass when we get opportunity. and so thank to our grassroots, thank you to you all for hosting us today. and let's fix the senate and save america.