GOP Senator-Elect Dan Coats Endorses Filibuster Reform

Senator-elect Dan Coats (R-IN), who also served in the Senate throughout the 1990s, embraced reforming the Senate Rules in a recent interview with NPR:

SIEGEL: Republicans in the minority in the past couple of years have invoked the threat of filibuster a lot more often than was common when you were in the Senate in the 1990s. And I wonder: Do you think that it serves the institution well to require 60 votes for every issue of consequence since your party aspires to be in the majority within a couple of years? And wouldn’t Democrats do the same thing to every bill that your party wants?

Mr. COATS: I think what we need is the opportunity to debate and have an up-or-down vote on every issue. Filibustering the motion to proceed -that is, we can’t even go forward and talk about an issue without overcoming or without gaining a 60-vote majority for it – I would support removing that provision. I think the American people deserve to have the issues debated regardless of which side they’re on, so that they are fully aware of what their representatives and senators are voting for and voting against.

To be clear, the actual rule change that Coats pledges to support here is fairly modest. Present Senate rules permit senators to filibuster both the beginning and the end of debate on most bills. Coats’ proposal would eliminate pre-debate filibusters, but still give senators an opportunity to filibuster before a bill can receive a final up-or-down vote. Nevertheless, because the Senate’s rules also allow the minority to force up to 30 hours of delay every time a filibuster is broken, Coats’ proposal would be a meaningful step towards eliminating a minority’s power to delay virtually all Senate business into oblivion.

As Coats admits, his willingness to support any limits on obstructionism “would be a change of tactics from what’s happened in the past couple of years.” Since President Obama took office, right-wing senators like Jim DeMint (R-SC) have claimed the right to veto any legislation his office has not personally approved, and because the Senate’s rules require unanimous consent to get much of anything done, DeMint has largely gotten his way.

Although it normally requires 67 votes to change the Senate rules, there is a brief window next January where a majority of the Senate can reform the body’s rules. Were they to do so, they would have popular opinion on their side. A recent poll shows nearly two-thirds of voters want to scrap the filibuster, including a majority of Republicans.