Senate leaders agree on filibuster changes

[steve2470]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/27/AR2011012703379.html?hpid=moreheadlines

Senate leaders announced a broad bipartisan agreement Thursday that serves as the most significant change in the chamber's rules in 35 years, reaffirming the basic principle of the filibuster but jettisoning special privileges that had slowed consideration of legislation and agency nominees.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), appearing together on the chamber floor at noon, left intact the essential concept of the minority's right to block some legislation by requiring a 60-vote threshold through a threatened filibuster. But the leaders agreed to repeal the decades-old stalling tactics of secret holds, in which an anonymous senator could slow action on a bill, and the ability to force amendments to be read in their entirety on the floor.

Leaders said they hoped the deal - which was cemented in a series of votes and hand-shake agreements - would help create a foundation for free-wheeling bipartisan debates that are part of the chamber's lore but have become increasingly rare in the procedurally partisan Senate of the 21st century.

"We're going to try to legislate," Reid said in a brief interview after announcing the deal.

[spanone]

1. yet we STILL need a supermajority ....cool

delusional

[ewagner]

2. Reid.....

proudly displaying his white flag of surrender again....