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Four Plans to Finish Off the Filibuster

Nation DC Editor Christopher Hayes discusses the ways that Democrats could get rid of the filibuster.

The Rachel Maddow Show

February 16, 2010

Filibuster reform may be boring, but Rachel Maddow urges viewers to take the issue more seriously because “a tiny minority cannot thwart the will of the majority anymore.” After viewers’ attempts to possibly “re-brand” the soporific filibuster, Nation DC Editor Chris Hayes answers the question: “Could Democrats get rid of the filibuster tomorrow, if they really wanted to?”

The answer, he says, is a qualified yes. Hayes proposes four ways to get rid of the filibuster including: changing Senate rules, i.e. the cloture rule, (that requires 67 votes); statutorily, which requires passing a bill with 60 votes to change the rule (Senator Tom Harkin has proposed this), or even using the nuclear option, where they could eliminate the filibuster with 50 senators and vice presidential approval. “There have been moments in which procedural changes have happened in the Senate,” he says. “It happened after World War I. It happened after Watergate in the 1970s. And in every case, it wasn’t a procedural change so much as a political change.”

The Rachel Maddow Show


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