U.S. Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC Tuesday evening to promote his idea to reform the way the Senate does business.
Udall wants to change the rules in the Senate so the mere threat of a filibuster can’t stop debate on a bill. As Maddow pointed out, some 290 bills that have passed the House are languishing in the Senate because of the threat of filibuster.
“The filibuster is being used as a weapon of partisanship, and so we’ve got to focus on how to change it,” Udall said.
When he was in the House and running for Senate in 2008, Udall said he was seeking to move from one chamber to the other in part because he was tired of working to pass a bill in the House only to have it die in the Senate.
Many of Udall’s colleagues believe it takes 67 senators to amend Senate rules – so, essentially, the threat of a filibuster can stop any attempt to change the rules on fillibusters. Udall and some others have argued that the U.S. Constitution allows the rules to be changed by a simple majority vote of senators.
And Udall intends, at the start of the next Congress in 2011, to make a motion to amend the rules and see what happens.
“We’re gaining momentum every day. … There is a real concern about the way the rules are being used right now,” Udall told Maddow. “What we need the American people to do is speak out. You need to contact your senators and say, ‘Get down to business.’”
Here’s video of the interview:
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