A bipartisan group of Senators seems prepared to propose modest changes to Senate procedures when the session gets underway again after the first of the year. It appears the proposals would streamline consideration of legislation by prohibiting or reducing the use of the filibuster threat to inhibit scheduling, discussion, or moving things out of committee. It preserves the filibuster as a tool for the final voting on any measure, however.
Morning Fog applauds bipartisanship wherever it occurs (and no matter how rarely). (Appplause, applause.) The sponsors of these proposals, led by Levin and McCain, believe that to seek more drastic change would just lead to more vitriolic debate, and probably to the defeat of any reform effort. In the spirit of bipartisanship, we have to accept their reading of the mood in the Senate for reform.
In an ideal world, though, we would prefer to see somewhat more far-reaching change. There are valid arguments to make the filibuster itself go the way of the dodo, but if it would be too much to expect its complete elimination, we should at least restore the feature that made it both famous and infamous: that Senators of the minority, to impose a filibuster, would actually have to stand and speak constantly in order to maintain it.
This might seem a waste of time, to have our highly paid Senators deployed on the chamber floor, blathering on to an empty room. I'm sure the Senators thought so, when they agreed, in the best tradition of bipartisanship, to spare themselves that labor and indignity. But it's a lot easier to threaten a filibuster than to have to conduct one; the restoration of the stand-and-speak rule should eliminate many of the more frivolous pseudo-filibusters.