Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

The Policy Racket

As budget issue looms, Senate effort to play nice on filibuster is over

Sun Coverage

WASHINGTON - A group of Senate Republicans, including Nevada’s John Ensign, are collecting signatures for a pledge to block all Senate action not directly related to “cutting government spending and dramatically reducing our national debt.”

Ensign was one of 10 senators to submit the letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid this afternoon, saying they intended “to object to the consideration of legislation that fails to directly address this crisis in a meaningful way” until Reid schedules “significant” floor time to debate the federal government reaching its debt limit.

And with that, the filibuster has been resurrected.

Senators agreed at the start of the year that they were going to learn to play nice. Republicans, led by Mitch McConnell, would not threaten to filibuster so long as Reid and the Democrats allowed open amendment processes.

“We were going to have a new day here in the Senate,” bemoaned Reid, adding that he was “disappointed” with his Republican colleagues on the Senate floor.

Reid chided Republicans for their threat -- which is exceedingly similar to threats Senate Republicans made during the lame duck period last year, when they refused to vote on any measure that wasn’t related to tax cuts.

“I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t my Republican colleagues want to move to a small business bill ... a bipartisan bill?” he said.

The no-filibuster deal had worked well until this week. But in the last few days, there have been signs that the climate of good will was breaking down as the opposing parties duke out the details of a budget.

Senate Republicans and Democrats traded barbs over a deal to consider opposing budget proposals earlier this week, and in the eventual settlement, ended up requiring both to clear a 60-vote threshold. Neither even mustered a simple majority.

Lawmakers are now locked in negotiations that don’t appear headed to any sort of settlement. Eight days remain until the lights go out on the government, at the end of the day on March 18.

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