problems. and it distresses me every single day that while we may have the majority, over 50 votes we have 55 votes, we still can t do what the american people want us to do. well, i ve quoted you often, senator sanders. another quote from tom harkin today on my radio show. he said he s tired of the senate being held hostage by the dead hand of the past. there are just some senators in the democratic caucus that simply don t want to change this rule. and the dead hand of the past was rules set up by previous senate chambers. how frustrating is this going to be? doesn t the country deserve to move forward on legislation? because we all know what the republicans would do if they were in this position. ed, i think you re absolutely right. look, in politics, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. we all know that. but right now, one senator could have a staff member call up the cloakroom and say hey, put a hold on that bill. we re not going to go forward to even debate that legislat
have the majority, over 50 votes we have 55 votes, we still can t do what the american people want us to do. well, i ve quoted you often, senator sanders. another quote from tom harkin today on my radio show. he said he s tired of the senate being held hostage by the dead hand of the past. there are just some senators in the democratic caucus that simply don t want to change this rule. and the dead hand of the past was rules set up by previous senate chambers. how frustrating is this going to be? doesn t the country deserve to move forward on legislation? because we all know what the republicans would do if they were in this position. ed, i think you re absolutely right. look, in politics, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. we all know that. but right now, one senator could have a staff member call up the cloakroom and say hey, put a hold on that bill. we re not going to go forward to
welcome back to the ed show. at this hour, there is still no finalized deal between democrats and republicans on filibuster reform in the senate, but new details are coming out. but no matter what happens, it looks like the all important talking filibuster is off the table. senator dick durbin of illinois told reporters today, quote, i would say the talking filibuster at this point does not have 51 votes. on tuesday, majority leader harry reid offered mitch mcconnell a proposal on filibuster reform without the talking filibuster. reid says he has the 51 votes needed to move forward with the constitutional option on his offer, if republicans don t play ball. now republicans in the 112 congress abused the filibuster over and over. in fact, 380 times they did it to obstruct president obama s agenda, and senate democrats i think are sick of this. senator tom harkin of iowa said on my radio show today without meaningful filibuster reform, it could be a rough second term for president obam
so what ends up happening is not only can t we pass the legislation we want, we can t even have the debate for the american people to understand who is on which side. so to me, yeah, i share harkin s views. i am tired of it. i don t mind losing. sometimes you re not going to get 50 votes. but i am damn tired of seeing us not even being able to go forward on a debate on issues of enormous concern to this country. what is harry reid afraid of, if your opinion? what is it? i can t speak, i really can t speak for reid, and i don t know. i think the bottom line is i suspect that he believes that we do not have the 51 votes that we ll need for the constitutional option. what many of us believe on the first day, and we ve extended that, it is still the first day, that we can write new rules. that with 51 votes, we can say that we can have a talking filibuster. if you want to oppose a bill if you want 60 votes, you get on
how many elections, harry, do the democrats have to win? how many mandates from the people have to be sent to washington that we need to move forward on this? why is the minority party running this country? that s my first reaction on this. for more, let s turn to senator bernie sanders of vermont for his reaction. senator, good to have you with us tonight. i ve got to ask you, if the talking filibuster isn t in it, if the 41 rule isn t in it, where is the teeth in this filibuster reform that might happen? your thoughts, sir. there won t be much in the way of teeth. what you ll see is some improved efficiencies. the senate will move a little bit faster. but in essence, what tom harkin said is absolutely right. what we have seen is an unparalleled level of obstructionism time after time when we re trying to create jobs, trying to deal with global warming, trying to deal with