Im ben olinsky im the Senior Vice President for structural and governance here at the center for american progress. And its my pleasure to welcome you this afternoon for an incredibly important conversation on on the filibuster with senator jeff and mike zamore coauthors of the newly released book filibustered how to fix the broken senate and save america. And i want to just take a minute to thank you all for your patience, given the vagaries of senate vote timing, its thought that president buchanan was the first to call the senate the worlds most deliberative body to better understand characterization. I looked the term deliberative. The cambridge dictionary defines it as involving careful and discussion when making decisions. So, for example, you might say she deliberated over the menu. And incidentally, when someone over the menu, they ultimately on what to order or they go hungry. But when we look to the senate these days, we see less deliberation. We see less real debate and compromise, fewer bills passing, fewer amendments, getting voted on to address the policy concerns of senators and their constituents. And we see the filibuster or rather automatic threat of one as the culprit. For those of you who arent steeped in Arcane Senate rules, a allows any senator to hold passage of most bills unless 60 of their colleagues vote to cut off debate. For years, filibuster ers took the form of senators standing and speaking for hours on end to deliberate or often to gum up the works. Today, a single senator can signal they want to hold a bill, prevent its passage. In fairness, that may not always be clear. Deliberation gives way to inaction or even obstruction. The recent monthslong blockade of senior promotions by senator tommy seems pretty clear to me. It endangered our military readiness as even senators in his own party. The bodys wellknown and ignoble uses of the filibuster blocked the codification of antilynching laws and. Basic civil rights for black americans and all our citizens. But to understand the senates dysfunction today, we need only look to some basic policy issues that enjoy incredibly broad support among the american people. In some cases 70, 75, 80 of voters take example, background checks for guns protecting voting rights. Term and binding ethics reforms. First, the Supreme Court justices. Reproductive rights. Raising the wage. Lowering Prescription Drug prices for all americans. Despite broad public support on these issues. They never seem to make it to the president s desk to be signed. As americans become frustrated by congress gridlock, they faith in government to solve their problems and the risk of democratic backslide rises here just as it has overseas. A cap Analysis Shows just how undemocratic and unresponsive senate is. It would only take the senators from 21 states to mount a successful. If these are the states with the fewest residents, their population would only represent in ten americans. And if you look a more reasonable block of senators who would likely band together to filibuster, they might represent than 25 of americans population suggest this will get worse by 2040 70 of all americans will live in states represented by only 30 senators out of 100. Central to our countrys vision of government is that is of by and for the people. That is that it pays attention to what most americans want. Of course, we also have a proud tradition of building in mechanisms to ensure the political minoritys voice can be heard and wont entirely be drowned out. Thats important to the balancing between majority and the protection of the political is not an easy one. But what was never intended and wouldnt be a government of, by and for the people is a government is incapable of acting on important issues, even though theres broad consensus americans. Thats why cap vocal in calling for reforms to Senate Filibuster rules to allow the passage of critically needed democracy legislation called the freedom to vote act and notably championed by senator merkley the right to vote and free and Fair Elections is among our most sacred rights and is the central mechanism in our democracy for ensuring government is responsive. Its critical for us to build truly multiracial democracy, and thats why kap is supportive of broader reforms to the filibuster. And eager to hear from todays panel on how we might go about doing that. Senator senator jeff merkley, likely needs little introduction in this room to those who have followed efforts to reform the filibuster. Representing oregon, the u. S. Senate since 2008, senator merkley has fought for issues that matter to Everyday Americans like living wage jobs, college and secure retirement for seniors. Importantly, has also led organizing efforts in the senate to build a coalition to break gridlock and fix the institution so it can be more responsive working people and has been of the key leaders of landmark democracy democracy reform legislation. Senator merkley previously served as the speaker of the oregon house of represented lives. His coauthor and longtime chief staff, mike zamore, is a 22 year veteran of capitol hill. He advised senator merkleys efforts to reform the filibuster and quickly became an expert in Arcane Senate procedure. Mike is an adjunct faculty member. American american universitys Washington College of law and starting this month starts as the National Director of policy and Government Affairs at the. Their excellent new book filibustered how to fix the broken senate and save america was released yesterday by not for profit publisher new press, which lifts up authors working to defend and promote democracy. For those of you with us in person today, you can purchase a copy immediately after. This discussion and i believe the authors will be sticking around to sign those books. I couldnt be more excited to have these two leaders on filibuster here today to tell you about its history and impact on america and we can do to fix it. And most importantly, ill turn things over to our moderator, Laura Rodriguez capps, Vice President for Government Affairs and a long time veteran capitol hill. Please join me in giving them warm welcome as they come to the stage. Is this on . Yes. Perfect. I love. Welcome and happy year. I hope everyone had survived the weather and that we continue to do in this wacky, wacky. I want to welcome of our esteemed panelists senator merkley and mike zamore to have this really important conversation as been out. Really looking to digging in. So im just going to go right into it and well start at the beginning. You start your book on january six, 2021. Can you tell a little bit about why you chose that specific day to start the book . Of course, on capitol hill, it was a very dramatic day as. Those of us were sitting in the chamber saw someone rush up to the podium running the senate, which you never see a sudden gavel departure the Vice President and no knowing whats going on and of course the mob took over the building and super dire consequences just really couldnt have ever envisioned happening. But its symbolic. The challenge of maintaining the institutions of our democracy and certainly at the heart of, democracy is the ballot box and the peaceful transfer of power and both are under threat. And, of course, the deliberative aspect of a democracy is that folks can come together share views and make decisions. And the senate, with the minority veto through the 41 vote filibuster is, in fact deeply compromising. The senate, the institution it was designed to be. So these things go hand in hand that. We are challenged at multiple facets of the democracy see, weve been working to improve over a couple hundred years, but the improvements may be what we may be in a more narrow situation of of erosion of their integrity rather than enhancement. Thank you for that. I want to. You just touched on how senate was designed to function. And i want to go right into that because you paint vivid. You both a vivid contrast here between how the senate was designed original, need to function and how is now functioning in the last 15 or so years with, as you said, the 41 vote filibuster. Can my can can you start with a little bit about what you think the public needs to know about what the original design of the senate was meant to be . Thank you, laura. And thanks to cap for having us and more importantly, for all the advocacy over many years as partners on the effort to make sure our government is working by and for the people, the me, the first most important thing i think the people just need to understand is that if youve been watching senate for the last 15 or 20 years, you have a very, very skewed view of how the is intended to work and how it actually did work. For two centuries. Todays is a far cry total anomaly from from what came before. So the records of the very first senate are actually pretty pretty scant but. Theres a diary from this one guy who was sort of like a little known figure on the National Stage but became a United States senator. And remember, this senate was populated by. The folks who wrote the declaration of independence wrote the constitution and were there in the in the foundry. They were the capital founders of the country right. And they were figuring out how is the senate to work . And so you read senator William Maclay from, pennsylvanias diary, and its really kind of amusing because its partly like someones diary. And hes like, you know, soandso is mean to me today. And, you know, the someone was, you know, came to my house. It wouldnt stop talking at me. And i wanted to go to sleep. Like theres some of that in there. But theres also the best that we have of the very First Congress in what he described is in granular detail, is the day by day functioning as the senate took up its first big policy bill, which around imposing duties tax, you know, taxes on on imports. And what this senate for the founders did was pondered you gave kind of pondered the amendments wanted to offer theyd plow their way in sometimes tedious fashion through the the minutia people wanted to raise because of their interests or their their ideological interests. They had the votes and at the end of that whole process in mcclay at certain points is despairing. Hes like, oh my god. Like, these people wont stop is essentially the gist of his diary. But at the end of it they have an up or down vote and at some point, you know, notes, hes like i, you know, i was ready to go in and like say my piece about this thing. But i thought we were going to win that amendment. So i just shut up. And that the way the senate worked and so we called that the code, right . This what emerged out of that very first senate and and for most of 200 years was the way the senate worked. This was a small group of, you know, kind of elites. A lot of them knew each other. They certainly all came from similar background. And they they sort gave each other the respect that everybody their say they considered a lot of amendments. And then after reasonable amount of time, they all agreed okay, its time to have the vote and and that that code really is the social contract but it really governed the way the senate for most of 200 years up into the 1990 the partial birth abortion ban and the ban on assault weapons. Right. A big left, you know, in a big right like boogeyman issues both passed with fewer than 60 votes in the 1990s. So this was like a normal way of doing business. Interrupted. Sure. By filibusters at various points. But what we today where everything requires votes, even things that end up passed in 99 to 1 half to first go through this gantlet of getting the 60 vote cloture process just your time and anything that the minority like just gets vetoed. That is a break and new and very, you know, kind of destructive of phenomenon, if i can add it just a little bit to that, this is very important because throughout opposition to civil rights by southern democrats, they cultivated myth that the senate from the beginning was a super majority body and they said this is part of the cooling saucer analogy, if you will. And of course, we know that that were elements of the founders designing the senate to be different than the house with six year terms in staggered terms, indirect election. But it came to the question of simple majority versus for legislation. The founders were absolutely clear. They made no question about the fact that it should be a simple majority, that democracy should never be stood on its. And one of the reasons they felt so about this is because under the Confederate Congress it required a superman. And they were paralyzed. And they couldnt raise the funds to off shays rebellion. They couldnt the funds to pay the pensions for the revolutionary war veterans. So from beginning, it was simple majority. It was reinforced by thomas jefferson, who had a code for the senate, and it was reinforced by the fact that the presiding officer could call people to order and was reinforced by a previous question motion in the rule that was seven times and sometimes it was to close debate. So theres question about how the senate started, despite the fact of myth building by southern democrats to support the suppression of civil rights. Thank you both so much that building is something that were seeing throughout our politics in general and. So a hugely important point that youre both making there because of this paralysis in the last 15 to 20 years. Senator, we give us can you a little bit about some examples of really popular legislation that being left out on the floor without passage because of this process. Well, lets think for a moment about, for example, gun legislation. Highly popular. And we even had legislation supported two folks that you might think manchin and toomey. Senator manchin and toomey led the effort and said, well, surely can do better background checks. Created a very narrow set of provisions compared to what was envisioned after the sandy massacre and. Even that failed the filibuster. But think about, for example, drug prices, where 80 of americans think, every drug should be negotiated so that get the same fair prices as the rest of the developed world does. But we cant. We cant pass it. Think about the disclose act, where if you all donate 200 to a candidate, youre disclosed. But if your friend donates it or if you donate to a friend of the candidate, say, 10 million, youre not disclosed. Dark money. Well, citizens in america hear about this. So thats crazy. But weve lost to disclosure to a filibuster twice. We got 15 nine votes, one vote short. And thats the you could have a vote. Of 59 to 0. And the zero wins blocking. The ability to close debate in lawmakers add on the senators very good list of what is blocked. I would add the things that are not blocked, which is, for example, giant tax cuts for corporations, billionaires. Why is that . Its because the senate has been rigged so that the legislation that helps tear down barriers share power, economic, social power, culture, block all those of things need to get through this 60 vote gantlet. But the i dont want jeopardize anyones c3 status so you know im not gonna attribute to the parties but there are certain people who have worked hard to ensure that there are exceptions to the rules around the filibuster for certain kinds of legislation. So in 1974, congress very concerned about deficits and exploding in the wake of the vietnam war passes the budget control and empowerment act, which created the reconciliation process that many of you were probably familiar with. Reconciliation, as we all know, sometimes from painful experience, is only a 51 vote. You know, majority simple majority vote to pass, but its restricted to budget items. Specifically, the legislation was intended be restricted to items that lower the deficit. It was part of a deficit reduction and in creating a whole new set of tools for congress to help bring the deficit down. In 1996, one of the two parties that shall be shall remain unnamed, orchestrated a a what we now call a Nuclear Option kind of rule change or reinterpret of the rules to say that despite all of the evidence to the contrary, you could actually use this deficit reduction tool to, dramatically increase the deficit, tax cuts and that example is obviously a key one. And then course judicial nominations are, a big priority of of one of our two Major Political parties. And you theyre pretty content right now to a senate where they can pass nominations, the courts pass tax cuts for their for their primary constituents, primarily concerned about and then block everything that that might help, you know, spread opportunity and and power. Some of you describe there also really illustrates how we then get really odd pieces of trying to be shoehorned in because thats the only way and then people get upset but you think, well, how else are we going to do this . Or, you know, attached to a big, you know, moving bill for government funding. Why are we going to do social policy on their. Because its the only way. Right. But you touched on something. I know the senator wants to probably follow up on. Im going to give him a chance to do so here. Senator, can you talk to us a little bit about how i think without getting into too much trouble, how the filibuster affects the parties differently . Well sure. Absolutely. So there is a phrase that i heard as a child, probably you all heard it. Someone suggests you flip a coin and you say, okay, heads, i win, tails you lose. Thats a pretty sweet place to be. And thats the place. And ill be more explicit than my colleague. Thats the place that Mitch Mcconnell is is in. And why is that . When hes in the majority, he can implement his agenda, tax cuts, because he did a Nuclear Option to make that possible and he can implement a cultural through the courts and through the nominations to, the courts simple majority. He can use the congressional review act, a simple majority to strike down regulations. He can use a simple majority to put people in to key agencies to undermine from within. He has many simple options. Well, meanwhile, the democratic side is a little bit swankier and says weve got better policies for health care, for housing, for education, for civil rights, for climate, for labor and every policy bill requires a super majority. So that means Mitch Mcconnell