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He explained why the issue is so critical to him: How he first came to D.C. in 1976 as an intern to Sen. Mark Hatfield (R-OR) and saw how the Senate worked when the Senate actually worked. He pointed out that in the six years LBJ was majority leader in the Senate, he had to file for cloture to close debate just one time. "Harry Reid had to file 391 petitions in the same six year period," Merkley said. "This is disfunction that is deeply damaging to the legislative process, and we also have the same obstacle to nomination."
The matter, at least in terms of nominations, will come to a head in July. Prospects for changing the nominations process, he said, "are reasonable," but "it's not a done deal," he continued. "We're going to have a lot of nominations coming up in July." Those nominations include five members of the National Labor Relations Board, three executive branch nominations, and three judicial nominations. "If we have all those at one time, and focus on them," Merkley said, "one of several things could happen."
"One is that the Republicans block them, and we do nothing. That is absolutely unacceptable. The second is that they block them and we say, well if you block them we're going to change the rules and they say well we won't block them. That will be essentially a repeat of 2005, when the Republicans basically said that to the Democrats. Either you stop blocking or we'll change the rules. There was a deal, and the deal involved Democrats not filibustering. Or, the Republicans say no, no deal and then we need to change the rules. And we need to change it on both executive branch nominees and judiciary nominees.Merkley's concern is that another "gang" will come up with another compromise that will let in a few nominees, or separate the executive from the judiciary nominees, and allow Republicans to continue to hold one of the two branches hostage with obstruction. "There has to be up or down votes on everything," he says. "That needs to be the principle. Up and down votes on everything in a timely manner. The president deserves that to get his administration into place, and he deserves that to be able to fill these judicial emergencies."
It will all come down in July, so "everyone should be deeply engaged in this," Merkley says. Which means: Call your senator, particularly your Democratic senators, and tell them to not cut any deals to undercut real filibuster reform, and to vote to end the filibuster next month.
