Abbreviated pundit roundup: Fix the filibuster. Now.

Zachary Roth at MSNBC asks "will Democrats hold their nerve?"

A group of younger, progressive senators led by Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Tom Udall of New Mexico has been pushing a package that, among other changes, would require the minority to conduct a 'talking filibuster' (think Mr. Smith Goes to Washington), rather than being able to silently object. The overall effect would be to make it harder, both practically and politically, for the GOP to filibuster as a routine means of blocking Democratic legislation. [...]

Reid appeared last fall to embrace the Merkley-Udall approach, which is also backed by Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and a coalition of powerful progressive groups including the Sierra Club, the NAACP, and SEIU. But recent reports suggest Reid is mulling a more modest package of changes which wouldn't require the talking filibuster, though it would still scrap the filibuster on motions to proceed'that is, to begin debate on a bill'and make it harder in other situations. His possible change of heart comes after lobbying from a group of older senators, who fear the loss of prerogatives for individual senators.

There's little question that the Senate needs to be fixed. [...] Were it not for the filibuster, Democrats could likely have passed a climate-change bill and a healthcare law with a public option during Obama's first term.

The editors at The Register-Guard:

The world's greatest deliberative body is running like a lawnmower that's been left out all winter: It's hard to get started, and when it finally comes to life it sputters and kills on even the lowest clumps of grass.

It's time to reform the U.S. Senate's filibuster rule, which in recent years has fallen prey to rapacious partisanship and cheap tricks by obstructionists who have used the process to block legislation and nominations by requiring a supermajority to proceed.

For more on what the pundits are saying about filibuster reform, jump below the fold.