Outside pressure for real filibuster reform building

The San Jose Mercury News has a message for home state senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, two Democrats who are undecided about whether to vote for real, effective filibuster reform: just do it.

Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer are not yet committed to supporting any specific plan. By the time the Senate reconvenes this month, both should be backing sensible rules that foster rather than block debate on matters of importance to Americans. [...]

Feinstein's only commitment on filibuster reform so far is to ban filibusters to prevent a bill or a judicial nominee from even coming to the floor for debate.

That's important, but without making filibusters more burdensome to carry out, it won't change anything. They can still stop a vote on each nominee.

Reid seems intent on accomplishing real reform. California's Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer should have his back.

Editorials like that have been running around the nation in other papers, including in Montana, urging Sen. Max Baucus to join colleague Jon Tester in supporting real reform. Other papers from New Jersey to Florida to New York and Ohio. That's a clue to balky Democratic senators: The nation outside of the Beltway has watched the devolution of the senate at the hands of Mitch McConnell's wrecking crew, and doesn't accept it as business as usual but as a serious problem for the nation.

If that's not convincing enough for these overly cautious Democrats, perhaps advice from some of their former colleagues will do the trick. Former Sens. John C. Danforth (R-MO) and David L. Boren (D-OK):

It's plain that the present state of affairs is untenable to the American people, and confounding to many of us who served in the chamber for so many years. Let us turn away from the brinkmanship of abused legislative procedures and return with vigor to spirited debates over policy and substance. Let the Senate be the Senate again.

They argue strongly for the talking filibuster, saying "elections are premised on accountability, and citizens deserve to know which senator is holding up the process and why that senator is doing so, even if it is within a senator's right under the rules to speak at length about any particular piece of legislation." If it's good enough for this bipartisan pair of former senators, it should be good enough for Democratic senators in this Congress, particularly those who've had to try to work through this obstruction over the past four years.

Please tell your Democratic senator to support the Merkley/Udall/Harkin proposal, and vote to make the filibuster a real, talking filibuster.