Senate Reform Ends With A Whimper

Yesterday the U.S. Senate voted on some wimpy, watered-down Senate reform package.

Under the terms of the agreement the senate will hold votes on:

Eliminating secret holds, including the right of senators to pass their secret holds to another anonymous senator to keep a rolling secret hold;

Eliminating the delaying tactic of forcing the reading of an amendment that has already been submitted for 72 hours and is publicly available;

Legislation to exempt about 1/3 of all nominations from the Senate confirmation process, reducing the number of executive nominations subject to Senate delays, which will be scheduled at a future date under the terms of an agreement reached by Sens. Mitch McConnell and Lamar Alexander, Homeland Security and Government Affairs Chairman Joe Lieberman and HSGA ranking member Sen. Susan Collins, along with Sens. Reid and Chuck Schumer.

In addition, in a colloquy entered into the record:

Sen. McConnell agreed not to use the constitutional option to seek
to change Senate rules “in this Congress or the next Congress.”

Sen. McConnell agreed to reduce use of the filibuster on motions to proceed and Sen. Reid agreed to reduce the use of “filling the tree”
to block all amendments.

Congress Matters‘s David Waldman, who has been a leader in the reform effort, had this reaction:

The deal is what it is. In terms of real reform, it’s next to nothing. But, still, next to. One-third of all executive nominations is one-third of 1400+. Eliminating the “secret” part of secret holds is… nice, though we were all hoping that they’d do something about the “hold” part. Being able to waive the reading of amendments — including substitute amendments, which is the real problem — so long as they’ve been publicly available for 72 hours is just good sense.

…

Part II of the deal involves the so-called “gentleman’s agreement.” That’s the part where McConnell agrees not to filibuster the motion to proceed so much, and Reid agrees not to “fill the amendment tree” (which prevents Senators — on both sides, quite often — from offering amendments to bills). But the new twist is that they (presumably — the text above only says McConnell) agree not to use the constitutional option to try to change Senate rules in this
Congress or the next.

…

Is it a “win?” No. But it should also be understood in context. Senate rules reform fights have never been won right out of the gate. The successful reforms of the past have all required several attempts, spread out in two-year intervals, sometimes stretching out over decades. In “blogging years,” that’s an eternity. In the United States Senate, where many members serve for 30 years or more, that can be the blink of an eye.

What can I say besides blarghhhhh?