WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Tom Udall, D-NM, continued his push for use of the Constitutional Option to reform the Senate rules during a hearing today that featured testimony by former Vice President Walter Mondale, who helped lead a similar effort 35 years ago.
Udall, a member of the Senate Rules Committee, commended Mondale for his leadership on the issue throughout his time in the Senate and beyond. Mondale was serving as senator from Minnesota when he helped lead the charge for rules reform in 1975 - which was the last time the Senate revised Rule XXII, known as the filibuster rule.
"I am very happy that Vice President Mondale is here with us today, as he was one of the leaders of the filibuster reform effort in 1975. He believes, as I do, that each Senate has the constitutional right to change its rules by a majority vote," Udall said. "The Senate of 1975 thought that the filibuster was being abused. But more recent Senates have demonstrated a whole new level of obstruction, with senators from both sides of the aisle increasingly using it as a weapon of partisan warfare."
In offering his Constitutional Option proposal, which he introduced earlier this year, Udall argues that the current practice of robbing the Senate of its Constitutional right to adopt its rules of procedure by a simple majority at the beginning of each Congress has made effective legislating nearly impossible.
Since 1959, the Senate rules have included language mandating that they continue from one Congress to the next, unless modified by the body. However, Senate Rule XXII requires the approval of "two-thirds of the senators present and voting" in order to limit debate on a change to the rules. This provision, which effectively prevents the Senate from ever amending its rules, directly conflicts with the Constitution and the common law principle upheld by the Supreme Court that one legislature cannot bind its successors.
Mondale told the committee that rules reform is more necessary than ever, because the partisanship he encountered during his 1975 effort pales in comparison to the situation in the Senate today.
"I served in the Senate during most perilous times when war began or escalated, when funds were spent or withheld, when civil liberties and civil rights were under assault-all with little public awareness initially until a few Senators began, publicly on the floor of the Senate, to express doubt and raise questions. That right should be sustained," Mondale said. "Ironically, however, the use of that right as now practiced threatens the credibility of the Senate and its procedures and adds to the incivility that undermines public confidence in government today."
