Bennett supports filibuster option but wants rule change
But he wants a rule change to let simple majority end debate
"I think the filibuster is a very worthwhile thing to hang on to, to preserve the rights of the minority," Bennett told fellow senators. The compromise came on the eve of a vote in the Senate to do away with filibustering on judicial appointments — the so-called "nuclear option."
Despite his support of keeping the option to filibuster, Bennett said the time may have come to change the Senate rules — something that has been done many times since filibusters were first allowed in 1917 — to end debate on judicial nominees with a simple majority.
And he used quotes from Democratic senators in decades past to make his case that Democrats are creating new precedence by not allowing any up or down votes on controversial nominees and that they are ignoring their own history.
Bennett quoted Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who in the 1970s argued for the time-honored ability of the majority to change the rules, and how then-Sen. Walter Mondale, D-Minn., said the majority "clearly, unequivocally and unmistakably" had the right to change the rules.
In other words, the majority party has always changed the rules to suit its needs, Bennett said, and that is the only tradition at stake in the debate.
"What we're talking about doing now is using the time-honored Senate procedure — to change the (filibuster) rule with a majority vote," Bennett said from the Senate floor.
E-mail: spang@desnews.com
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