This week, most Hill watchers were glued to the behind the scenes negotiations on the highly anticipated financial reform bill due to hit the Senate floor next week. Meanwhile, on Thursday, in an open session, the Senate rules committee held a hearing on the history of the filibuster-cloture rule which is Rule 22 of the Standing Rules of the Senate. The opening statements by Senators threw around words like "obstructionism" and "minority rights" often and with some passion. There was an excellent presentation by the Senate's  Parliamentarian Emeritus, Bob Dove, where he outlined the history of the filibuster from 1966 to 1986. Mr. Dove's unique insight came from someone who actually served in the Senate during the time he was outlining the history. With this solo perspective, he was able to add a flavor and true inside candor to the history of the changes to the filibuster rule. This writer spent 26 years in the Senate from 1975 to 2001 and remember much of the candor Mr. Dove was able to describe.

I was struck by the major ingredient missing from the statements made primarily by the Senators. The missing ingredient was the inside flavor of their data. As each of them recounted the numbers and percentages by which the use of the filibuster has increased, none of them really focused on the main reason why these increases are occurring.  Having spent my entire Senate career on the Senate floor, it is obvious to me why the increases are occurring and why they will continue to climb. The lack of the Majority party to want to negotiate with the Minority party has been one of the two primary reasons for the rapid increase. The second reason was mentioned briefly by the Republican Leader, Senator McConnell. He stated that the Majority party tried to limit debate using Rule 22 so often because so many Senators in the Majority party don’t want to cast tough political votes.  If the party in control is adamant about pushing their agenda and their agenda only, thereby forcing the Minority party to drink from their fire hydrant of legislative proposals, then the only option for the Minority is to try to cut off the water flow. This is done by filibustering the proposal. If the Majority party doesn't want to hear and vote on alternatives from the Minority, which would come in the form of amendments, then again, the only option left to the Minority is to resort to the filibuster.

To recite a bit of inside candor of my own, let me describe the history as it pertains to the objection of Majority party members to casting tough votes. This idea of insulating or protecting members from controversial issues became the trend back in the early 80’s.  With the victory of President Ronald Reagan came a slew of new members of Congress. Many of these men and women were not career politicians and thus campaigning wasn’t second nature to them. When their reelections were approaching they found it hard to defend or debate some of their more controversial votes. Members of the House experienced this first with their reelections coming in just 2 years. Watching from the other side of the Capitol, Senators began to band together and approach the leadership saying they would oppose casting certain controversial votes. Instead of the leadership running the risk of losing the support of these “gun shy” Senators, they instead began to shelter them from having to cast these votes. This process has slowly but surely became almost the norm, especially during election years.

In November of 2008, just after the election of President Obama and the new democratically controlled congress, a Rasmussen poll indicated that 70% of those polled said they wanted Washington, D.C. to work in a bipartisan manner.

During Senator McConnell’s statement in the Rules committee, he quoted Sen. Durbin (D-IL) by saying “if you don’t like fighting fires, don’t be a fireman. If you don’t like casting tough votes, don’t run for the Senate.” Maybe if the Senate tried to accommodate those polled back in November of 2008 and took the advice of Senate Durbin, then potentially the number of filibusters would drastically decrease in the United States Senate. Just a thought, stay tuned.

Elizabeth B. Letchworth is a former 4 times elected United States Senate Secretary for the Majority and Minority-(retired). Currently she is the owner of GradeGov.com http://www.gradegov.com/