considering leaving congress due to the heated rhetoric from the party. we have a problem onan side. you are going to lose goodi had. [indiscernible] [laughter] >> don't get carried away>>. [laughter] >> all ofrequired to do your ows with no accountants. and finally this idea of adding members, i'm fine with that. but more importantly, we should be thinking about a dormitory up here, to keep people here.

thank you. >> all right. we will break for lunch and be back here at 1:30 p.m. with new moderators and a focus on what members might actually do to fix this. thank you. [indistinct chatter] ok.

we are going to get started. the very first thing i want to do is welcome representative kilmer, washington state, not in d.c. we are being family-friendly so he can participate. he's also breaking another rule, the rule of no sitting members. but obviously everyone knows a special member of fixing congress as it were. that's what we are exploring this afternoon. it's my great pleasure to introduce paul kane, who came to washington 25 years ago to cover congress for roll call. the chicago tribune, my hometown paper. then moved to the washington

post 15 years ago, something like that. he now heads the congressional bureau for the post. and i am told, in addition to his encyclopedic knowledge of congress, which we all enjoy in the washington post, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of basebal'm not sure is a good use of time. [laughter] it may. >> it's a certain inclination of mine. >> i'll try to fill in on that role. >> is probably at the matinee. [laughter] they are playing a day game. >> we have had a lot of discussion this morning about what drives some of the dysfunction of congress. but as you all know, --

as you all know, i am related to rom. even though i am an academic, we like to get shit done, as they say. as my colleagues who are on the right here will tell you, that is my model for all the departments and part of the university that i run. let's get stuff done. we would like to bprtic here. try to come up with ideas that can be impactful and can reform things. all of us know, it is rare you get the chance to do something that is the ideal, as i quoted ben franklin at the path. it is moving up the curve even if not all the way to the best situation. so, this afternoon is solely devoted to how can we do

things? i'd like to think through one of the small things we can do that have high leverage in addressing or fixing congress. ■i would just highlight comments at the start. barbara i think said early on this morning that hopefully the ukraine vote and situation is not a moment but a real change in congress. what would make that real? what are the things we couldèpo? i think we've got several ideas out there. i'm going to name a few. donna said, it's great, build relationships. the question is, what are the changes we can make that make

building relationshilikely and ? i will end by saying, i got when ideal last night. -- one idea last night. it was the gym. i don't think there's anyone out in the public. there might be 335 members of congress and 500 really smart people who know how important gyms are. bringing people together without agendas, without a leadership dictating was going to be discussed. i remember ron telling me, as part of the aca, we were negotiating with representative stupak antiabortion, about what to do with the abortion bill, and he says -- i solved it. how did you solve it? we were both in the house gym on adjoining talked.

i thought, that's an interesting situation. one of the other things we can do in this way that would be small changes with high leverage. with that, i'm going to stop. anything want to s, paul? >> that was as the white house chief of staff. he was living in the basement, he would go to the house gym to work out and shower before he went to the white house every morning. >> i didn't want to announce that both of us lived with friends in their basements for free. [laughter] >> he had to pay her. no ethics rule, he had to pay. [laughter] >> donna, i want to turn it over to you. things we can do to facilitate the building of more

personal relationships? >> well, i think one thing we have discussed already is time and place, that members need to spend more time here in washington with each other. i also am a big proponent of earmarks. i love earmarks, as a way to pull people together with skin in the gam working with each other. those two things out there. >> earmarks have come back >> not in the robust way that we need to both bring about some discipline to the caucus to ensure people are playing on the same team and to make sure t ways, making the committee's work so that in it for them, so that the

incentive is not just to blow things that. -- blow things up. >> i would tie together two things that have come up, we need to have an increased housing allowance. but if you did conjunction with changing the schedule, and you say, we have to be here more, we have to be here all week for three weeks out of every month for 9-10 once a year, therefore we understand it costs a lot to live here. the public would understand that, they would want people to to be here working. i do want to stand■ to the idea that it's a really important part of the job, being a representative of the people, to be with the people on the ground in your district or state. but still, we ought to be here more.

time those things together might help the health of institution. >> if i may make an observation, covid had an impact making this congress so dysfunctional. a couple weeks ago, i googled how public laws have been enacted in this congress. it was like 40. some of them were naming smithsonian board members, pretty minor stuff. but with covid, you didn't have to come to work here. the last vote diecast, i retired last year -- i cast, i retired last year, it was for the cr. a majority of my colleaguess voted by proxy on the last vote of the last congress. we had some members who were gone, they did not have covid,

but they signed a statement. they were gone for months, six months at ayou see the sameo down, read that little script. they were not here. it's great for nancy, because she had the votes. on every issue. that long cong of people voting by proxy. that i think helped lead us to where we are today. looking forward, i think it is important the committees do their work. which means they have to be here as andy said. but also they have to be totally reflective of what the ratio is in the house. now it is 2-3 votes. will also great member yesterday, john painter. -- don payne.

that should not be more than 1-2 in each committee which means you can get bipartisan support. based on whether it's the majority or minority, and therefore you have skin in the game and you can actually get things done and you don't have to wait six months to get a bill done that everybody knew from the get-go was going to have 300 votes. >> let's hear from derek kilmer. he's been focused on reform now for several years. trying to fix congress from within. which is harder than trying to fix it from the outside. >> thanks. i want to start by echoing the comment about scheduling, the calendar. pre-covid, the house w in session 66 travel days and 55 full days. by and large committees

don't meet on travel days. the average member's done 5.4 committees and subcommittees. so you are packing all those committee meetings into the 55 full days members arth work - the math does not work. jumping from committee to committee, parachuting in to give a five-minute spiel and running to your next committee. that is bad for legislating and relationship development. you are not there to hear the ideas of your colleagues or defend your ideas, just give a speech that you can then throw up on social media. the only way to fix the math, two things the modernization committee proposed and one thing that we did not -- the one we didn't is youof

committees people serve on. we did not recommend that. we did recommend that there should not be a congress with more travel days than full days. we should be in session more. the proposal that our vice chair of the committee proposed is in essence a two week on, two week off model. it actually means you are in d.c. more in your district more. it simply means you have fewer travel days. this is really important, to the conflict -- de-conflict the schedule by having block scheduling. you should not be able to be on two committees that meet at the same time.

the bipartisan policy thoughtful proposal for how to do block scheduling. it would require committee chairs to not be able to schedule a hearing whenever they want. we did actually rolln& out -- congress has ruled out a committee de-confliction tool. as say, if i want to schedule my hearing for tuesday at 2 p.m., this is how many of my committee members would have a conflict. if i did at 1 p.m., this is how many would. that total was only as useful as chairs and committees only populating the data . my disposition is to have some requirement the committees participate in that tool. if you want congress to be a place that legislates,

committees, not leadership offices, not on the fly, and two, that's where relationships take -- that is where relationships get built. >> how many average committees? >> 5.3. people don't like giving stuff up. right now -- >> what are they giving up if they don't ever do anything? that would be my argument. >> i actually agree with you. for our committee t make recommendationss, it requires a two thirds vote. and we do not have it. >> could it be said one of the reasons members want to be in more committees, more major committees, is because -- not

because they wanted to be involved in more legislation necessarily but two reasons, one is because the committees allow them to boast to certain special interest groups in their states and districts, i'm very involved in this, that and the other thing, but second because committees are an opportunity to raise money from a certain group of -- from a certain group of special interests. >> i think those dynamics contribute to committee membership. a lot of members want to have an impact on a variety of issues. had -- last week, i was in four committees and subcommittees at the same time. it literally meant running from room to room to room,

not being able to listen to the secretary of defense for two hours to learn what my colleagues had to say because i also had to be hearing from the secretary of the interior at the same time. >> what's the size of the average committee you are a member of? >> it is big, even the subcommittees are large. so that is tricky. >> are those committees so large, they are almost unimaginable? -- unmanageable? >> large. [laughter] again, asking for members to to give up their spot on a committee is tough. it's hard to get consensus around. >> other ideas? >> one point about -- i came to the congress long ago, in my 30's. as a young man. i showed up. to peroneal swarming and --

tip o'neill swore me in. had the water project i had to get done. i knew i was there. i knew what i needed to do. i found something called discipline. when i went to speak to the chairman of the committee who was going to help me with the water project funding, he and his staff, other staffers that were there for 30 years and spoke for this chairman, they said, we are certainly willing to help you, but you need to understand that when we need your vote on issues, you need to help us. you need to be a part of what we're doing as well. by the way, if you are not, don't ever ask us for anything because you will never get anything from this subcommittee or this committee. that was discipline. donna mentioned the issue of earmarks. i supported earmarks. earmarks for nearly eight years kind of got out of hand and got putback but earmarks do not inspending.

many said this is spending a lot of money that should not be spent. it does not spend an additional penny. but it does allow certain members of congress to make the case, here is the way i would like to see the investment mades well. you are not going to get earmarks for yourt unless you show you are willing to be part of the process and legislative initiative. that discipline is very important. >> would you restrict the earmarks in any way? or do you think the norms are good enough? >> the reforms are pretty good. you have to disclose them. the reforms are pretty decent. >> i should add, just this morning, the new chair of the house appropriations, tom cole, under pressure from the more religious right members of the republican conference has done away with earmarks for

nonprofits, because there was a controversy about an lgbtq community center in philadelphia, so now, all nonprofits are going to be barred, on the house side. the reality is that house members will intern most likely go to their senators and say, hey, can you put this earmark in ? and they will still get there. but this is part of the process of this tyranny of the minority in the house running things. >> this is an interesting task, we have earmarks, they have come back. has it improved congress' overall performance? no. earmarks can help if used in the right way. but the idea that you have to lubricate the process before it can work at all, and senators, it is fairly well known, they have a billion or two every

election cycle to lubricate stuff back home. is this really right? we have not gotten into the debt issues. those are the monster issues facing us. i was here in 1993, came within three weeks of letting all the social security fall apart. three weeks. will we have to wait to the cliff? earmarks are a tiny part of this. but every dollar adds up. we have restored earmarks now and the institution is not working better. >> restoring earmarks does nothing with respect to the federal budget deficit. you crea a 302b allocation, that represents the only amount of money that can be spent. it either goes to the federal agency to spend it or perhaps a water project in someone's district. it does not increase the federal budget deficit. >> right now two thirds, three quarters of federal spending every year is not even examined by congress.

we completely ignore that. we are not doing our duty. >> to the earmark process, with all the authority of the day-to-day members, the legislative authority delegated to the speaker's office, restoring earmarks may not have been the panacea immediately overnight but it is allowingmbee relevant for their constituents, where they came here, to get something done, and it is forcing them to go talk to the other side and talk to the senators and have a relationship opportunity to say, hey, i got this very important thing for my district that i would like to put in the earmarks. will you help me? if you help me, i will help you. now you have developed a relationship. that's what i hope will be the outcome of earmarks going forward. >> just a quick intervention, if republicans maintain control after this election, it will be an issue before the caucus

rules. only by a handful of votes in congress did earmarkssurvive at all . the seeker vote, mccarthy was noncommittal. it was like 85-82, literally very close. that fight will be there whether it is reformed or not. and that was with the reforms. >> regarding the committees, i think it is terrible if a member has four committees at the same time. i hope it was not just myself. i was only allowed on one committee. the ways and means. the energy and commerce are exclusive committees. my full responsibility was on energy and commerce. later, mr. ryans pigeonholed me and i was placed on ethics. but there was no long line

to get on the ethics committee. [laughter] i wondered whether that was further punishment. [laughter] i was thrilled to be on fred's committee. and it was my exclusive responsibility committee-wise. it was an exclusive comttee. >> and you did not miss a single hearing. >> i became friends on the ethics committee. >> i was on the appropriations committee, it was an exclusive committee. i sent to the then speaker, i will not remain on the ethics committee. they gave me a two-word response. they were fed up. [laughter] >> i was guessing that's what it was. [indiscernible] >> fred and i were talking about this, we used to have a members- only dining room with three big tables and you would come in and sit down, i would sit down with whoever was there.

fred and i developed a relationship because, every two weeks, we would be there. i developed relationships with a number of republicans that i would not have known, if it had not been for that. that's not going to bring everybody together. not everyone has the same lunch period. if we had block scheduling, maybe it would make it easier. it may be should be subsidized a little bit. it was pretty expensive. >> was this the room right off the big members' dining room? i have really bad news for you. that room has been converted, to a take out spot for police, staff, even the press. >> they used to have a members-only restaurant across from the formal senate. does that still exist? >> i don't believe it does. it was a place where republicans

and democrats would sit together often. but it also■ a little later. it had two rooms,. it was pretty wide open between the rooms. there was a door, huge area that was wide open. eventually it became more the democrats set at one table and the republicans at another. >> now, correctly, since there is only three days the members are in washington, there are only three possible lunches. but each of the two cau cuses meet for two lunches of the three days? >> i don't know about the republicans. the democrats meet on tuesday at lunch. i was chairman of the democratic policy committee chair. we always had a thursday lunch as well. speakers and people come in. we had gorbachev come in,

talking about what he had done in russia. it was fascinating. we had warren buffett come several times. we always learned a lot on the thursday lunch. >> you also a couple of times had joint policy lunches. >> we did. >> after 9/11, there were a couple of joint caucuses. now i think that is down to about one a year in the senate. >> if two of the three days there were party lunches, that leas for free -- >> the first day is a fly-in day so you are not there for lunch. >> sometimes they have votes monday night so they are a little bit different. >> when josh and i put the caucus together, we would have a dedicated day where we would have lunch on a bipartisan basis. one way that we attracted

members to come as we had very high level foreign dignitaries, ceo's of fortune 500 companies, high and influential people's is that structured lunch. that got a lot of members to come here with democrats and republicans. it was interesting. i did not know this existed. >> did you open the lunch up to other people that were not problem solvers? >> no, you had to be sensitive to the fact that it was a circle of tstwhen these folks were in e room, you could ask honest conversation, because it's amazing toit is amazing to me hw confident you would think some members of congress would be but they lack that confidence because they are afraid to get caught with a hot mic used against them. we had a circle of trust where we could have really stupid questions asked and members would come over to me and say, thank god you asked that question, thank god you show your ignorance, because it made me a better member because you asked the stupid question i was

afraid to ask. it was like in college. you don't want to put your hand up and say i don't know what that is because you loikol. it's the same situation in congress, and you need to create spaces where people can have an honest issues and feel comfortable getting educated that way. on the problem solvers, i think there were more democrats who wanted to join than republicans. and you had to join in tandem with a member of the other party. i was never more popular than when i indicated i might be joining the problem solvers caucus, because several democrats came up to me wanting to be my dance partner. >> did you enjoy your time there? >> i think it's without a doubt the most important caucus in the house of representatives. >> and how do we repeat that? what is the formula? >> leadership. understand what he gave up.

he gave up power of his committee to trust his committee members to do their job by woing together. that is true leadership. you need more of that. >> a tough question of you with the problem solvers. so, there's a lot of goodwill there. you have built up a lot of trust. you did a lot of hard work. but at the end of the day, the problem solvers could not come together as a group and say to the leadership, whatever leadership, whoever party -- not going to vote for your rules unless you let office -- let also offer amendments. so that a moderate policy could be offered as an alternative in the form of an amendment and get a vote on it. you might win, you might lose. but as a group you never we willing to do what we call those

people and the freedom caucus this morning, those unfortunate people. >> exotics. >> you were never willing to use your votes to a good purpose, which is just to give us a vote. >> with all do respect, what i would say to that is, are you sure that didn't happen? and it is hard to get to yes, it is easy to vote no. the leadership respected us and knew we had the votes. like i shared with you that july 4 weekend when we held up a vote that got 7.5 billion dollar is going to the mexican border hou. that showed the power of the caucus and the power of that caucus exists, especially when leadership gives you the nod nod and called to the nancy pelosi office and told to deliver the votes. i am going to yell about what you are doing, but thank god you are doing it and we will go forward. >> and we had some of those discussions.

he was the cochair, i was vice chair. we did a little bit of that with nancy on the rules change. we changed the rule on vacating the chair. and kevin reversed it. and there was a vote for a little while. nancy did not have that great of a margin to be named as speaker and people like josh and withhod our vote for you until you agreu got so many cosponsors, that the bill would have to come up. it has not been used but it is similar to a discharge petition. >> and if you remember, to em the speaker was going to be -- to empower josh to go into the office and say he had the votes, i gave my word to him, he gave it to nancy pelosi and said i got republicans who will vote for this rules package. i voted for that rule package

but to other members of congress on the republican side. i did eyes wide open. immediately afterwards after i cast my vote, i was kicked off the team by steve scalise. that was the penalty i paid, but it was worth it because we were making the institution better. and in powered joshthis. >> and that election by the way, if kevin had been made speaker two years before some of us had that same discussion with kevin that we were going to be sticking on rules changes that he was going to have to agree to if he was going to votes for -- our votes for speaker. and josh to his credit did exactly with that with nancy. of course kevin reversed himself because he threw in the towel to the exotics. >> there are rules and there are rules. there are the rules of the house where you could have exercised your authority. there are also the rules every

day that are the rules by which legislation is brought before the house. if the problem solvers or whatever you want to call yourself, if a caucus of 25 dems and 25 republicans said as a matter of our policy, we will never vote for close rules unless you have made it possible for anyone who has an amendment with, pick a number, 20 dems and 20 republicans as a sponsor, you have to give us an amendment. and if you don't we will never vote for you rule. >> i actually proposed that but we could not get the vote. >> 90 votes to automatically go to the floor without any chair. >> it was not as high as 20, i think it might have been 10. >> would that not be something that would at least open up the process of little bit? >> absolutely. and that is what we did in the rules package to a degree.

that is how this last ukraine package, the democrats voting for the rule in the rules committee, that is the problem congress in auction. that would not have happened but for those relationships they forged that allowed that vote to overcome the republicans that were voting no on thqe le committee. >> i think the relationships are often more important than the process. we get tied up a lot in■ the process and those things. but those relationships and the trust and the people involved. i think kevin's problem was more -- not that getting rid of the rules or whatever, it was who he empowered when he did it. when that was over sayingh, marjorie greene is the greatest thing ever. lifting her up, lifng up the people who were lifted up after that process was a bigger problem than changing the rules, i think. and now the good part of what happened this past weekend is

she has been kicked to the curb. i mean, even fox news, the moscow march cover on the new york post, everybody is saying give it a rest. she has been marginalized. and in the senate, it wasçf■ a o to one republican margin. like i said, even the op it, lom stayed quiet about their vote against it. soq< she did not add to her thrt of the mion debate case and she did not do -- motion to vacate and she did not do anything. so her little moment is over and nobody is there empowering her anymore. she went screaming on steve madden's show and nobody really wants to hear about her anymore. that is what needs to happen. when you empower bad people like that of badthat is a big problem. and that is more important than any process you can put in place, is to not have people

like that empowered. >> unconscious -- i am conscious i may be suggesting some slightly controversial tng well. >> i came out of the state legislature and every bill was taken up under -- i can only think of maybe five times what was politicized. versial thing i want to say is in congress i don't think we have a rules problem. i think we have a norms problem. there was no rule in the washington state legislature that said don't be a jerk. but the norm was don't be a jerk. so let me just draw out two thoughts to get your question of, what arei think we have wils and we have school problems. the will problem is all hard stuff. it is hard, big, systemic changes.

primaries are a big, hard, systemic problem. the means by which members are selected to be the candidate of their party. it is freeing in a state like mine where we have a top two primary, more so than any closed primary system. each one of us have had experiences approaching a member of our party or the other party and saying would you work on me with this and getting the response i would but i would be killed in a primary. the role of money in politics is a will problem. there are ways through which we could address that to change up the norms. the other you ask are there small steps we could take to fix things. i would posit that part of our problem is that we have some skill issues. there are people, that come to congress that have many of the skills you need to bridge these divides. but there are a whole bunch of people in congress that don't. and if you think about how we solve a lot of this is

skills. how do you use evidence to make public policy? how do you resolve conflict? how do youhow do you handle cont entrepreneurs? how do you have conversations with people who think differently than you do? there are some people who come to congress with those skills. there are some who somehow develop them organically while in the institution. but by and large of the 435 members of congress there are a good number who do not have those skills. and so if you are thinking -- and i am conscious that there are academics in that room, i think there is a market opportunity for universities, for centers, for entities like the aspen institute, to think about how do we work with members of congress to build those skills. i have never, with the exception of freshmantation, i have never been part of an orientation -- organization that

has zero professional development opportunities for members of the institution. now, there are content knowledge building exercises. the aspen institute is a phenomenal example of that where every week i get to learn everything from russia to ai and whatever. but in terms of building those skills required to solve problems, we don't have them. and that is a market opportunity that needs to be addressed. >> but even there, you have had that politicized to where republicans will be told not to go to the harvard program. i mean, i went with my class and there was a bipartisan contingent there, but a lot were told not to go. certainlfr did not go. and now i guess whatever group mark meadows is running, they are trying to tell members all the ways to kind of blow up everything. so they are having their own

little cabal that does things. so that is problematic. instead of bringing us all together and explain it you have to get 218 votes, or in the senate you have to have 60. just the concept of 218 and working together is a shock for a lot of these people. a lot of these people have never passed a bill and they have been ran for leadership have never paed a bill. and they wonder why they did not win. >> sto steve -- to steve's question about leverage. we talk a lot about the freedom caucus -- which by the way, is not monolithic. but the one thing they understood was leverage and understood whatever the number was they needed. and they would basically deliver it. they would say we have 20 votes to stop a rule to coming from the floor and they would hold their breath and wait for everyone else to turn blue. and they were effective. but they would use their leverage to really stop things

from happening, or to force their opinions on people who do not want. which always frustrated make, i would say to our guys we need to have the power of 20 as well and i mentioned the export import bank discharge. we did it there. we jammed them. we jammed them. and they were shocked. i said, we need to do this all the time. but the center typically does not play those types of hardball politics. >> why? >> i don't know. it is not a rules problem. it is a people problem. people have to be willing to stick their neck south -- necks out. don't you have to risk your job in ord■.er to save it? mike johnson just to the same thing and he will probably be ok. at least until the end of the year. >> politics is really about intensity more than numbers. if you really feel intense about

something you are going to have a better chance of winning in a better chance to bargain. that y doesn't. it is seldom joy. >> intensely moderate is a contradiction. >> amen. here's an anecdote from 10 years ago that sort of ties several of these threads together. tom harkin was in his last year in the senate after 30 or 36 years. he was the chair of the labor age subcommittee. and it was a tough cycle for senate democrats. the six-year mup losing eight oe seat. but it was his last labor h bill. and one day out of the first floor appropriations committee room, harry reid's chief of staff 20 tom harkin, duly elected senator of 30 or 36

years, and told him he would not be holding his markup the next day. and he was like, what you mean? he was there as the chief of staff in saying nope. because labor age is really controversial. there are going to be crazy amendment, culture war issues, all of the stuff. and we have all these senators in red this tricks who are never going to want to vote on any of those amendmentsand that was it. there was no markup. the bill never advanced out of committee. >> as an appropriate her in the house, at least two markup our ll many amendment markups were controversial. when we were in the majority i have one responsibility in appropriations committee. vote for the appropriations bill. you vote for the belt and i ■iwould tell constituents who we upset about it, don't pay any

attention. we're going to pass this thing, negotiate it at the end of the year with the senate and get rid of the garbage. and you will like the end product, pay no ■,tention to the committee, but we have to move these bills. the senate would filibuster the motion to proceedust to get onto the bill to the appropriations bill. the abuse to the filibuster. i like the filibuster in many ways but it is overused. in a case like that, just to get on the bill. the senate would never pass appropriations bills. the house had to send them over and then we did our work at the end of the year in the conference committee. >> there are no conference committees anymore. >> let me ask about something charlie said before. in 2017 there was a joint select reform. derek, you were on that with me. and we worked incredibly hard for six or seven months.

it was as thoughtful a process as i can remember going through. also it is a proposal look what we are talking about today. we needed 10 out votes to get anything past that. we never got 10 votes for anything. and everybody at the end concluded it was not the process, it wauas the people. unless you have people committed to doing the wk and committed to making the system work, you can set of trigger mechanisms, you can do all these different things, but -- because you can waive every one of those. but it really the question of, people have to be committed to the work. >> how do you change the incentive structure so people are committed to the work?

some of them might be no -- might be malignant, but not all of them. we have 435 in the house and 100 and the senate. presumably there are enough. but incentives on aligned -- aren't aligned in the right way. how do we change the incentive structure? >> i spoke with someone who had an idea to hear mark -- to earmark to functioning properly. whether it is getting a budget done or whatever it was. i think financial incentives -- he also talked about that. had no budget no pay proposal. those bills are unworkable and probably unconstitutional. >> let me make a suggestion

about at lea■íst one thing that should not be difficult to do and yet it is not done. and that is the issue of a filibuster. i happen to support a filibuster but i think if you are going to use a filibuster and send something over to say i object, you have got to be on the floor. and you and your friends who believe as you do that they want to stop something, you need to be on the floor and engaged in a real filibuster. that has not been the case at all. now you just sent over to the cloakroom a telephone call that says make sure if this comes up record me asi think the real■ f- and the last time we had that in the senate, and i was not there at that point, but senator byrd actually required people to bring cops to the floor -- cots to the floor and sleep in the room next to the floor and they

would be there for 18 or 20 hours. ould get tired in the filibuster would end. this is all about leadership. the leader of the senate can make that decision, but has not. >> let me ask you a question. i don't mean to be personal about this, not towards you, but the filibuster has been a big issue for a number of years. democrats as a group have said they want to do something, although they don't have the 51 votes to change the rules. but there is nothing to prevent rules from having hearings on this, from coming up with ideas. there is nothing to prevent the majority leader from bringing those new rules to the floor and making sure people vote on it and debate upon it. years. the committee on rules has never once done that. by the way, it is not because the committee on rules in the senate is very busy. they do almost nothing.

so why does the committee on rules not address an issue which is a fundamental issue to ything else in the senate? why not do that? you could reform the filibuster without getting rid of it. mr. manchin said he is in favor of that. ms.çuv sinema says i am all for that. here is ano do that and they have done nothing. >> the minute you talk about the filibuster the question comes to the use of filibuster or do you want to abolish the filibuster. >> but that is a binary choice. >> there is a way to do the filibuster in a way that is much different that requires real effort, and real significance. >> can you help understand why schumer has not started that process? >> it is not just schumer, it is other leaders as well, republican and democratic leaders. let me make one final point. we are talking about all of these issues, and there are dozens of them.

the number of days that you work, all these. all of this happened in an intensely competitive environment. anticompetition is not lost on anybody that serves in the house or the senate. the question is who in the hell controls this place? and that has everything to do with every senate race, every house race. there is intense competition that surrounds everything we are talking about. that is just important to understand. political competition between the parties and the races. so that kind of thing politically in terms of the competition, you go to work every day you understand that.ys this big competitive cloud over the capitol. >> but that hasn't was been true. -- but that has always been true. for 250 years. >> there is a total avalanche of money now. >> can i add something?

i want to see what byron says. i debated the filibuster endlessly before my beloved uncle carl passed away. right until the end. he was a defender of it. he said to me, he just wanted a talking filibuster requirement. he said that would solve it. i said i don't know if i believe that. he said the reason it did not happen is that whatever people say in public, it would mess up their life. and they could not leaving and running around and that democrats and republicans, they did not have the courage of their they did not actually want the majority leader to pull the trigger on that because then they would all have to be sticking around because when people get tired of being on the cot, there is a motion to proceed and then they have to be around and keep working and it could be all hours, many days. i don't know if that is really true, but that is what he

thought the real reason was that majority leaders at any given moment did not proceed with requiring an actual talking. >> that is actually right and it is asymmetric. that is to say, if the majority that wants to pass a bill wants to make the minority filibuster, there are two things that have to happen but the majority has to always have 51 people there. because otherwise the minority will say there is the absence of a quorum. so the majority who does not want the filibuster has to be there. the minority only has to have one person there talking. and so it is asymmetric. you don't want to make your members have to go through this very inconvenient thing of days and days and days. >> and nobody to spare. 51 to 49. >> if you do that once or twice, then you establish a credible

threat. then you say to the minority that keeps wanting to filibuster, past, you have seent comes out, so you won't do it. but you have to show that you are willing to do it if you times in order for you to not have to do it. that is what i don't understand why they don't do it. >> we have this precedent. it's constantly whatever. the precedent on the floor, doing something and flexing your muscles seems absent, or we don't remember it in the same powerful way. i am not sure why our memory is so skewed to elections but not skewed to other activities. norma, you wanted to talk -- norm, you want to talk. inject a little reason here. >> having been involved in filibusters for 40 years, i have had similar conversations with uncle carl. i want to take slight issues. i testified 20 years ago, along

with walter mondale and others, in the senate rules committee. bob burke was there. and at that point i talked about an idea that i flapped for 20 years which is you flip the numbers. here's the history for reality. we changed the rules in 1975 going from two thirds of the senate present and voting to three fests of the entire senate. if it's present and voting, the minority has to be around, they are not, then you can get 35 senators and the filibuster. i will tell you one little anecdote. my friend al franken when he was in the senate, one day on a thursday said to jim bonnie, see you on monday and he said, no you won't. you have to be there, i don't, because there was a filibuster going on. you have got to get the 60 votes. now, when they changed the happf the norms. the norms for 25, 35 years after

1975 were, you only do a filibuster if it is a matter of an intense national concern. and we had very few of them. the norms changed because of mitch mcconnell. it was, we can use the filibuster as a weapon of mass obstruction. and that is what has happened since. was, you flip the numbers. instead of 60 required to end debate, 40 or 41 required to continue debate. the burden goes to minority. the whole idea was an intense to great lengths to do something. joe manchin said great idea. when it came to do anything, neither he nor sinema wanted to

do anything at all and the senate is now a victim of all of that. you can keep a filibuster by putting the burden where it belongs and you will not see it on every single issue. i will make one other point. we changed the numbers from 60 to 50 on confirmation, but that does not mean there is no filibuster. it just means it only takes 50 votes instead of 60. you still need two days for the motion to ripen. now they have moved it toht debs over. if you have 1000utive nominatiou have got dozens on dozens of judges, you can block everything up for hour after hour. one of the things that also needs to be considered here, real reform of the nomination and confirmation process. >> all right. we going to take a break for coffee, and refresh. and we are going to come back to a few other ideas. thank you.