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host moderates to talk with writers. this runs one hour. >> i would not like -- now like to invite our panel to introduce themselves. joining us today is neil, and molly e. reynolds. neil and molly, could you take a few minutes to introduce yourself. molly? molly: thank you for havi. i am a senior in the government study program. i study congressional rules and procedure, including the filibuster and their effects on domestic policy outcomes. neil: i am a chief correspondent covering the white house and congress. before switching primarily to the white house, i spent more

than a decade covering the senates on a daily basis for cq roll call. i spent a lot of my time covering all of the changes to the legislative procedures and the efforts to change the filibuster role over the last more than a decade. >> thank you. we got a great panel of experts. let's get started. we heard a lot about the buster lately, after not hearing a lot before the. why does the filibuster rules matter, why are they in place today? molly can you put us on the background of the filibuster and where it started, why it mattered and still matters? molly: the filibuster is something in the senate. it means any number of tactics to prevent that measure or matter from coming to invoke.

the ability of senators to do this, comes from the fact that the senate rules generally, there are some exceptions, i am sure we will talk about them. generally, they do not put any searches on how long the senate can debate a particular measure. generally, nothing in the senate rules to allow only a simple majority of senators to stop something and take a vote on it. one way the filibuster measure is for an individual to go to a floor, get recognize and talk about a bill and just keep talking. we do not usually see that anymore. it is quite rare. more often what we see today, is more senators threatening to drag out debate. definitely, because they oppose a bill and want to get something else in exchange. this forces their colleagues to file what we call a -- which is a tool available in descendant. that requires -- in the senate.

that requires a vote to pass. this is generally what we mean. a little bit on the history of a filibuster. the filibuster was made possible in the senate by a little bit of a accident. in the early 19th century, the senate removed from its book a notion that eventually, the house with determine was a way to with a simple majority. it is important to know how the motion wasn't being used in the house and the senate senate at the time. they held started using it that way. at that point, the senate then not have it anymore. we got to this point where we had a senators using the absence of any motion to cut off and force extended debate. senate majorities often tried to

end the filibuster and were met with more obstruction. in 1917, we got the document with a super majority. that is what calvin aided the 21st century with some changes, with exactly how many votes are needed. so, that brings us to today, where most things in descendant do require 60 votes to support a motion to debate and a vote on final passage. there are some exceptions. some of them are in the headlines. we have the budget reconciliation process, which i think we will talk about. we have nominations, which makes changes to the senate procedures. it now only requires a simple majority to cut off debate and move to a confirmation vote.

for many, important things the legislative process, we do have effective 60 vote threshold. >> thank you, molly. i know, in covering all of this, your covering a what is known as partisan gridlock. there has been a lot of pushback on trying to find ways to get some things done, by reforming the filibuster. can you talk a little bit about some of the things that have been proposed to combat this gridlock, for example for certain issues. can you talk a little bit about what is going on now. niels: right. so begin with the budget reconciliation process which molly was talking about previously. it has become a primary venue by which the majority party seeks

to enact its major fiscal or economic policy legislation, basically every congress now. so, was obviously during the time when donald trump was the president and the republicans controlled both the house and the senate, there was a overall of the tax code, that was pushed through the tax cuts. they were pushed through using the reconciliation process, in order to get around a filibuster in the senate. we saw, obviously, the democratic majority, under president biden looking and using the reconciliation process for a covid relief package, and this effort that is still underway, on what they are calling build back better. the broadly legislative package

on everything from child tax credits, to enter assortments of social and economic policy measures that have been installed out because there is opposition, skepticism from a particularly senator sinema and senator manchin. obviously with a 50-50 senate, you need every single democratic vote. that has been around for a while , but has been basically used every single congress now. the other thing that it is always available in this round, particularly when there is a change in administration. i am reluctant to be the first one to bring it up because of all of the other panelist here. the you act could be used to nullify relic galatians -- two

nullify regulations. it could be used to put in a practical matter, it is used when there is a switch in party control. to your point, mary, about the, what is going on now. there was an effort recently to try and -- filibuster into do it, in order to advance voting rights legislation. the john lewis voting rights acts. it is a package of election law measures. the effort that schumer attempts , the majority leader attempted, would have sort of, the tool available under rule 19, which is you are only allowed, if you're a senator, you are allowed beaches on any particular topic on a given

legislative day. a legislative day can go on indefinitely. you can be on legislative day from now until halloween. if the senator schumer wanted to be. it is not necessarily a day. but they try to -- that process in order to make it so you can get to a final vote on the voting rights major. that didn't get the support of the sort of hold out senators in the democratic caucus either. there's nothing afloat. there will be more creative attempts in the coming months i am sure. mary: what are these challenges towards filibuster reforms appeared you may have just given us some examples of things that have not been so successful in breaking law. molly, can you offer us some thoughts on that.

molly: absolutely. the biggest challenge as filibuster reforms, is getting the support of a efficient number of senators to achieve that. when we look back over the course of history, changes to the filibuster, generally, we have seen a successful reforms when you have a determined majority party, who has a goal that they want to achieve. they are being met with consistent and strong opposition to that goal from the minority party. then you would eventually, you -- we have seen a majority come together in pursuit of a particular goal. be willing to change the way the senate works to achieve that goal. i think if we look for an example, at the 2013 2017 changes, to that procedure for

ending debates on nominations. first to 2013 to nominations and to executive branch appointments. then in 2017, two nominations to the supreme court. for both of those cases, for democrats and republicans, at a objective they were trying to meet. that they were faced with strong opposition from the other party. there were enough senators, a majority who cared enough about getting things done, that they were willing to change the way it works to make it happen. i think the recent episode, as it is simply not what was true last week in the senate. there were not 50 democratic senators who were willing to vote for this change, to the senate's role, in order to accomplish a particular legislative goal. despite the fact it was recently

publicly reported, their supporting of the underlying policy matter. they are not willing to make this change way that the senate works. as we look towards the future and asks questions about filibuster reform, whether it is questions about the full abolition of the filibuster, or neils highlighted a couple of reforms. such as requiring three steps of the sentence of membership to be, i believe in favor to --. you may think it is 3/5 of the senators voting, that sort of thing. any number of those changes that can be in consideration. the real question is, how do you get to the majority, especially in the current environment where the democrats have the majority. it is a 50-50 senate, with tie

from president harris. it is something i would think the most likely to see a significant change into the filibuster. a larger majority may be more successful than the current one. mary: this is a time to introduce another part of these procedure and policy, which is reconciliation, because that can come up as well. can you talk a little bit about that? molly: absolutely. the reconciliation process is in the news, it has been in the news for the better part of the year. the process is a optional component of the overall congressional budget process, which created several decades ago as part of the congressional budget act of 1974. it is allowed for certain parts of legislation, mainly legislation that just to tax

code, certain types of federal spending, and adjusts to --. exactly how that works, is in the congressional budget act, it stimulates the budget bill could only be debated for a certain number of hours. once that time has elapsed, needing to follow closer to corrupt debate and move to final profits. the debate simply in until you do not have to overcome that 60 votes rush holt -- threshold. over the course of the 80's, 90's, to thousands and now into the 20 20's, we see an evolution of the reconciliation process, where it really has been moved -- used more extensively. it has been used as the principal way for majority parties. especially under a unified party

control, like we have a right not to achieve the parties major policy objective. it has been specifically used, going back to the 80's, for artist that would benefit it is only more recently that has been seen as the more neat trick, if you will appear to the one way that the majority party is going to accomplish as much as its important agenda as it can. sometimes this works. also, the 2021 american rescue plan. in addition to the ongoing debate over build back better, whether that will, some version of that will be successfully adopted. you also have to look at the 2017 failed attempts to use reconciliation by republicans, to appeal the affordable care act. in that situation, they failed to achieve a major part in the

obstacle, not because of the filibuster, because they simply did not have the agreement among enough public and senators to vote for a piece of legislation, even in the absence of the filibuster as the threshold. as we sort of talk talk -- about build back better, the reconciliation process, it is important to remember, while it is a significant way that majority parties under unified government can get around the filibuster, it is not magic. the rules are not magic. they cannot force an agreement, or an agreement is not exist. mary: isn't there always been to be a disconnect in the reconciliation process is used? they were derived between the issues that each parties eye or ties. as we seen in the tax and budget bills, voting rights reforms, build back better issues, that

is always going to be an problem , isn't niels: it? ? niels: it is. despite the fact that activists and supporters, a lot of even democratic senators would have liked, is the example of the immigration. in that case, the chair of the senate judiciary committee, who is also the majority right now, senator from illinois. it would have been more than happy to have a one of his long-standing legislative priorities or other immigration -related measures, excuse me. put into the reconciliation packages. it was determined by the senate

parliamentarian a the advice of the senate parliamentarian, would be the extent measures were not primarily -- clearly budget reconciliation bill, this is where we get into the limitation of the budget reconciliation process, often referred to as the senator of west virginia, who was a long time democratic leader, and chairman of the appropriations committee. the reality is, that if something is not sufficiently budget focused, it is not allowing to be in a reconciliation bill, which sort of gets to the point of the problem here for the democrats, which is the republicans are often interested in fiscal policy, or in some sort of

economic matter. while the democrats may be interested in whether it is a voting rights, whether in his immigration, something that doesn't put -- enter the box of affecting the deficit in a straight row either way. so, this is the challenge for the democrats. always the question will be, not just whether or not to change the filibuster rule, but whether you get to a point that they do not have it right now, whether you ever see a scenario where the democrats in the senate, getting large enough majority in descendant, even if it is short of 60 -- in the senate, even adventist short of 60. -- even if it is short of 60.

the parliamentarian actually gives advice, with the officer who is a member of the senate, or the price president nash vice president, who is making the ruling spirit and are very , they are very particular. particularly when it comes to reconciliation. because there is a sort of underlying -- senators particularly become skittish h. molly: one thing i would add to what he said about the process, is that the addition to there being constraints by the role, that leaves something

outside of the abounds of reconciliation, also impose a restriction on the consensus of a policy change adopted to the reconciliation process. this requires often folks who are drafting a reconciliation bill to make the policies that they are achieving. sometimes for the entire window of the bill, sometimes they last for only part of that. . that itself can also attribute some and certainty -- uncertainty. when you think about the situation becoming more important, as a way to achieve legislative change, we use reconciliation more to accomplish change. that brings with it, a concordant increase in policy

uncertainty. i think the current experience with the expansion of the child tax credit is a really great example of this. the child tax credit was expanded as part of the american rescue plan, adopted in early 2021. it involved converted it from a benefit that one would perceive at -- receive at tax time in a monthly payment. the timing when the bill was passed, also the timing when the democrats could get support for, expired in the end of 2021. now we have this question, is there political support from extending that extension, if you will. again, a specific example of a general challenge that using reconciliation process to make legislative change introduces that could also make the durability and future programs

and nash. . mary: what do these rules mean from the issues in front of congress. our audience may be wondering getting to their own organizations. maybe both of you, each of you can weigh in on that. do you want to start? niels: i will start with the obvious new development of this week that is sort of going to throw a bit of a wrench into the senate schedule into the coming months, because of justice breyer's announced retirement, is going to once again lead to the senate having front and center the supreme court

confirmation process. we look at the calendar and we see that coming up in the middle of february, february 18, the current expiration of continuing resolution. at one of the things that congress is going to have to deal with is funding the government. when you have the funding -- when you have funding the government and a likely supreme court confirmation process remains to be seen how much of a battle that will be. certainly, while he indicating earlier, the republicans, the last time that they had the control of the senate in the white house, changed the president's of only a simple majority required in order to limit debate and to confirm supreme court justices. so, the democrats could at least

in theory, do it without the republicans, although this is more complicated, because there was a tie, both in the senate. as a result of it being a tight in the senate, there's a tie in the composition of the judiciary committee. whether d members from the national whether the members of the democratic -- whether the members of the democratic congress. you can go far down into the weeds and find ways at the republicans could attempt to trip us up, and things senator schumer and the democrats will need to do. the judiciary -- and the judiciary will need to get around. some of these potential obstacles. the senate is going to be spending a lot of time. maybe we thought they were going

to be spending, trying to revive the voting rights, or trying to deal with the build back better proposal. or another round of reconciliation. or there i say, another budget resolution, so they can set up another round of reconciliation. i just do not know, you know, the timing is such, they want to move quickly on the supreme court nomination. but it will consume a lot of the -- as we head towards the spring. molly: i want to underline an important point that he is making and laying out. the agenda of significant sides. what does that, we talk a lot about the constraints of the senate placed by the filibuster, the constraints placed by the calendar are often as

significant, even in situations as he is stating. whether on nominations or reconciliations bills, there is only so much time in the day, there is only so many weeks in the year we are given an election year, so we know in election year the senate and the house feel particularly constrained in the time that they have. i through think to his exacerbation, entirely surprising from justice breyer, he has certainly been under a fair amount of russia from advocates on the democratic side to announce his retirement, while there is a democratic president in the control senate. there is a lot before the senate.

for folks that are thinking about their priorities, they are watching what comes of the reconciliation negotiations around the build back better. doesn't some form of that legislation get resurrected? he also mentioned the expiration of a continuing resolution in february, whether that be another continuing resolution for some amount of time, whether it is a appropriation bill. we know when the current congressional environment that omni bust appropriation bills carries not only the discretionary federal budget, often other vehicles, other train cars, if you will, attached onto them. so watching for folks to pay attention to that. that obviously, because it was a regular legislation, you could consider under the regular

order, would need to overcome the filibuster in the senate. but as we seen in recent years, while those coalitions can sometimes look a little bit interesting we do generally see , the two parties in the two chambers we able to build some sort of coalition to get an omnibus done. those are two big pieces of legislation that i will be keeping my eye on, and i will be keeping my eye on if i was someone who was trying to achieve priorities this year. mary: thank you. before i move onto the next question, i want to remind my audience, if you have any questions, please feel free to put them in the qa. we will try to get to them, we will have some time at the end of this chat. you brought up the midterms, let's talk about these terms. they are coming up quickly, fast

approaching. how might election day 2022 impact the filibuster, and how might the current filibuster rules impact election day? could be an issue. molly: so, i can start and then niels can pick up the answer. i will tell you the second part of that question. how might the filibuster affected the election. one thing we know from a ton of opinion data about how the voters fill about the filibuster. what we have tells us that, generally, if you are a democrat, democrats are in the majority you are not a fan of the filibuster. but if you are a democrat in the minority, you support the filibuster. generally, voters have any attitudes towards the filibuster itself, they generally align to the majority in the senate or not.

it's -- if there is kind of any consequence for the filibuster for the midterms it will be , around if the current legislative majority can wrap up any additional legislative accomplishments with the filibuster in place. whether that is through the reconciliation process, or achieving things on a bipartisan basis. in 2021, the american rescue plan to see the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed on a bipartisan basis. i think that could have an effect on the midterms in the sense that legislative achievements do have consequences for the election. on the others of what could the election mean for filibuster

reform, i think it as is possible, likely, expected depending on who you ask. republicans assume the majority, at least in the house after the midterms. many decades of american history tells us that the president's party tends to lose seats in the midterm. if that were to happen, i think that would take a lot of the wind out of filibuster reform. if the house is controlled by republicans, even if the senate is still controlled by democrats, and we have a democratic president in the white house, you do not get anything for your buck in eliminating the filibuster for any kind of legislation, because you are not going to see it move through a republican-controlled house anyway. as we talked about, the biggest thing that the senate has specific responsibility for, which is nominations. we already changed the

the presidents for ending debate on nominations for the supreme court. niels: yeah. if you look back at what happened during the trump administration, we saw this exact scenario play out in reverse. because you had the first two years of the trump administration with republican control and they were advancing legislative priorities. but when speaker pelosi came the speaker of the house again, it -- there was not a whole lot of legislating to be done, other than sort of keeping the government, trying to keep the government open. senator mcconnell, as the majority leader, spent most of the senate time and dedicated to calendar to confirming as many nominations, particular lifetime appointment to the federal bench

as he possibly could. he sort of had this conveyor belt of nominations running through the senate. really, you know, the other thing is, in the event that the republicans regain the majority in the senate and have the majority in the house, there is no real incentive to reform the legislative filibuster bill either because joe biden is going to vito, whatever is a majority item in the house and the senate. i mentioned earlier the congressional review act. the process that uses a simple majority to negate regulations for departments and agencies.

if you were to see a republican majority in the senate, they would advance those bills with a simple majority. they could attempts to send messages about up ending president biden's epa regulations, hhs, treasury, wherever. get those bills to the presidents desk. then again president biden way veto them and go back to the senate and house and have failed override votes. there is a lot of this showboat political divided government can happen without needing to actually change the filibuster rule, if all you are sort of looking for is the veto vehicle, anyway.

>> the last thing i will say, because we were talking about the failed attempts to change the senate procedures in order to pass a voting rights, election administration piece of legislation, is that i suppose it is possible, there is renewed interest in change to accomplish that piece of legislation. we know now, at least at this moment in time, that is not likely. if something were to change in the coming months, i suppose we could see some piece of that legislation. i do not think much of it is scheduled to be implemented beyond election day 2022. one thing we know about a lot of election change administration is that it can take time to put in place. to go back to something i said earlier about how we often see procedural change and policy

issues linked together it is , important to remember that that is one of the things that is on the table in this conversation right now. mary: it is good that you brought that up. let's talk about that issue of voting rights. that is the one that really brought the filibuster to the public eye. i have to ask since we have the experts on. what is next for voting reform? >> i can get us started there, there is some bipartisan discussions now in the senate, that really do not get going in earnest until after the senate went through the exercise of attempting and not succeeding and changing the filibuster rule. it is a much narrower question about forming -- reforming the electoral count act which is a

, law from the 19th century, that frankly, you know, i do not know how many of us today until january of 2021 when all the sudden we were faced with initially the question of whether or not it will be objection to the electoral vote, and cast by the electors and the 2020 presidential election. obviously, particularly for those of us who were -- cover this [inaudible] mary: we seem to have lost him for a moment. molly: i can take off where he left off. in talking about potential

reforms to the electoral count act. he is absolutely right. there are some emerging discussions in the senate on bipartisan basis about congress might make some changes to the actual process for counting the electoral college vote. the process that was underway when there was the instruction -- insurrection at the capital on january 6. i will note the specific conversation about the filibuster. a historical fact, it is one of the first times in statutory law being an exception to the filibuster. that is where we come full circle. he is right. that is one of the continuing lines of possibility in the electoral voting rights space. i think that if the senate does not try to take up the voting

rights act, or other electoral legislation this year, we will continue to talk about it. when we think of priorities among the democrats, both inside and outside washington. it is certainly quite high on that list. i think many people rightly see protecting the fundamental right to vote especially for americans , of color. it is something that is very important that the democrats should be -- republican should be paying great attention to. even if we do not see a return to legislative effort on that, i think we will continue to have a lot of conversations about it. mary: i appreciate you bringing up that historical perspective. i think that we are in a cycle, we always are. i think we have you back with us, niels.

niels: i apologize. i think i'm back here. this is always the way of the world with these webinars and technology that we been using for the last couple of years. mary: do you want to get back on that? niels: i would just sort of say to reiterate, if we look at, a case of a much narrower, whatever they do to election law will be far narrower particularly with democrats and what is already passed the house of representatives. it clearly is of the -- it is not going to be what he was going to be desired by the democratic caucus or at least the majority of the democratic caucus.

>> to bring back to the news of the supreme court vacancy, with the shift of the filibuster, it requires a simple majority, i can see that fight being something that both parties will use to talk about the importance of the majority and filibuster and so forth. what would you say? niels: i think that is obviously going to come into play. the question is really with this nomination, when the president announces the nominee, it is going to be how quickly do the democrats decide to move? it sounds like the democrats, chuck schumer and the other senate democrats are using the confirmation of justice amy coney barrett as a sort of president here. if you look back, right before

the election, the senate republicans confirmed a supreme court justice and what was probably far shorter of a time in were you could get a supreme court justice in confirmation. maybe that is now the new normal. obviously there will be plenty of people that will want to debate as long as they possibly can. there are certainly several senate republicans who are thinking of running for president in 2024 who will have thoughts they will want to expound on at length even if it will ultimately not change the outcome of the coming nomination that'll -- battle. >> go ahead.

>> i will just add, we saw an extremely quick confirmation of amy coney barrett. there are still steps to the process. particularly, in the senate kinda has to elapse between certain steps of that process. i too expect democrats to move quickly, but we are obviously not looking at a situation where president biden namesake nominee and there is a confirmation the next day or something like that. mary: with all of the efforts failed last week about eliminating the filibuster. if the democrats caught the car and the filibuster was a limited -- was illuminated, what with the next year the senate would potentially look like, would it be the wild west? molly: i think this is an important question. to go back to the point i made

earlier, there are things that are currently being stopped by the filibuster, that would pass if the filibuster was eliminated, and we were only looking at, in most situations needing a simple majority to and debate and move to a final passage. but i think that there is also plenty of things that is within disagreement within the democratic caucus, where even in a world without the filibuster, we would not see those legislations fall through. there is some good scientists -- a political scientist that look at periods of unified party control over the last several decades, and find that sometimes parties fail because of the filibuster, often because of the division of the party itself. again i would point to the

republican experience with the affordable care act in trying to repeal it in 2017. i think the senate, in absence of the filibuster, in two years, and five years the senate would look different. it would not look as different as some people what might expect. i do not think we would necessarily see the wild swings back and forth and policy based on who was the majority. mary: you have thoughts on that? niels: i agree with molly. i think the question would be to some extent, where the senators, come from in each caucus, right? the way the country is divided in the fact that there is two senators from every state, means that if you are going to have a

republican majority in the senate, you are probably going to have a couple of republicans from new england. if you're going to have a democratic majority in the senate, you are probably going to have a democratic from west virginia, montana, maybe from the dakotas at some point, like we long did. the country is cut sort of divided in such a way it is hard to get a clear majority of senators from all sort of the same states. so it strikes me as not impossible on some issues, but there are some issues which you are certainly unlikely that any senator who wants to be around for very long, if you wanted to be a one term senator from massachusetts as a republican, i remember when we had a senator

republican for messages is not that long ago. if you want to be a one term senator there are things you might vote for. if you tend to make a career out of it, i am not quite sure if the wild swings are as realistic. >> i like that senator brown reference. thank you for that. are there some things, issues that we have not covered. i always ask in my podcast, what haven't i asked that i should have. what should we look out for coming up? we have folks interested in these issues. molly? molly: i think what -- one thing i would pay attention to, even though we saw the sort of filibuster reform of the kind that leadership members pursuing

next week failed, i think it is important to continue to watch conversations between senators about what they might want to change to make the senate work better. i think there are senators who feel genuine frustration with their limited ability to contribute with the work and deliberation of the senate. i would keep an eye on that, even in the aftermath of a very high-profile failure on one specific possible change. >> neils? niels: i would say on the substance of the various issues that are going to be on the agenda going forward. i would think about whether or not there are any chances for any sort of renewed bipartisan

talks. the electoral count act as one example. whether or not, something we have not mentioned is what they are calling in the house, the american competes act. the broad china policy legislation, which seems like it is getting broader, every time we see a new copy of it. whether there are more opportunities for advancing any sort of bipartisan legislation before we really get into the heat of the election season. the one other thing, whether or not we are doing any chance again to have any discussions about perspective changes for the senate rule. one of the reasons the republicans have been so reluctant to engage this time aside from opposing the , underlying voting rights bill,

that was a substance is the idea , that sometimes they want to make changes in the past to occur in the next congress. when you do not necessarily know who is going to benefit from those changes. i do not know if there'll be any discussion or not on that front. we have seen in the past that there have been talks that have taken place around election season, or during a lame duck session, for rules changes that might take place going forward. >> the name of this is breaking the logjam, but a country that is so polarized, is there some benefit in really, actually leaning into gridlock, i wonder. is that perhaps the reason why folks have not leaned into trying to break the gridlock, or

do you think at a certain point that they are weighing that back in forth. whether it is politically expedient to lean into the fight. molly: i think it is certainly the case. sometimes there are bills in the majority in the senate like to be able to blame the filibuster for not being able to get those through. things that there is strong support for from some element of their base, but might be more broadly unpopular or unpopular among another segment of the party. i think we can see plenty of examples of situations for senate leaders who are happy to blame the rules on things that they do not want to get done in the first race. -- place.

one other point i will make about this bigger question of trying to legislate in the bigger presence and around the filibuster, is that when you end up in the world where we are now, trying to put as many things as possible into as few bills. one move into the reconciliation process, one moving its way through the lit -- omnibus. that could make it difficult for you to form coalitions. in a world where democrats thought that they could take one piece of a build back better and bring into the order, but only subject to a simple majority. they might actually get a couple of republicans to join them. even if they lost one or two democrats. instead, they felt like they feel like their only option is to do all of the things, or as many of the things that they

possibly can. being it is being negotiated on a bipartisan basis, you lose that opportunity to pursue different kinds of vote coalitions. >> do you think, neils? niels: i do not know necessarily, sort of what the symptom is and what the underlying disease is, here. whether if you didn't have the filibuster in place, how you would operate differently. whether you would get different people elected. part of this question is, in this environment, the people who get elected to the senate, if you look back a little over the last decade, you had more strident partisans elected to

the senate to begin with. some of that may be an outgrowth of the way government and politics have changed in the last couple of decades. there's a fair amount of academic research on what has happened, even the composition of the senate. after speaker gingrich was the speaker of the house versus before. some of this may be actually related to the existence of the filibuster. there are also many extreme -- extraneous factors when it comes to determining a why exactly the logjam and the gridlock is the way it is. i do not know how much of it is actually attributable to the 60 vote threshold itself. >> if we go even farther back from speaker gingrich to the 70's, some research i went to my colleagues argues that one of

the things that led to the rise of the filibuster in the first place, was the interest of the part of individual senators, wanting to exploit all of their available procedural rights. the notion that different kinds of people, with different kinds of measures were being pressed to do that beginning in the , mid-70's. again, part of this whole story about where we were, how we are, and how we got here. >> c-span's washington journal, every day we are talking -- taking your calls live, on the air and on the news of the day, we will discuss policy issues that impact you. coming up friday morning will talk about russian threats to invade ukraine. then robin, host of public radio's full disclosure discusses recent architect

fluctuations, future interest rate hikes and the state of the u.s. economy. watch washington journal, live seven eastern friday morning on c-span or on c-span now, our new blab. join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, text messages, week -- tweets. >> here is a look at what is live friday, 10 a.m. eastern on c-span, the common sense society owes a conference in palm beach florida. on c-span two, at 8:30 a.m. eastern, dado secretary-general yen stoltenberg speaks with the council about ongoing tensions between russia and ukraine, that is all it discussion by nato defense strategy with former allied supreme commanders good. security advisors from several administrations discuss global challenges facing the u.s..

you can also watch these events live at c-span.org or on the go at c-span now our free video app. >> house majority whip james clybourn commented on the upcoming supreme court vacancy. he is pushing for michelle childs to replace the retiring judge. she is currently on the seat south carolina. this event runs about 25 minutes. >> hello everyone, and welcome to washington post live. congressional reporter at the washington post covering the house of representatives, that is why i am very excited to have this timely conversation. he is the third-highest ranking democrat in the house, serving as the majority whip. thank you so much for joining me today. rep. clyburn: think you very much for having me.