Strategy memo.
If you're a Democratic Senator and you want to reform the filibuster rules, but you're also panicking about being slaughtered in the press for making a shameless power grab, how do you do it?
Well, how about waiting until you're in the minority? Consider: if you support reform that gets your agenda passed, but not reform that gets your opponents' agenda passed, then you really are just making a power grab. But support reform when you're in the minority, when you ostensibly have nothing to gain by doing so, and you're ceding power, not grabbing it. Then, when your party reclaims the majority, you have the rules you want already in place.
The price would be a few years of legislation you don't like. But if you support filibuster reform as a matter of principle, wouldn't that mean the new rules are working as you intended?
In other words, if you support filibuster reform in principle, then you should agree that reform ought to occur regardless of which party is in the majority. If you don't agree to that, maybe your motives aren't quite as pure as you think.
Well, how about waiting until you're in the minority? Consider: if you support reform that gets your agenda passed, but not reform that gets your opponents' agenda passed, then you really are just making a power grab. But support reform when you're in the minority, when you ostensibly have nothing to gain by doing so, and you're ceding power, not grabbing it. Then, when your party reclaims the majority, you have the rules you want already in place.
The price would be a few years of legislation you don't like. But if you support filibuster reform as a matter of principle, wouldn't that mean the new rules are working as you intended?
In other words, if you support filibuster reform in principle, then you should agree that reform ought to occur regardless of which party is in the majority. If you don't agree to that, maybe your motives aren't quite as pure as you think.