Academic

Magliocca on Reforming the Filibuster

By Lawrence Solum

Gerard Magliocca has a nice piece on The Legal Workshop, summarizing his "Reforming the Filibuster," forthcoming in the Northwestern University Law Review.  Here is a taste:

One way to pressure the Senate would be for the President and the House to propose new framework statutes, not unlike the budget reconciliation process, that would place strict restrictions on debate about laws on certain subjects. The Senate would probably resist these initiatives, but forcing senators to take that position visibly and often might lead them to rethink their stance on cloture. If the Senate accepted more of these framework laws, it would undercut current cloture practice and give the House and the President an opening to impose a suspensory veto on the Senate through similar legislation. The House could also deny earmarks to senators who support Rule Twenty-Two, mimicking how the power of the purse was used to end tribal treaties, though such an approach would require a single-minded focus on cloture reform that may be difficult to sustain.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on February 25, 2011 (boomark / email).