In an effort to avoid a unilateral Democratic to change the Senate’s filibuster rules in January, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell offered to negotiate a consensus package of rules change with Majority Leader Harry Reid
“I think it’s appropriate, that we talk about rule changes together, but that’s not what he’s suggesting he’s going to do here,” McConnell said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “That is not a negotiation with the minority overr ules changes. What we ought to be doing is talking to each other about what adjustments in the rules we could advocate together. And not one party with a majority today that might be in a minority two years from now changing the rules, break the rules to change the rules for some kind of misguided, short-term advantage. That’s the problem. So I would be happy to talk to the majority leader about these issues.”
Reid somewhat skeptically accepted the offer.
“The facts are the facts. We can’t make them up. The Senate is not working, and we need to do something to fix it. I close then as I began. I would be happy to work with leader McConnell about rules changes. I’ve made clear what we seek. I await his suggestions…. If the Republican leader has some ideas as to what he thinks should be done, I will come to his office, we could do it privately or publicly. I’m happy to work with him.”
