United Liberty

It appears that Senate Democrats are planning to move forward on eliminating or reducing the number of votes required for a filibuster:

Senate Rules and Administration Chairman Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is planning a series of hearings on changes to the chamber’s filibuster rules in response to Democratic concerns over GOP obstruction.

Schumer will announce the hearings during a meeting between Democratic leaders and the Conference’s 22 freshman and sophomore Members on Wednesday, according to a Senate Democratic aide.
[…]
Schumer decided to hold the hearings after witnessing increasing frustration from his colleagues over GOP filibusters of their agenda this Congress. “Tom Udall and [Sen.] Carl Levin [D-Mich.] have discussed with Schumer a desire to hold hearings on the various filibuster reform proposals that have been introduced by Democratic Members,” an aide acknowledged.

Despite the hearings, Democrats would have a tough time enacting changes to the chamber’s rules as they would require a supermajority vote.

They don’t like the rules that have been traditionally used in the chamber, so they want to change them. The point that many Democrats are missing is that making law is supposed to be a hard, difficult process.The Founding Fathers placed checks and balances, one of which was allowing states to appoint Senators. Unfortunately, that was removed with the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment.

Each chamber of Congress is delegated in Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution with the task of determining its own rules, and the filibuster, which has existed for 200 years, has been used as a process of slowing down legislation or in some cases stopping bad legislation.

What’s 200 years of Senate rules and tradition to stand in the way of President Barack Obama and the Democrats’ agenda?