Lawmakers Suggest New Rules to Speed Up Senate Business

A bipartisan group of eight senators on Friday proposed a detailed set of Senate rule changes that could speed the legislative process considerably but would stop short of the most dramatic changes to the filibuster that some Democrats are demanding.

Under the proposed changes, the minority party in the Senate could no longer filibuster motions to take up bills for debate or to convene formal negotiations with the House on Senate-passed legislation.

The new rules would also make clear that if no senator is on the floor to mount a filibuster, the senator presiding over the Senate could immediately move to a vote on the pending matter. That, the advocates say, would put an end to the current practice of mounting filibusters without even showing up on the Senate floor.

For the minority party, the new rules would also guarantee at least four amendments on every bill, two for the Republicans and two for the Democrats.

“What we're proposing on a biparti san basis is a way to end the major sources of gridlock around here,” said Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, who, along with Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, unveiled the plan.

It is not clear whether the proposal will win over the young Democratic senators pressing for more sweeping changes. One of those senators, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, said Senate Democrats had a “very healthy debate” on Friday in a closed-door lunch dedicated to the rules-change debate. He continued to insist that any new rules include a measure that forces senators wishing to filibuster a bill to stand and talk until the body is worn down, a scenario captured in the classic movie, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”

“It's extremely important any package have the talking filibuster in it,” he said.

But to make that change, Democrats on Jan. 3 would have to pull what supporters call the “constitutional option” and what others in both parties call the “nuclear option” â€" forcing the change with a simple 51-vote majority by overruling the parliamentarian when he rules the changes out of order. By tradition, Senate rules changes take 67 votes to enact.

Mr. Merkley and Senator Tom Udall, Democrat of New Mexico, said the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, will have 51 Democrats if he wants to force the issue. But Mr. Levin raised serious doubts about that.

“A number of us are deeply troubled that we would do something that would break the rules,” he said.

Under the bipartisan proposal, some of the most dilatory procedures of the last two years â€" like filibustering even efforts to take up bills â€" would end. Many more presidential nominees would be put on an expedited calendar, and even the 448 remaining on the traditional route to confirmation would face a shorter path.

And the eight advocates of the proposal said their rules would effectively bring back the stand ing filibuster by ending the custom in which objections to consent agreements can be lodged with a phone call to a senator nearby. Now filibusters would have to be on the floor to stop the presiding officer from calling a snap vote.