let s invest in our teachers so they can inspire our students. let s solve this. senators often throw out the filibuster threat on capitol hill but we vice president actual haven t between one in action and the rule cannen confusing. the chairman will gavel them off if he stops talking or sits. excuse me? what are you doing? i didn t know if i m supposed to we usually don t raise our hands. it s not the worst idea in the world. the senator is allowed to yield for a question without yielding the floor. what do you mean. he s allowed to yield for a question without yielding the floor. i was in the house. i know nothing about senate rules. will lawmakers yield for filibuster reform? we will ask chris hayes next in up now. want to try to crack it? yeah, that s the way to do it!
can say we ll primary you if you don t stand in the most ideological place in the party. there s all kind of ropes why this goes. to my mind, anyhow, the only way our system has ever worked in an effective way, as i said, we ve said this before is through presidential leadership and that s something which has not worked and until we get that working we re going to be in the worse kind above signatures, in my judgment. how is presidential leadership address a filibuster threat? what s the causal mechanism. i ll give you and example. in 1983 tip o neill and president reagan worked out an agreement. they did social security, by the way which we have adjusted 40 times since it was originally passed in 1940 so it can be done with the right kind of leadership. i ll give you and example. why don t he talk about john
up, are they. no, no, they re not going to give it up. the use or threat of filibusters jumped in this last session of congress that just ended. and it s been creeping up from the 90s, chris, but the so-called reform proposal is not to end it but to force people on the floor, not just to phone it in like they do now, to tell the clerk, start the clock, i m going to file a filibuster threat. and then go on and waste 30 hours of debate over whether or not we should have this vote to break the filibuster. what the democrats want to do is in a sense, call the bluff, and it could work against them. you know, another time when they re minority. but every senator s going on have the right to do it, but it will make you know, it will make mr. smith goes to washington more possible than now. the senate says okay you threaten something, now we ll have the vote. that s why everything needs 60 votes to pass almost automatically because you ve had so many of these threats jumped up in the la
votes to overcome the filibuster threat and pass that. we ll see a vote between tuesday and thursday. something else we re watching today, the republican national committee race, that s the race to replace chairman michael stee steele. why should you care? the republican national committee race will be important in rebuilding the gop ahead of the 2012 presidential race. there s five challengers trying to take down michael steele. one of them a former bush administration official is starting to roll out support. she had trouble gaining traction so far. but she s coming on monday, she rolled out the support of new york s congressional delegation who don t have a vote but also rnc members who are supporting her. we re watching it in part because it s the only race going on now and we re political junkies. we re digging in deep on that one. i know you are digging deep on this battle in virginia as well. what s up? right. that s one of my favorite political states not just because i gre
will vote against proceeding to any legislative matter until we ve funded the government and protected every taxpayer from a tax hike. so the democrats have got a lot on their plate they would like to accomplish during this lame duck session. while the president says the people in november did not vote for gridlock. they re absolutely right. they want something done on capitol hill and the republicans are saying the message was to cut government spending and do something about taxes. so that s why they re saying we can get to the start treaty and get to the dream act. let s do this first. president is not crazy about the filibuster threat. listen. i am confident that nobody wants to see taxes on middle class families go up starting january 1st. there s going to be some lingering politics that have to work themselves out in all the caucuses, democrat and republican but at the end of the day, i think that people of good will can come together and recognize that given where the