Thread by @billscher

Some *major* historical context missing here

Byrd backed a compromise lowering cloture threshold to 60 for legislation while *keeping* it at 67 for rules changes

Byrd voted *against* a nuclear option attempt, which would be needed to lower the threshold to 55

Story time...

https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/1401911315774443525

In February 1975, a bipartisan coalition led by Walter Mondale and James Pearson proposed lowering cloture to 60 across the board...

legislativeprocedure.com/blog/2019/3/8/…

They tried to get around the 67-vote cloture threshold through a "nuclear option" maneuver (though it wasn't called that), blowing past cloture and overruling a point of order by simple majority...

Senate Majority Leader Mansfield raised that point of order. He lost the vote 51-42. Byrd voted with Mansfield against the nuclear option. (Pg. 3854 here congress.gov/94/crecb/1975/… )

Fun fact: Biden also sided with Mansfield but didn't vote in a "live pair" move.

...

But the nuclear option was quickly undone. As the NYT reported: "they were all set for the knockout punch ... when Senator [Jim] Allen discovered a parliamentary flaw in their strategy...

....He won the Vice‐President's ruling that debate—and thus the possibility of extended debate—was permitted on part of the reform proposal."

This is why the nuclear option did not become precedent at this time...

nytimes.com/1975/02/21/arc…

Soon after, the Democratic and Republican leaderships (which included Byrd as Majority Whip) came up with the compromise. Cloture reduced to 60 for legislation, keeping it at 67 for rules changes... legislativeprocedure.com/blog/2019/3/8/…

Cloture was invoked for that compromise with a 73-21 vote, and a final vote of 56 to 27... nytimes.com/1975/03/08/arc…

So the reduction of cloture from 60 to 55 in and of itself would not violate Byrd's principles, or Manchin's principles. But. Not. By. Nuclear. Option.

If you want some more filibuster history from me today, check out my latest in @RealClearNews realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/…

I'm going to add another Byrd story to this thread, one that largely *supports* the point @ShapiroGlobal & @ThePlumLineGS were trying to make above...

By 1979, filibustering had become more commonplace. Sen. Mansfield's "two-track" system (which Byrd helped create) ended the talking filibuster era & ushered in the silent filibuster era. Filibusters no longer gummed up the floor, but were easier to launch...

Byrd thought it was getting out of hand. So at the start of the 96th Senate, he proposed changing the filibuster rule. Bills need to a cloture vote to start debate, and then to end debate. Byrd wanted just one cloture vote...

Byrd said, "One filibuster is enough. If a minority of the Senate has enough votes, 41, to kill a bill, it should allow the bill to at least be brought up for debate on the merits." (Pg. 144 govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GP… )...

He was particularly upset about "the most cataclysmic and divisive filibuster of all, the postcloture filibuster" that followed "the filibuster on the matter itself" ...

To change the rule at the beginning of the 96th Senate, Byrd announced a new position of his:

"it is my belief-which has been supported by rulings of Vice Presidents of both parties and by votes of the Senate-in essence upholding the power and right of a majority of the Senate to change the rules of the Senate at the beginning of a new Congress

I have not always taken that position, but I take it today in the light of recent bitter experience. The experience of the last few years has made me come to a conclusion contrary to the one I reached some years ago."

As I wrote at the top of the thread, Byrd voted against a "nuclear option" maneuver--rule change by simple majority vote overriding the 67-vote cloture threshold for rule changes--four years earlier...

...now he's saying he supports a rule change by simple majority vote, though with a key condition: "at the beginning of a new Congress."

Byrd said he didn't want to force the simple majority rule change issue: "I am not going to press it to a vote today; I feel that we can work out a resolution ... I want to be a reasonable man; I do not want to be put in the corner of having a proceed by majority vote."

& presciently, he said: "if these postcloture filibusters continue, the day will come when the majority of this Senate will rise up and will strike down that rule and will change it; and there may then be greater and more far-reaching changes proposed than I have proposed today."

Per NYT: "After five weeks of sporadic debate and compromise in which little other substantive legislation could be considered" a compromise was reached...

nytimes.com/1979/02/23/arc…

Post-cloture debate was limited to 100 hours. The vote was 78 to 16. No need for a nuclear option.

So Byrd did shift his view and supported a simple majority for rule changes, but only at the beginning of a new Senate. And he did want to curtail filibustering, but he also wanted to maintain the power of a 41-senator minority to kill legislation.

in this thread @NormOrnstein argues that Byrd continued to evolve his views, and believes Byrd would go nuclear today to lower the cloture threshold to 55. I'm in no position to speculate...

https://twitter.com/NormOrnstein/status/1401983894354804736

...Though I would note in 2005 Byrd was part of the Gang of 14 that averted deployment of the nuclear option and struck a compromise on George W. Bush's judicial nominations. cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/…

When you read Byrd's remarks from 1979, I think you see a figure genuinely torn between majority will and minority rights. They're worth reading. govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GP…

Byrd in '05 worth reading too: "14 Members of this revered institution came together to avert the disaster called the nuclear option ..I thank all of those Republicans & Democrats who worked together to keep faith with the Framers and the Founding Fathers" web.archive.org/web/2005062419…