[EL] Senate rules

Tue Jan 26 14:04:56 PST 2021

I cannot imagine that such a rule would stand, for the reasons John suggests. I think the proper defendant would be the Secretary of the Senate, who presumably would fail to send the legislation to either the President for signature, or to the House for action if the measure arose there.

Far from seeing this as an "uphill" battle against Senate rules, I would see this as one of the easiest cases a plaintiff could get.

Bradley A. Smith
Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault Professor of Law
Capital University Law School
303 East Broad Street
Columbus, OH 43215
Phone: (614) 236-6317
Mobile:  (540) 287-8954

________________________________
From: Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> on behalf of John Tanner <john.k.tanner at gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 2021 3:46 PM
To: Steve Kolbert <steve.kolbert at gmail.com>
Cc: Election Law <Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu>
Subject: Re: [EL] Senate rules

        ** [ This email originated outside of Capital University ] **

Well it certainly give some senators authority that others lack.  Ted Cruz and John Cornyn would have power that Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy lack, and thereby deprive VT of its equal suffrage.

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 26, 2021, at 11:04 AM, Steve Kolbert <steve.kolbert at gmail.com> wrote:

John, looking at Jim's proposals, I don't think either reform authorizes passage of laws with fewer votes in favor rather than against.
- The first would allow the Senate to *end a filibuster* with fewer Senators voting aye than nay, but it would not purport to authorize *passage of a bill* with fewer senators voting in favor than against. On final passage, the "aye" votes would still be required to be greater than the "no" votes, state population notwithstanding.
- The second proposal merely *adds* an additional requirement--I'll call it a "population majority" requirement--on top of the normal, what I'll call "numerical majority" requirement. The proposal would not *replace* the numerical majority requirement. So under Jim's proposal, a bill would fail if it received a population majority in support but lacked a numerical majority in support.

In other words, I don't think either of Jim's proposals could result in a law with fewer than a numerical majority of senators in support. Court challenges would have to target the Senate's rules, which (as I mentioned earlier) seem to be an uphill climb (at best).

As for Article V, I don't take Jim's proposals to be amendments to the Constitution, but merely changes to Senate rules. Although I suppose they could be proposed as constitutional amendments, in which case certainly Article V would play some role.

Steve

On Tue, Jan 26, 2021 at 10:17 AM John Tanner <john.k.tanner at gmail.com<mailto:john.k.tanner at gmail.com>> wrote:
Steve,  the challenge would be to any law enacted with fewer votes for rather than against.
Oh, and Article V applies as well as Article I section 3.
John

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 26, 2021, at 2:47 AM, Steve Kolbert <steve.kolbert at gmail.com<mailto:steve.kolbert at gmail.com>> wrote:

Jim, I imagine any judicial challenge to your proposals would fail for lack of justiciability.  The federal court in D.C. recently held that the Speech or Debate Clause bars challenges to a congressional chamber's parliamentary rules--even challenges brought by members of that chamber.  McCarthy v. Pelosi, ___ F. Supp. 3d ___, No. 20-1395, 2020 WL 4530611, at *8 (D.D.C. Aug. 6, 2020), appeal docketed, No. 20-5240 (D.C. Cir. oral argument held Nov. 2, 2020).

Beyond the Speech or Debate Clause, it's not clear that there exists an appropriate defendant for a suit challenging your proposed reforms.  A suit challenging Senate rules must be brought against the Senate itself and cannot be brought against an officer like the Vice President (i.e., President of the Senate), the parliamentarian, the Sergeant-at-Arms or the Secretary of the Senate.  Common Cause v. Biden, 748 F.3d 1280, 1285 (D.C. Cir. 2014).  A suit against the Senate itself (rather than its officers or members) would be barred by sovereign immunity.  Rockefeller v. Bingaman, 234 F. App'x 852, 855-56 (10th Cir. 2007).  A suit against individuals Senators (or all 100 of them) would face a Speech or Debate Clause challenge.  Fields v. Office of Eddie Bernice Johnson, 459 F.3d 1, 13 (D.C. Cir. 2006).

And regardless of the named defendant(s), a judicial challenge to Senate rules seems likely to constitute a non-justiciable political question.  Common Cause v. Biden, 909 F. Supp. 2d 9, 27-31 (D.D.C. 2012), aff'd on other grounds, 748 F.3d 1280 (D.C. Cir. 2014).  Is there any more "textually demonstrable commitment to a coordinate branch" in the entire Constitution than the Rules of Proceedings Clause?

Steve Kolbert
(202) 422-2588
steve.kolbert at gmail.com<mailto:steve.kolbert at gmail.com>
@Pronounce_the_T

On Mon, Jan 25, 2021 at 11:55 AM Gardner, Jim <jgard at buffalo.edu<mailto:jgard at buffalo.edu>> wrote:

Sorry if this has been discussed before, but is there any reason why the Senate couldn’t adopt a cloture rule ending a filibuster upon the vote of any number of senators representing, say, a minimum of 40% of the U.S. population?  For that matter, is there a reason the Senate couldn’t adopt a rule providing that no legislation will be deemed approved except upon the vote of a number of senators representing more than 50% of the population?

Jim

___________________________

James A. Gardner

Bridget and Thomas Black SUNY Distinguished Professor of Law

Research Professor of Political Science

University at Buffalo School of Law

The State University of New York

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