MSNBC "Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript

Interview

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SEN. TOM UDALL (D), NEW MEXICO: Thank you. I bring holiday cheer anyway.

HAYES: OK. So, Senator Udall, in January last year, you came out with a plan to reform the filibuster in a column in "The Huffington Post" and basically it involves voting on the rules at the beginning of this next Congress in January to change it. How is that plan coming along?

UDALL: Well, Chris, as you know, it"s a two-step process really. What we"re talking about is--on the constitutional option, is that at the beginning of every Congress, every two years, the Senate has authority under the Constitution, under Article I, to move forward and adopt rules or amend rules that are in place. And that part of it is moving well.

And I intend at the beginning of the next Congress, on the first day, this will be January 5th, to offer a motion to adopt the rules of the 112th Congress.

The more difficult part, and kind of the second step, Chris, is that part of what do the 51 senators, if--and this is a 51-vote, what--it"s a majority vote. What do the 51 senators want to be the new rules that we put in place? And that"s what we"re working on in our Democratic Caucus right now.

And I am hopeful. I am hopeful that we"re going to come up with a set of rules that will make the filibuster more transparent, that will shift the burden to the people that are filibustering, and really encourage senators who are filibustering to be on the floor, be--require them to be on the floor. So, that"s what we"re looking at and--go ahead.

HAYES: So, just so we"re clear here, so folks understand--you know, we have the current status quo, which I think everyone agrees is dysfunctional. There"s the total extreme option, which is no filibuster of any kind. It sounds to me like you"re saying there are some places you can change the procedure in the rules that puts us somewhere in between those two, a kind of "mend it, don"t end it" approach?

UDALL: Well, they--and that"s really, it seems to me, where our caucus and some of the Republicans are coming out. You may remember Dan Coates who was a U.S. senator. He actually said on the motion to proceed, this is at the beginning of a bill, that what we ought to do is allow the majority to move ahead and get on to a bill and we shouldn"t filibuster on the motion to proceed. That was something that was very positive to me.

And I--and I think within our caucus, there"s some support for that. I don"t know that there"s a majority today, but I think we"re working on it.

HAYES: There"s two arguments that people make about this. And one of them is--well, Senator Udall wouldn"t be doing this if he were in the minority. And there are people on the progressive side who look around and say, great, we"re going to pass this big health care reform when we have this very robust filibuster, and then we"re going to get rid of those filibuster rules and make it easier to repeal it.

I wonder how you respond to this notion of kind of looking very short-term to kind of capture the gains that you"ve made, how you argue people past that?

UDALL: Well, I think the first issue that you"ve outlined there is really the one--shall we move forward in every Congress, at the beginning of the Congress, to take a look at the rules? It doesn"t mean we need to throw all the rules out. But we should take a hard look at how the rules have been utilized.

And in this particular case, we know that there has been unprecedented obstruction. Almost everything requires 60 votes. And yet, the Republicans and the Republican leadership that do this are not held accountable.

What we"re going to try to do in those rule changes is expose them, to bring them out of the shadows, to all this secrecy that"s going on with filibusters to bring it out in the open and allow people to know who it is that"s holding up the show on these particular bills.

And I think that that should be done at the beginning of every Congress. And it doesn"t matter who is in the majority. It makes us more accountable.

You can imagine if you go through two years and you adopt rules and they"re not working and you know that they can be changed if you"re abusing them, you"re more accountable. And my argument is--is about accountability, not about majority/minority battles that are constantly going on. And I think that"s the important thing to focus on.

HAYES: Senator Tom Udall, Democrat of New Mexico--I really appreciate you joining us tonight.

UDALL: Thank you. It"s been a real pleasure.

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