MSNBC "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" - Transcript

Interview

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SEN. TOM UDALL (D), NEW MEXICO: Good evening, Sam. Good to be with you.

SEDER: Thank you. Now, can you explain what kind of filibuster perform you and your colleagues are looking for here?

UDALL: Well, we"ve been building real consensus in the Senate. And I think we"re looking at a couple of things. First of all would be what I would call a talking filibuster so that if you"re going to be in opposition, you actually have to stand up and talk. Now, we just have delay and obstruction, senators hiding out in the shadows, and not even letting people know what they"re blocking.

The second thing--we have a hard time getting on to a bill because we have a process where you object, before we"re on the bill, with a motion to proceed. And you filibuster the motion to proceed. I think there should be limited debate on that. And we get directly on to the bill because many of these bills, the American people want to see something done on these issues.

And the final issue is the one that you mentioned in the preview there, is the issue of secret holds. Here, you have one senator holding up the entire United States Senate, as a result of a secret hold given to the leader. And the leader protects that hold and says to the majority leader, if you bring this bill up, if you bring this nomination up, if you bring a judge nomination up, we are going to filibuster and make you go through every hurdle and take two weeks of time.

And so, that"s the situation we"re in. And it"s true. The Senate and the Congress, and the president, have accomplished a lot. But in the course of doing that, and these filibusters, we"ve about broken the Senate. And we"re determined to bring it back and have it be functional and be responsive to the American people. That"s really what we"re trying to do here.

SEDER: So, the measures you"re talking about, essentially have to do with transparency. Have you considered something that may go even further? Like lowering the number of senators needed to overcome a filibuster?

UDALL: Well, we are taking the filibuster off of the motion to proceed. So, that"s one step of filibuster that we eliminate. But most of the rest of it, at this point, you"re right, is transparency. It"s about accountability.

So, we"re saying to who"s ever coming in, the next time around, in two years, we"re going to change the rules now, and try to be a better Senate and a more functional Senate. But in two years, if the rules don"t work, then we can take another look at them.

And that"s really the key to this, is on the first day, we are able, through the Constitution, to take a good, hard look at the rules and make the changes that need to be made. And that"s the thing that I"ve really championed over the last couple of years, is letting people know that the Senate has the authority to look at its rules. We call it the constitutional option. And amend those rules as appropriate.

SEDER: So, without getting bogged down, you know, too much in the procedural minutia, is it realistic that you"re going to get some of that filibuster reform at the beginning of the next session?

UDALL: Well, as you said, when you talked about the letter of all Democratic senators to Senator Reid, our majority leader, this is--it"s a big move for all Democratic senators to tell Senator Reid, number one, the rules are broken. Number two, we want you to do something about it. We want you to negotiate with the Republicans and see if we can"t find a way in this new Congress to do things differently.

We would hope it would be bipartisan. If it"s not going--if it"s not going to be, and they don"t want to negotiate at all or make any rules changes, then there"s a good group of us that are determined to go to the floor and address some of the real problems that are there. And I feel--

I feel very strong about the group that is behind this effort, where--we stand for reform. We stand for change. And we stand for really shaking the Senate up a little bit and getting it to respond to what the American people want.

SEDER: You know, considering that it"s inevitable that both parties end up in the minority at one time or another, have you considered how these reforms might affect Democrats" ability to stop Republican legislation or conservative judicial appointments in the future? I mean, are you shooting yourself in the foot politically here?

UDALL: I don"t think so. I served in the minority eight years in the House of Representatives. I very much believe in protecting minority rights. The Senate has a fine tradition of protecting the ability of the minority to speak out.

But we don"t want to protect obstruction, delay, and just slowing down of the process to no useful purpose. And that"s why we"re trying to say, if you"re going to obstruct, if you"re going to oppose something, you have to come out of the shadows. You have to go to the floor of the Senate and tell the American people why you"re slowing everything down.

And it"s just like, Sam, you know, "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." I think most Americans saw that movie. And, really, what that was all about, is he was really uncomfortable with something that was going on, with the direction that the Senate was moving. And he stood up for a long period of time, tried to rouse the American people to his cause.

And that"s what we want to see.

SEDER: Well, Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico, thanks for your time tonight.

UDALL: Thank you. Real pleasure.

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