Kill the Filibuster to Fix Immigration
By Dan Cadman, April 6, 2017
Fred Bauer has written an interesting opinion piece for National Review Online, "The Rule XIX Solution", in which he suggests that there is a way to sidestep "going nuclear" and ending the Senate's filibuster rule so that body can then proceed to a vote on whether or not to confirm Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch.
Bauer, pointing to ideas from officials at the Federalist and the Heritage Foundation, suggests that if this obscure rule were invoked, senators would be allowed to filibuster, but not forever:
Under Rule XIX, each senator is allowed to give no more than two speeches on a given topic during each legislative day, which is distinct from the calendar day. Extending the legislative day over multiple calendar days, the Republican majority would let each Democrat who wanted to filibuster Judge Gorsuch speak for as long as he or she wanted to but would hold each senator to only two speeches on Gorsuch. Once all filibustering Democrats had given their two speeches, a vote on Gorsuch would commence; there would be no need for a cloture vote on the nomination because, under Rule XIX, no more filibustering senators could speak.
http://cis.org/cadman/kill-filibuster
