美国国家公共电台 NPR To Forward Progressive Agenda, Harry Reid Says The Filibuster Must Go（在线收听）

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

The filibuster - it might sound like just a piece of Washington jargon, but that procedural rule has become a flashpoint on Capitol Hill and now in the Democratic primary, too.

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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: We have to do what I'm saying we need to do, which is to get rid of the filibuster.

ELIZABETH WARREN: It's been used by the far right as a tool to block progress on everything.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: And given the challenges that we face, I think we have to be open to ending the filibuster.

FADEL: It may be controversial today, but the filibuster was meant as a tool for bipartisan buy-in in the Senate. It requires a supermajority, 60 rather than 51 senators to advance a bill. This past week, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell defended the filibuster for legislation in the pages of The New York Times, calling it a crucial bulwark against majority overreach. But the fight over the filibuster began years ago with his predecessor, a Democrat.

Nice to see you.

HARRY REID: Thank you very much.

FADEL: Thank you for having us.

That's former Senator and Majority Leader Harry Reid speaking to me in his home in a gated community in Henderson, Nev. Reid may be retired, but his political shadow looms large after 34 years in Congress in which he was as formidable a political force as Mitch McConnell. And he's a leading voice in the effort to end the filibuster entirely, an argument he also laid out in an op-ed in The New York Times.

REID: The filibuster has been used as a weapon to just have the Senate do nothing.

FADEL: Reid changed the rules in 2013 when Congress was plagued with political gridlock and Republicans were blocking President Obama's executive appointees. It was called the nuclear option.

REID: As a result of that, Obama got his hundred-plus judges, got his Cabinet spots filled. It was the right thing to do. Now that wasn't the first time the rules had been changed. They'd been changed lots of times in the past, but I think that now with the Senate being basically inoperable - because the Republicans, Congress after Congress, have just refused to get anything done. So it's just not good for the country. I think that we need to take a very close look at getting rid of the filibuster period.

FADEL: But doesn't that create a situation where one party gets to railroad the other party depending on who is in charge of that upper chamber?

REID: Well - but at least it would be done with a majority. The way it is now, it doesn't matter if you're in majority or minority. It don't get anything done.

FADEL: And why is it so important right now? You also talked about it being important for whoever runs for president to also call for it.

REID: Yeah. I think it's important because - let's take some major issues the country faces. No issue in my mind is more important than climate change. The United States must be a leader in this. But with Trump and basically Republicans saying that climate change doesn't exist, we're getting nothing done. I mean nothing. We don't have a lot of time to spare.

FADEL: You actually got some criticism when you removed the filibuster for judicial confirmation. And then Mitch McConnell took that further and did that for Supreme Court judges. And now this move, I just wonder if it creates a dangerous - at least the critics will say it's a dangerous precedent.

REID: Well, I, in hindsight, don't understand why I waited so long to change the rule. What the Republicans have been doing for a long time was wrong and bad for the country.

FADEL: Does the Senate then just become another House? Does the upper chamber become the lower chamber?

REID: I've said it's not a question if it's only a question of when the House and the Senate become majority bodies, 50% votes. But that's not the end of the world. Remember, we have six-year terms in the Senate, two-year terms in the House. We have a bicameral legislature. It would still work just fine. We are a democracy. Let's act like one.

FADEL: Of course, Democrats can only abolish the filibuster for legislation if they take control of the Senate from Republicans in 2020. Reid has had many conversations about the state of the democracy in this very room. He's 79 and grappling with cancer, but he still wields political might. On the same couch where I sit, some of the leading Democratic presidential candidates have sought his advice - Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden. I asked him if he keeps in touch with Republican colleagues, too.

Do you reach out to any of the people you once worked with in Washington? Is there anybody?

REID: I still keep in touch with some of them. I really strongly believe the admonition I got when I first came to the Senate from Senator Robert Byrd, who said always remember we do not work for the president. We work with the president. And I think some of my colleagues have forgotten that they work with the president. They're working for him.

FADEL: Do you ever miss being in Washington, especially at this vital time?

REID: No. I believe in the Old Testament admonition that there's a time for everything, time for planting, a time for reaping. I just think that that was my time, and now is not my time.

FADEL: Do you ever call, though, and say, maybe a different approach?

REID: Well, I give my friends ideas. I saw a good one today. Senator Schumer had come out calling for restrictions on people being able to buy body armor. That was an idea I gave him. I've got a lot of ideas, so...

FADEL: How difficult do you think this race against President Trump is going to be?

REID: No one should discount Donald Trump. He has spent a lifetime developing who he is. And I wish he were somebody else, but he's somebody that has been able to focus on race. He focuses on the environment but the wrong way. He focused on the economy I think in the wrong way. These tariffs are not only hurting America. They're hurting in the world. I think that his simplistic views on the world translate to people not wanting to focus real hard on what needs to be done to help this country. So don't discount him. He's going to be hard to beat.

FADEL: But Reid says he's not concerned about America's future.

REID: If we've been able to withstand going on three years of Trump and still be here, we're - country's pretty strong. Our Constitution really does mean something. I'm convinced it's important we have three separate and equal branches of government. And I think all of us need to work to make sure each of those remains strong.

FADEL: And you see them as strong right now.

REID: Yeah. I think we're doing just fine.

FADEL: That was former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid at his home in Henderson, Nev.