To End Abuses of Workers, the Senate Must End Abuses of the Filibuster

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http://www.thenation.com/blog/175202/end-abuses-workers-senate-must-end-abuses-filibuster#axzz2YviLbfZu



For the first time since the New Deal era, the United States could, by the time Labor Day 2013 rolls around, find itself entering into an extended period without either a secretary of labor or a functioning National Labor Relations Board.

The prospects are dire for working people and for the unions that represent them.

But Senate majority leader Harry Reid and his Democratic colleagues have the power to avert the crisis created by Mitch McConnell’s obstructionism. To that end, on Thursday, they took what have been identified as the first steps to adopt a rules change specifying that only 51 votes are required to end a filibuster that has been initiated to block votes on presidential nominees. “We’re headed to changing the rules,” New Mexico Democrat Tom Udall said after a Senate Democratic Caucus meeting where Reid raised the issue. “I didn’t hear anybody speak against it.”

This is not a step that Reid wanted to take. But it the majority leader was left with little choice after McConnell, the Republican minority leader, made it clear that he and his allies would continue to employ an abusive definition of the filibuster to block President Obama's nominees in general -- and to labor-related posts in particular.



Read more: To End Abuses of Workers, the Senate Must End Abuses of the Filibuster | The Nation http://www.thenation.com/blog/175202/end-abuses-workers-senate-must-end-abuses-filibuster#ixzz2YvkPwqzv
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