Sherrod Brown: Senate should use 50-vote tactic on more than healthcare

Senate leaders should use a parliamentary maneuver to sidestep filibuster rules "a lot more," one Senate Democrat urged Thursday.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), one of the more liberal members of the upper chamber, said that many Democratic senators are urging leadership to use the budget reconciliation process, which requires only a simple majority to pass legislation, on more initiatives.

"I agree with that," Brown said during an appearance on MSNBC when pressed by host Ed Schultz on whether the 59-vote Democratic majority should use reconciliation more.

"As much as we can pass with a majority vote, we do," he said, later adding: "A lot of us are urging our leadership on that."

A number of procedural hurdles exist to using budget reconciliation for legislation. For one, the Senate parliamentarian can rule out provisions of legislation deemed non-germane to impacting the budget.

Brown acknowledged those difficulties.

"I don't think we can do it on everything since there are a lot of rules," he said. "But we can do it a lot more than we are."

Senate Democrats are considering using the 50-vote process to pass a set of fixes to its original healthcare bill in exchange for the House being willing to approve that initial bill.