Reid: Dems will 'take a look' at filibuster reform next year

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said the Senate would consider attempts to reform the filibuster next year.

In a discussion with liberal bloggers, Reid, who'd previously dismissed calls from colleagues to change the Senate's filibuster rules, said he'd be open to reexamining those rules at the beginning of the next Congress, in 2011.

"The filibuster has been abused. I believe that the Senate should be different than the House and will continue to be different than the House," Reid said, as was reported by the Huffington Post's Sam Stein. "But we're going to take a look at the filibuster. Next Congress, we're going to take a look at it. We are likely to have to make some changes in it, because the Republicans have abused that just like the spitball was abused in baseball and the four-corner offense was abused in basketball."

Reid's remarks come after he had dismissed colleagues' efforts to change filibuster rules, which have at times let Republicans frustrate Democrats' legislative priorities over the past 14 months.

"I'm totally familiar with his idea," Reid said of colleague Sen. Tom Harkin's (D-Iowa) filibuster reform proposals in February. "It takes 67 votes, and that, kind of, answers the question."

But Democrats have pressed forward with exploring options to change filibuster rules, including by having Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, hold hearings into potential changes to filibuster rules.

The Senate, unlike the House, is governed by rules that are in continuous rules, meaning that a 67-vote supermajority would be needed to change filibuster rules, which only require 60 votes to end debate.