AHC & WI: Senate ends filibuster during post-Watergate reforms?

Let's say that when the new Senate comes in on Jan. 14, 1975, they just have a straight up majority vote to discontinue the filibuster. As far as a cause, I'm thinking of the general climate of reform, the remembrance that it was often used by pro-segregation Senators (then a fresher memory), and (one possible POD) the argument voiced more often aloud and with matter-of-fact confidence that the filibuster is afterall undemocratic and not really in keeping with an approach of majority rules, minority rights.

Now, on the WI side of the equation, the Democrats in 2009 would have had a comfortable working majority of 60 Senators to address the economic crisis, as well as health care reform.

And are there other times during the last forty years in which having no filibuster may have made a big difference?
 
Many of the Southern Democrats who you state used the filibuster during the Civil Rights Act were still serving and held a large amount of sway (Eastland, Byrd, Sparkman, Long among others to name a few). Plus I can't see more conservative a/o moderate Republicans or some conservative Democrats siding with such a change; thus preventing the filibuster from being removed. I just can't see the filibuster being ended.
 
Many of the Southern Democrats who you state used the filibuster during the Civil Rights Act were still serving and held a large amount of sway (Eastland, Byrd, Sparkman, Long among others to name a few). . .
Well, those cats can certainly be outvoted by a majority!

But I'm kind of with you. The Senate itself is entrenched. The members like the filibuster because they too might get the chance to grandstand, a/o protecting some vested element of the status quo.

So, it would have to be an aroused citizenry. Maybe Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre in Oct. '73 might be a point of departure. And instead of sitting on their butts cheering on the supposed good guys in Congress which kind of happened in OTL, this time citizens decide we're going to have to get busy and reform this thing ourselves. And abolishing the filibuster might start out as a colorful, seemingly outlandish proposal. But the more people think about it, the more they may like it. Some of them may like it, and others, not so much. It would be a real democratic debate.

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Okay, assuming Senate votes to end filibuster Jan. '75:

Maybe some legislation to address loss of industrial jobs in the '80s. Yes, Republican President Ronald Reagan may veto them, but at least in a couple of ways, he thought of himself as an economic populist. And a veto is much more blatant and open than a procedural filibuster or mere threat of such, the flash of the ace.

And in the early '90s, maybe stretching out a hand to Russia with some good trade agreements. Maybe less rise of organized crime and the whole transition goes better for Russia.

>>> And in general, we might get bolder, more straightforward legislation where you get a clearer read for whether something works or not.
 
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David T, thank you for telling how close the Senate did actually come in 1975:

http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/VP_Nelson_Rockefeller.htm

' . . . The Senate voted 51 to 42 to table Mansfield's motion, in effect agreeing that Senate rules could be changed by a simple majority vote at the beginning of a Congress. The Senate, however, adjourned for the day without actually voting on the resolution to take up the cloture rule change. The leaders of both parties then met and determined that they disagreed with this procedure, which they felt had set a dangerous precedent. . . '
The Senate pulled back because it seemed too abrupt. But if regular citizens had been talking about it for a year plus, it wouldn't seem too abrupt.

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And thank you for a very thoughtful and informative link throughout.
 
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/soc.history.what-if/GBdOdJkf4lQ/nzW-0y_LrfgJ

and from your Bruhl quote:

' . . . My own Constitution-sense tells me that the Senate of the 110th Congress cannot lock someone up in a dungeon so deep that the Senate of the 111th Congress cannot release him. . . '
And I think he makes a heck of a good point.

So, one session of the Senate sets some rules which future sessions, even generations later, cannot change without some supermajority??? And yes, two-thirds of the Senate does carry over from session to session. But with potentially one-third new members, a new session of the Unites States Senate should be able to make its own rules, as long as it's done in orderly fashion at the beginning of the session.

The job of the Senate is to legislate, or to make a conscious decision not to legislate on some issues. But not to tie itself in such procedural knots that it can't legislate even if it wants to.
 
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But the procedural knots are what are most interesting about the senate!

Seriously though, you have something of a point.

Removing the fillibuster might make the senate more efficient, but that isnt necessarily a good thing. I still think the best answer is to write the rules in such a way that you have to speak in the floor of the senate to mantain a fillibuster.
 
That would be an improvement.

I still want to dive into the idea of majority rules, minority rights. And it doesn't mean minority rules and minority runs the show.

The general ATL which I'm developing happens after Nixon's "Saturday Night Massacre" on Oct. 20, 1973, and the resulting "firestorm of protest." This time a critical mass of ordinary citizens, maybe only 10%, decide we're going to have to get involved in our local, state, and national governments and do all the things we've only thought about before. A lot of this might build off civil rights and anti-war organizations becoming broader activist organizations. And not just on the left, let's say some early libertarian thought becomes better organized. And not just theory. Let's say a lot of the groups advocate various forms of pilot project, and of medium step, feedback, medium step, feedback. That is, ordinary citizens find ways of getting democracy to work; often merely of allowing democracy to work.
 
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