by Jeremy Leaming
With Republicans seemingly hell-bent on tossing the country over the so-called fiscal cliff, showing no signs of agreeing to tax hikes on the nation’s superrich, and continuing their strategy of obstructionism polling shows that a majority of Americans support filibuster reform.
Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-K.Y.) embraced obstructionism during President 
Obama’s first term, saying his party’s top priority was to ensure Obama did not serve a second one. McConnell, however, is still set on obstructionism and not surprisingly arguing that the Constitution forbids the Senate from altering its procedures by majority vote.
A bipartisan group of law professors – including former Reagan solicitor general Charles Fried and a former conservative federal judge Michael W. McConnell – in a Dec. 12 letter to senators says McConnell is wrong. (The letter can be read here – thanks to the Brennan Center For Justice).
“When a newly-elected Congress convenes,” the letter states, “the newly-constituted Senate, like the newly-elected House, can invoke its constitutional rulemaking authority to make changes to the Standing Rules. At that time, a majority of the new Senate can choose to reject or amend an existing rule.”