Restoring Congress: Time to Fix the Filibuster

Tuesday, December 18th, 2012
Noon – 1:15 p.m.
Humphrey School, Cowles Auditorium (map)

Former Vice President Walter F. Mondale
Moderated by Professor Larry Jacobs

Please RSVP: http://restoringcongress.eventbrite.com/#

America faces enormous challenges, from budget deficits to national security.  But it is crippled by extraordinary paralysis in Congress, including the unprecedented use of the filibuster.  Congress must be restored to a functioning body.  This will require reform of the filibuster in the Senate to foster needed debate while preventing its misuse to stymie urgent legislation.

Walter F. Mondale led the last major reform of the filibuster; he will draw on his years in the U.S. Senate and in the White House as Vice President to discuss the need to fix Congress and the filibuster. Mr. Mondale served as a Senator for 12 years. Beyond his service in the U.S. Senate, Mr. Mondale’s record of public service includes Vice President of the United States, U.S. Ambassador to Japan, U.S. Senator and Attorney General for the State of Minnesota. He was also the Democratic Party’s nominee for President in 1984. Mr. Mondale was a Distinguished University Fellow in Law and Public Affairs at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. In 1990, he established the Mondale Policy Forum to bring together leading scholars and policymakers for conferences on domestic and international issues.

This event is free and open to the public.
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Book Review: For the Good of the Order, Nick Coleman and the High Tide of Liberal Politics in Minnesota; 1971-1981

From Minnpost, by Iric Nathanson:

The year was 1973.

A new crop of Republicans had just been elected to the Minnesota State Senate, 13 of them in all.

Across the aisle, Majority Leader Nick Coleman was eyeing the Republican newcomers to determine which of them might be potential partners during the upcoming legislative session. Several of the thirteen held some promise for Coleman. They included Otto Bang, an insurance agent from Edina; John Keefe, an attorney from Hopkins; Doug Sillers, a farmer from Moorhead; and Bob Dunn, a lumber dealer from Princeton. At one point or another during their legislative careers, each would collaborate with the majority leader, who added the term “DFL” to his title when party designation took effect in the Senate, later in the 1970s.

“Knowing there were several key issues that needed bipartisan support … Coleman wanted to reach out across the aisle,” recalls John Milton, who served in the Minnesota Legislature during those years. Milton’s recollections from that era are collected in his new book “For the Good of the Order, Nick Coleman and the High Tide of Liberal Politics in Minnesota;  1971-1981.”

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