The Senate's Scarcest Resource Is Floor Time

The Senate's scarcest resource is not votes. It is floor time, and cloture consumes it.

On October 8, Sens. Jeff Merkley and Steve Daines released a seven-page proposal to change how the Senate moves legislation. Among the changes:

• End cloture votes on motions to proceed, on amendments, and on nominations.
• Eliminate the intervening day before a vote to break a filibuster, and condense debate time.
• Create a Senate version of the House suspension calendar, where certain committee-reported bills could pass with a two-thirds vote and "robustly bipartisan" bills would need only a majority.

Some background: the Senate adopted cloture in 1917 as a way to end filibusters. Over time, the sixty-vote threshold became a routine tool to slow legislation and delay votes. The authors argue the threshold is now abused to slow the legislative process.

Roll Call reports the plan is unlikely to be adopted soon. Senate norms run deep.

Still, the proposal shows executives with business before Congress something they should know. Most bills do not die on a recorded vote. They die waiting for floor time that never comes. That is why the outcome is usually decided in committee, well before anything reaches the floor. The companies that succeed are the ones whose teams help build a bill with bipartisan cosponsors, a strong committee report, and a clear reason for leadership to schedule it. A suspension-style track in the Senate would reward exactly that preparation.

Your government affairs team should not only be asking whether you have the votes. It should be asking whether you have a bill leadership can move quickly.