Heidi Alexander: “That was de Tocqueville. Mr. McCONNELL. De Tocqueville. Washington, when he was presiding over the Constitutional…”

“That was de Tocqueville. Mr. McCONNELL. De Tocqueville. Washington, when he was presiding over the Constitutional Convention, according to legend, asked what will the Senate be like. He said: Well, it will be like the saucer under the teacup. The tea will slosh out of the cup, down into the saucer, and cool off. In other words, from the very beginning, it was anticipated by the wise men who wrote the Constitution that the Senate would be a place where things slowed down and were thought over. That has been the tradition for a very long time throughout the history of our country. Until the First World War, it was not possible to stop a debate at all. Cloture was actually adopted by the Senate in the late teens of the previous century and then lowered in the 1970s to the current two-thirds. Looking at the history of our country, it is pretty clear to me that the Senate has done exactly what Washington thought it would do, slow things down and move them to the middle, and has been a place where bipartisan compromise was by and large achieved, except in periods of time where either side had a very big majority which, of course, our friends on the other side had in 2009 and 2010. The American people took a look at that and decided to issue a national restraining order and restore the kind of Senate they are more comfortable with that operates, to use a football analogy, between the two 45-yard lines.…”