Ezra Klein Salutes No Labels’ “Make Congress Work”

By Jonathan Miller, on Thu Dec 22, 2011 at 12:30 PM ET

Ezra Klein, one of the nation’s leading political analysts (formerly of The Washington Post, now with Bloomberg View), used his column this week to salute No Labels’ “Make Congress Work” proposals, launched with much fanfare last week. Klein, formerly a No Labels’ skeptic, lauds “Make Congress Work” as a meaningful reform proposal.

Here’s an excerpt from Klein’s, “No Labels Stops Whining; Offers Political Agenda” from today’s Bloomberg View:

Enter No Labels. Rather than confine themselves to wishful thinking about a third-party candidacy or endless scolding over partisanship, its members have come out with a robust agenda for congressional reform.

Some of the items on the agenda are symbolic at best. Holding bipartisan monthly meetings and seating Democrats and Republicans together in Congress isn’t likely to usher in a new age of bipartisanship. Members of Congress are grown-ups responding to real pressures within their parties, and real demands from their most engaged constituents. They don’t need more play dates with the other side. But you know what? More play dates with the other side aren’t likely to hurt anything, either. So why not?

Some of the items on No Label’s agenda would transform the workings of sclerotic and dysfunctional institutions. Nominations to executive or judicial positions, for instance, would get an up-or-down vote after 90 days. If the federal budget was late, members of Congress wouldn’t get paid. Filibustering senators would actually have to do the Mr.-Smith- Goes-to-Washington thing and hold the floor of Congress by talking. No more filibustering without actually working for it. Oh, and filibusters could only be mounted against the passage of a bill — currently, the motion to move to debate is frequently filibustered, which means the filibuster is used to choke off debate rather than protect it.