In the News Walter Mondale changed the Senate filibuster, and he would have reformed it again
Earlier in his Senate career, Mondale supported a simple majority of 51 senators to quash a filibuster. And he and Pearson briefly set a precedent for a 51-vote cloture, James Wallner explained in 2019. But Mondale had changed his mind by then. “As I see it, it is an issue between the ability to paralyze, on the one hand, and the ability to require full ventilation of an issue, on the other,” he said in 1971. “In my opinion, there are crucial issues which demand full consideration by the Senate.”
