Season 2, Episode 3 (Show 55): Heart To Hart: Filibuster Finis – Special Guest Gary Hart

January 19, 2022

The former US Senator, Presidential Candidate, Envoy, and long-time public intellectual joins us as we explore the possible demise of the filibuster, and what ails the U.S.’ democracy.

Exactly 10 years to the day prior to the January 6 outrages, Professor Amar and former Senator Gary Hart teamed up for a history-changing article explaining how the filibuster could become a thing of the past. In ensuing years, the “nuclear option” they outlined was invoked on presidential appointments, then Supreme Court nominations, and now it is so close to being gone for good.  But this is just one episode in an epic American life served in the public sphere, and we go afield to begin to tap the endless insights of this man who was nearly President, and wound up doing, and knowing, more than you can imagine – and he begins to share it with us.  Part one of two special episodes.

Show Notes:

Akhil Amar and Gary Hart - How to End the Filibuster Forever

Slate, January 6, 2011.  Professor Amar and Senator Hart jointly author an article which sounds the death knell for the various misconceptions that made for conventional wisdom assuring the continuation of the filibuster.  Eventually the process this set in motion would result in the end of the filibuster for appointments and judicial nominations, as both parties came to accept the rightness of its reasoning.  The wisdom of what is left of the filibuster, of course, is a policy question that remains to be settled.

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The Nuclear-Option Genie Is Out of the Bottle - Akhil Amar

Slate, November 21, 2013.  The Senate acts to eliminate the filibuster for certain nominations, and Professor Amar writes noting the occasion and explaining that notwithstanding the limited scope of the action, the constitutional and historical principles were thereby firmly established, consistent with the 2011 article by Prof. Amar and Senator Hart.

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Presidential Candidate Gary Hart - and an ax

The New Hampshire primary campaign is launched as Senator Gary Hart channels Abe Lincoln the rail-splitter and John F. Kennedy the young, vital, athletic New Englander.