The Nation: A Filibuster Ends, but Not The Gas War

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Carter's position was more complex. Presumably anxious to get his program moving, he did not want to discourage such supporters as Abourezk and Metzenbaum, but he also did not want to step on Byrd's leadership prerogatives. In the end, he apparently failed to communicate to anyone his desires on whether to end the filibuster.

The two liberal Senators had exploited a loophole in famed Rule 22, the hard-fought cloture provision for shutting off Senate debate. Just before cloture had been approved by more than the required three-fifths of the Senate, Abourezk and Metzenbaum had introduced no fewer than 508 amendments. Each amendment could thus be called up for a time-consuming vote. The Senate had run through only about 200 of them—and seven days, including one 37-hour session—when serious moves began among the Senate leadership to curtail the filibuster. The two filibuster leaders said they would end the talkathon if Carter asked them to do so. But Byrd advised the White House to stay out of the Senate's business. He would take care of the filibuster his own way. What followed was a unique show of parliamentary force that outraged much of the Senate.

Byrd laid out his scheme at a meeting of key Democratic Senators and Republican Howard Baker, the minority leader. Byrd proposed calling up the remaining 300 or so amendments and immediately getting them ruled out of order. The group decided that Mondale should preside over the session, reading rulings from a prepared script and ensuring that Byrd could hold the floor without interruption while the amendments were being killed.

Arriving at the Senate shortly before 11 a.m. last Monday in his conspicuous two-car caravan, Mondale went directly to Byrd's office, where he was briefed on what he should do and given his script. He raised no objection. "He didn't know anything that I was going to do until he came in here," Byrd insisted later.

Picking up on a rumor that Mondale was about to crush the filibuster, Abourezk scoffed, "Ah, he wouldn't do that." Metzenbaum asked Senator Edward Kennedy about the same rumor; Kennedy too expressed disbelief. Mondale, meanwhile, was also busy buttonholing four Senators considered soft in their support of deregulation: Democrats Quentin Burdick of North Dakota, Wendell Ford of Kentucky and Dennis DeConcini of Arizona; and Republican John Chafee of Rhode Island. The Vice President told them that the President would see them, one by one, if they wished; all four accepted the offer and were whisked off in waiting White House cars.