Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is flirting with filibuster reform again, floating the idea of making senators suffer for their filibuster by forcing them to actually stand up and talk nonstop for hours, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington-style. There's "a good chance" Reid will change the rules to force a filibustering minority to actually get up and talk nonstop for hours and hours if they want to block a bill, the Huffington Post's Ryan Grim reports. This means Senate proceedings could become so boring they're actually interesting again by becoming an endurance test.

Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley told Grim that his proposal would tweak the rules so that if the vote to end a filibuster got less than 60 votes, the bill would remain on the floor, but the filibusterers would have to be physically on the floor talking about it. If no senator got up to speak, a simple majority could vote to move on.

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Elspeth Reeve