A transparent filibuster reform, Politico, July 2013. With Alessandra Casella and Gregory Wawro
It is time for the Senate to end this form of governing by brinkmanship and consider real, if unorthodox, reforms. We propose a solution that essentially institutionalizes the informal agreements on which senators have repeatedly relied when conflicts over nominations have reached crisis points.
Storable votes: Can we solve gridlock and yet protect the minority?, The Monkey Cage and the Stanford Social Innovation Review
It seems to us that the debate on the filibuster points to a more general question on the appropriate protection of the minority. The filibuster exists to protect the minority party, and indeed taming the tyranny of the majority is essential to the legitimacy of democracy. But the filibuster does so very inefficiently: it amounts to a super-majority rule, with its built-in bias towards the status-quo.
The problem is that sanctioning simple majority rule, treating all votes and voters identically, and protecting the minority seem mutually incompatible goals. Using storable votes, this need not be the case.