Word: abourezk
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...momentarily but lose in conference with the House. He also saw the filibuster as a threat to his developing reputation for running the Senate briskly and feared that the Senate would end up with no natural gas bill at all. The filibuster leaders, South Dakota's James Abourezk and Ohio's Howard Metzenbaum, thought they were helping Carter to get an effective energy bill...
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...
...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...
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...
...Senate floor, meanwhile, the Byrd scheme was pushing toward an explosive conclusion. As Byrd rose, Abourezk walked up the steps to Mondale's chair. "You're not going along with this, are you?" he asked bitingly. Flushed and tense, Mondale snapped, "You can be sure I'm going to do the right thing...