The Senate’s failure to adopt meaningful rules changes last week has real consequences for working families and our democracy.

What we saw in the 111th Senate was a shocking manipulation and abuse of rules. Reforms that would help working families, like the Employee Free Choice Act, were never allowed to come up for debate, despite the fact that a majority of senators supported the measure. There were more than 400 bills that passed the House of Representatives that never had a hearing on the Senate floor.

A package of reforms championed by Senators Harkin, Merkley and Udall and strongly supported by CWA would have provided the real change that the American people deserve by restoring debate and deliberation and ending the stalling tactics used to block nominations and keep legislation from full Senate consideration. Without these changes, partisan gridlock will remain the hallmark of the U.S. Senate.

CWA President Larry Cohen said he was proud of CWA’s work with a coalition of nearly 60 progressive organizations, including Common Cause, the Sierra Club, Alliance for Justice and others in support of rules reform.

“It will likely be years before we have a Senate that can pass bargaining and organizing rights legislation under the current rules. No progressive legislation can be passed under these current rules. But we will keep building the coalition, add campaign finance to our democracy agenda and make this a key test for all senate elections in the future.”

CWA commended the efforts of Senators Harkin, Merkley and Udall and pledged to continue to work with them and fight in the 112th Congress for the legislation that working families need.