Alexander exits Senate with defense of filibuster, call for change
“We don’t need a change of rules. The Senate needs a change of behavior,” U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (shown in a file photo) said Wednesday, Dec. 2, in a farewell address before the U.S. Senate. “And the behavior that needs to change first is for individual senators to stop blocking amendments of other senators. If you are opposed to something, you ought to vote no.” (Susan Walsh/Associated Press file)
The senator from Tennessee told colleagues on the Senate floor Wednesday that being a senator is like “joining the Grand Ole Opry and not being allowed to sing.”
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Bill Dries
Bill Dries covers city and county government and politics. He is a native Memphian and has been a reporter for almost 50 years covering a wide variety of stories from the 1977 death of Elvis Presley and the 1978 police and fire strikes to numerous political campaigns, every county mayor and every Memphis Mayor starting with Wyeth Chandler.
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