By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., said today he does not support changing the Senate’s rules on filibusters.

“I get as frustrated as anyone in the Senate with the filibuster rule, but I don’t think we need to change it. I think what we need here is more discipline,” said Pryor, a member of the Senate Rules Committee.

The filibuster is a procedural rule that allows a single senator to hold up a vote indefinitely unless at least 60 senators vote for cloture, or an end to debate. Frustrated by frequent Republican filibusters and threats of filibusters, some Democratic senators, including Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, have said the rule needs to be changed.

Pryor spoke to reporters in a conference call before heading to a Rules Committee hearing on possible changes to the filibuster rule.

“I don’t really support that at this time, but I guess I’ll go to this hearing and listen and see what their proposals might be,” Pryor said.

Pryor said the filibuster rule has been “very misused” lately, which he said has made legislation difficult to pass and has been frustrating for the American people.

“It’s not good for the country. We need to do better. But I think that more than just the rules, that really depends on the individual senators to show more discipline, more respect for the system,” he said.

Pryor said there are other procedural issues he would rather address.

“Right now, any senator can hold a bill on the floor,” he said. “Those can be secret holds, and they really can be for an unlimited period of time. In fact, right now we have one senator who, my understanding is, is holding over 200 bills on the floor just because he wants to.”

Pryor said he might support abolishing that practice, either by a rule change or “just by a change in tradition.”