senate cloture rules is supposed to narrowly focus on presidential nominees to the executive branch .
senator roger wicker of mississippi tried to broker a joint meeting of republicans and democrats to see how they might find a compromise , pleaded with mr. reid .
the senate exists because the founding fathers , who hated the idea of a senate , gave in to threats from small - state senators demanding disproportionate representation .
they ’re not even going to kill the filibuster .
text size - + reset reid 's rant on nominee block mcconnell : crisis manufactured for years , the filibuster has been increasingly used as a tool to block , delay and frustrate the will of the majority party to push through its agenda .
mr. reid ultimately agreed and set the gathering for monday at 6 p.m. mr. mcconnell and other republicans have signaled in recent
senate republicans have started using it to block qualified executive branch nominees in order to block the execution of laws they find distasteful .
sadly , democrats are not about to kill the senate .
they are behaving , they said , just as democrats did when they wanted to block disputed appointments by republican presidents , whether it was judges under mr. bush or the attorney general under ronald reagan .