Senate filibuster challenged in court

[Ed W]

Don't get excited.

http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/09/15795362-senate-filibuster-challenged-in-court?lite&google_editors_picks=true

A federal court in Washington on Monday takes up a legal challenge to the Senate filibuster brought by four House Democrats and the political reform group Common Cause, which calls the procedure "an accident of history, not included in the Constitution and never contemplated by its drafters."

At issue are Senate rules allowing discussion without time limit and requiring a vote of three-fifths of the members, or 60 senators, to end debate. That 60-vote super-majority, the lawsuit contends, is at odds with the Constitution, which specifies only a small number of circumstances in which more than a simple majority is required -- overriding a veto, impeaching the president, or expelling a member, for example.

...Lawyers for the Senate urge the court to throw the lawsuit out, as federal courts have done with three previous challenges to the filibuster.

"This suit asks the court do what no court has ever done -- inject the judicial branch into the Senate's internal deliberations and usurp the Senate's power to determine its own rules and procedures," the body's lawyers say in their court filings.

They also argue that the Constitution's speech or debate clause ("for any speech or debate in either house, [senators and representatives] shall not be questioned in any other place") bars the lawsuit, which is filed against Senate officials.  The Supreme Court, the Senate lawyers say, has ruled that the clause blocks lawsuits challenging the broad sphere of legislative activity.

This could get interesting since there are some arch-conservatives on the court who could argue that absent the  constitutional definition of the filibuster, it does not constitute a valid exercise of senatorial power.  What say you strict constructionists?

It would be instructive to know more about the three preceding arguments against the filibuster.