Regardless of what's happened in the past several months, Alexander said Tuesday that the bottom line is that Reid made a promise. And in the Senate, a person's word is what people count on the most. "Senators keep their word," he said during floor remarks. "The majority leader has given his word."

"I will pledge to do what the Senator from Utah pledged to do. While I am a United States Senator, if a nominee comes to the floor for a judgeship by any President, Democrat or Republican, I will not participate in a filibuster," he said. "I will vote to cast an up-or-down vote on any nominee of any President. I think that is the right thing to do."

On April 12, he said he "would never filibuster as long as I were a Senator." On May 20, he said while he may vote against a nominee he doesn't support, he will "insist that we eventually vote up or down, as the Senate has for two centuries." And on June 9, he said he made a pledge that "I would never filibuster any President's judicial nominee. Period."

He filibustered Goodwin Liu, a nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in May 2011, and Robert Bacharach, a nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in July 2012. He also filibustered Caitlin Joan Halligan—twice—when she was a nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Once in Dec. 2011, and then again in March 2013.

There's a new poster child for Congress's dungeon-level approval ratings . Ladies and gentlemen: Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) on the filibuster and Harry Reid's statements that continued Republican obstruction has broken the deal made in January Lamar Alexander in 2003:In 2005:And since President Obama took office:Yep. That's the Senate Sen. Carl Levin is trying to preserve

Keep the pressure on. Send an email to your Democratic senators telling them to re-open filibuster reform and make the Senate function again.

