Anyone who’s been lucky enough to attend a Wayland Town Meeting knows that the decision-making process at the meetings is slow. The most important articles are passed unanimously on a voice vote without debate. The most mundane, minor articles are the target of vehement opposition, forcing Wayland citizens (and WSPN reporters) to burn the midnight oil. But, in the end, Wayland is able to forge consensus and continue functioning smoothly.

Congress has all of Wayland’s inefficiencies, but cannot ultimately get its act together, unlike us. This is due to an important structural difference: the current set of rules governing Congressional procedure, especially in the Senate, prevents progress.

I hesitate to even write about such a technical issue because it is just so damn boring – but it is this kind of boring stuff that is very important for the future of our country. We can have the biggest economy, the strongest military, and the smartest students, but without good policy from Washington funneling this power in the right direction, we are nothing.

Congress cannot create useful policy without smart procedural rules, and the current rules are anything but smart. While the House manages to function, the Senate is the Town Meeting on steroids.

When the Senate was created, it was crystal clear how bills were supposed to be approved: if a bill received what nowadays would be 51 votes (or 50 votes and a tie-breaker vote from the Vice President), it passed. Today, a bill has to jump through flaming hoops – most importantly, the 60-vote threshold of the filibuster – just to be debated, let alone vote on.

Thankfully, in the past two weeks there has been a bipartisan consensus to remove some of these hoops. Before, a single hostile senator could anonymously block legislation by placing a hold on any piece of legislation. Similarly, the legislative process could be gummed up by a single senator demanding that the Senate grind to a complete halt so that an amendment to a bill (which can stretch into the hundreds, even thousands of pages) could be read aloud.

Both of these practices have been abolished by a bipartisan agreement of the new Congress. In return for giving up these tools of obstruction, the Republican minority in the Senate was promised by the Democratic majority leadership the opportunity to offer amendments to new bills.

And, surprise, surprise: since the new rules were agreed to, the Senate has become a little less dysfunctional. Democrats brought to the floor a sorely-needed aviation bill, and Republicans offered an amendment to the bill that would have repealed health care reform, which was quickly rejected. Our republic lives!

Before we get too excited, there is one rule that has not been modified. The filibuster, the scourge of Senate efficiency, remains wholly intact. The filibuster requires 60 votes, rather than the constitutionally-mandated 50, for a bill to be passed. The filibuster is the true culprit in the crime of Washington gridlock.

Let me be unequivocal: the filibuster must be weakened, if not eliminated, so that whichever party is in the majority can more easily pass legislation. We are living in a fast-changing world, and Washington needs to be able to respond quickly. More than that, we need to reform our laws now.

In fact, filibuster reform was debated as part of that bipartisan set of rule changes. Tom Udall, a freshman senator from New Mexico, has been appalled by Senatorial dysfunction since his arrival. He proposed a modest reform – the 60-vote requirement would even remain – that would merely make the filibuster more inconvenient.

Under Udall’s proposal, senators would be required to remain on the floor of the Senate to filibuster a bill, in the spirit of the original filibuster style, rather than being allowed to fly back home while the Senate is frozen.

Udall’s proposal was voted down, 46-49. Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown voted no; perhaps even more pathetically, Senator John Kerry copped out and didn’t even vote.

The filibuster must be reformed. Senator Udall’s proposal would be a good place to start.