A  freshman senator can have all kinds of unusual experiences, but hardly ever does he hear the Senate majority leader apologize to him in public.

"These two young, fine senators said it was time to change the rules of the Senate, and we didn't," Majority Leader Harry Reid said on the Senate floor in May, referring to Tom Udall of New Mexico and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, who happened to be presiding over the Senate at the time.

"They were right. The rest of us were wrong, or most of us, anyway. What a shame."

Almost as unusual is to get another chance at a fix.

At the start of this fading congressional session, back in January 2011, Merkley and Udall tried to change the Senate rules to make it harder to maintain filibusters, refusals to end debate to allow the Senate to vote on issues. Reid expressed interest but pulled the plug, insisting that an agreement he'd reached with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell would ease the problem. Scores of filibusters and a mounting pile of judicial vacancies later, it's clear it didn't.

Now Merkley is back, with a couple more Democrats in the Senate and a gang of new members who don't think they were elected to watch nothing happen. Lately, nothing happening has been the Senate's specialty, with 60 votes (the number needed to end a filibuster) required to do anything.

"In the six years he was majority leader (1955-1960), Lyndon Johnson had to file one motion to end a filibuster," points out Merkley. "In the six years he's been majority leader (2007-2012), Harry Reid has filed 387."

Something seems off here.

So Merkley is offering again what he calls "a very modest understanding, that if you vote for additional debate, there will be additional debate" -- that if 41 senators support a filibuster, they need to stay on the Senate floor and, well, filibuster.

"It forces people to spend time and engage," he explains, "and place their obstruction squarely before the American people."

And it might force the world's greatest deliberative body to, well, deliberate.

Merkley's strategy is that at the start of a session, a simple majority of 51 can change the rules -- although the Republicans ominously call this the "nuclear option." In 2011, he points out, the proposal got 44 votes, without even the support of the party leadership.

This time, Reid says he's on board, plus Merkley has some reinforcements.

"I'm joining Senator Jeff Merkley and six other newly elected senators to pledge to lead this reform on Day One," wrote the highest-profile incoming senator, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, "and I hope you'll be right there with us." All seven new Democrats, plus new independent Angus King of Maine, have endorsed the proposal.

"It's going to be close, but I think we'll have the votes," Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Democratic whip, told the Chicago Tribune last week. "These new members are shaking their heads and asking, 'What's the point of serving in a body that grinds to a halt over nothing?' And I can't argue with them."

So far, Merkley admits, no Republicans are on board, and with McConnell denouncing any change in the rules, there may not be. But, he figures, once it's clear that there are 51 Democrats prepared to change the rules, Republicans may be willing to negotiate for a more broadly supported change.

"I feel we have a responsibility to the citizens of the nation to make the Senate deliberate and decide," says Merkley. "I think it's 100 percent unacceptable to go down the path we're on now."

Should a simple majority, plus the ruling of Vice President Joe Biden, change the Senate rules, Republicans threaten retribution.

But that raises the question of what they'd do: Shut down the Senate?

Been there.

And unless something changes, going back there.