About effing time – Reid to change Senate filibuster rules
Republicans have pushed hard enough to finally trigger the “nuclear Option” filibuster rules change with regard to appointees. Senate Republicans say that they will use this action as a pretext to disallow ANY filibusters when they are in the majority – even for Supreme Court nominees.
1) No shit Sherlock. We all know you will not allow Democratic filibusters if a simple rules change could end them.
2) Democrats have to hold the Presidency and the US Senate now forever or we’ll be looking at justice Sarah Palin.
By Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Jessica Taylor
Chuck Todd explains how the change in the Senate’s filibuster rules could clear the way for several of Obama’s judicial nominees.
*** Senate Democrats poised to deploy “nuke option”:It’s true in physics and in politics: For every action, there’s an opposite and equal reaction. And so after Senate Republican filibustered President Obama’s nominees to sit on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals — not on concerns about ideology or qualifications, but over the president’s ability to appoint ANYONE to these vacancies — Senate Democrats are poised to change the rules via the so-called “nuclear option.” And while this may seem like a threat you’ve heard before, this time it seems as if there isn’t any deal that will derail this likely action. Senate Democratic aides confirm to First Read that they’re expected to vote today to change the rules to eliminate the 60-vote threshold for all executive appointments, except to the U.S. Supreme Court. Such a move requires just a 51-vote majority, so Democrats could lose four of their colleagues and still win the vote. Senate Republicans counter that if Democrats go through with this change, they’ll reciprocate the next time they control the White House and the Senate — including for Supreme Court picks. “If [Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid] changes the rules for some judicial nominees, he is effectively changing them for all judicial nominees, including the Supreme Court,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said yesterday, per the Washington Post. But Harry Reid believes he does have 51 votes, especially since he convinced Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) to climb on board this nuke-option train. She had been an influential holdout in the past.
THIS!
“1) No shit Sherlock. We all know you will not allow Democratic filibusters if a simple rules change could end them.”
If Republicans ever gain power again this filibuster “nuclear option” would be the first thing they do – whether Dems do it, or not.
That fact is utterly lost on the DC media, but it literally could not be more obvious.
Harry Reid just needs to do this, because if he doesn’t Republicans will – if they ever get control – and when (not if) Republicans do this the DC media will shrug.
Bets on our senators, especially Carper — Mr. Bipartisan — voting with Reid?
Even money.
Personally, I suggest that the rule be modified to allow filibusters, but that they have to be talking filibusters. None of this namby-pamby secret filibuster with a cloture vote to override it. I think Ted Cruz is an idiotic windbag, but between his faux-filibuster, the real one in Texas and the one that Bernie Sanders did a few years ago, I think the country would understand the concept. Most people don’t understand how this modern filibuster works.
And when Republicans say “They took away the filibuster!” We just say, “No, you are welcome to stand and deliver as long as you’d like.” Just like the Founders intended.
i agree with Geek that the talking filibuster should stay in place. Will Reid actually do this or is this just more hot air…. Are Coons and Carper among the 51? Anyone know?
Brilliant. It will be that much easier to repeal Obamacare in early 2017, if it hasn’t already collapsed under it’s own weight.
Coons and Carper voted for the reform! Only Ds that opposed were Pryor, Levin, and Manchin. Go figure.
This was inevitable, as noted the Republicans would kill the filibuster if the Dems did not. But this rule change is very limited and does not include the supreme court.
Elections have consequences. Both ways. Both parties need to understand that. Hiding behind some arcane rule to subvert the will of the people is simply not the way democracy is supposed to work. Frimish, framish.
@abc “Brilliant. It will be that much easier to repeal Obamacare in early 2017”
Sorry. It only covers appointments, not legislation.
And good luck to the GOP in canceling Obamacare in the future. What are you going to do? Cancel good and reasonable healthcare plans for millions of people?? Bring back “pre-existing condition”, and medical bankruptcies, and canceling plans for people who get sick, and throwing kids off their parent’s plans, and fake plans that cover basically nothing, and …????
That political storm will make today’s ACA debate seem trite by comparison.
I love the notion that this change will provoke some bad response from the GOP. It makes me laugh.
If only __”x”__ , Republicans would act reasonably.
I think we all know that there is no “x.” The only solution is beating Republicans in elections. Local, county, state, and national elections. Period.
@abc: We all know Obamacare is a shitty plan; it’s a conservative concoction, after all. But it’s not going to collapse before the GOP does.
Liberal Elite – And before today it didn’t apply to appointments.
You think Dems are the only ones that can change the rules?
You will have to win an election first. But hey, maybe Ted Cruz can get it done? We aren’t a very smart country when it comes to this type of thing.
Great… Keep threatening to cancel good people’s health insurance. Let’s see what that does for you at the ballot box.
The reason that the GOP fares so well in elections, is that many Dems are too lazy to go out and vote. We’ll rely on folks like you to give them a good reason to make the effort.
Obama has been hampered with many district courts dominated by ideological conservatives bent on nullifying the other two branches of government.
Time to fill these bleeping vacancies.
It is possible that this could be the single most important legacy of Obama’s second term.
As we’ve learned the hard way, these ‘judges’ stay on the court for, like, ever. (Thank you, Tom Carper.)
Start the assembly line. Now!
You can also renominate each and every appointee who had to withdraw due to Rethug intransigence.
Cancelling people’s health insurance?
You mean like the 4.2 million that have already lost their coverage under Obamacare?
You mean like the 93 million that Obama’s own ACA team admitted in 2010 would lose their insurance?
But I heartily recommend all Democrats campaign next year on the basis of their support for Obamacare. Let’s see what that does for them at the ballot box.
@xyz “Cancelling people’s health insurance?”
…because their policies were too crappy? No problem.
So go ahead and dream about going back to the old rotten health care system. See what political tiger you can unleash. It will look nothing like the FAKE heath care outrage that the GOP and Tea Party are acting out at present.
You guys are just too much…
Liberal Elite finally states the truth when he says.
“The reason that the GOP fares so well in elections, is that many Dems are too lazy to go out and vote.”
The Democrat base consists of the lazy who can’t get off of their butts for 15 minutes every 2 years.
Liberal Elite has a point.
@o “The Democrat base consists of the lazy who can’t get off of their butts for 15 minutes every 2 years.”
…and that is why the whole health care debate is so dangerous for the GOP.
It doesn’t really matter what the Dems do. The Republicans will all line up and vote like good little lemmings.
But if the GOP threatens the Dem’s base with loss of health care insurance, then the Dems WILL get off their lazy ass and vote.
The GOP could wander in the wilderness for quite some time if they don’t find another topic. This one is an abject loser.
Here is something interesting. If McConnell had called off this filibuster of DC circuit court nominees, President Obama would have been able to fill three vacant judgeships.
Because he didn’t, President Obama can now fill 93 additional court vacancies with simple majority votes. Let’s see if he does it.
If Obama fills the federal judiciary with liberal appointees (thanks to the stupidity of Mitch McConnell), I’d say this rules change was well worth it.
“The nuclear option abandons America’s sense of fair play . . . tilting the playing field on the side of those who control and own the field. I say to my friends on the Republican side: You may own the field right now, but you won’t own it forever. I pray God when the Democrats take back control, we don’t make the kind of naked power grab you are doing”
Joe Biden, 2005
…and they didn’t until Mitch McConnell tried to reverse-stack the DC circuit. Elections have consequences bro.
The general sense of the Washington Post pundits, Eugene Robinson excluded, is that the D’s went too far. Which is why what passes for political punditry sucks.
HELLO-O-O-O??!! The Rethugs were gonna do this anyway, with or w/o Tom Carper (D-‘Stockholm Syndrome’). Not one bleeping R reached ‘across the aisle’.
Oh, and if the R’s should take the Senate in 2014, the 2016 incumbent class makes it pretty unlikely that they’ll be able to hold the Senate when a new president takes office.
My only problem with this is that it should have happened sooner.
Oh, plus Rethugs need an R president to make ‘abomination nominations’. The kind that Carper routinely refused to filibuster against. If the R’s don’t get one in 2016, they might never get one again.
El Somnambulo, I’ve been listening to R. Maddow more. So far she seems to have avoided catching the DC bubble fever.
The general sense of the Washington Post pundits, Eugene Robinson excluded, is that the D’s went too far. Which is why what passes for political punditry sucks.
HELLO-O-O-O??!! The Rethugs were gonna do this anyway, with or w/o Tom Carper (D-‘Stockholm Syndrome’). Not one bleeping R reached ‘across the aisle’.
My only problem with this is that it should have happened sooner.
Oh, plus Rethugs need an R president to make ‘abomination nominations’. The kind that Carper routinely refused to filibuster against. If the R’s don’t get one in 2016, they might never get one again.
Oh, and if the R’s should take the Senate in 2014, the 2016 incumbent class makes it pretty unlikely that they’ll be able to hold the Senate when a new president takes office.
Pandora wrote:
Except that it was actually under consideration when the Democrats were filibustering ten of President Bush’s judicial nominations, and seven Republicans teamed up with seven Democrats to form the so-called “Gang of 14” to forestall the “nuclear option.”
The GOP is pretty much locked into control of the House, at least through the 2020 elections. If we can win control of the Senate and the White House, that’s it: no more food stamps, no more welfare, and no more Obaminablecare, because the ability of 41 Democrats to prevent that will be gone.
Your threat is useless, Dana. If Republicans ever get control again they were always going to get rid of the filibuster – for everything. There are no statesmen/women in today’s GOP.
Thanks to Carper and his, wait for it, ilk, the R’s pretty much HAD gotten rid of the filibuster when Dubya packed the courts and his administration with RWNJ’s.
I liked when you said, “If we can win control of the Senate and the White House…” it made me laugh.
Mr 330 wrote:
Remember how y’all were celebrating the eternal defeat of the Republican Party following the 2006 and 2008 elections? Then came 2010, and it seems that we weren’t as dead as you thought.
And we made the same mistake, following the 2002 and 2004 elections, thinking that the Democrats were dead, dead, dead.
I also liked when you said “…that’s it… no more food stamps, no more welfare, and no more Obaminablecare,”
That made me laugh.
@Dana: Except the demographics aren’t swinging back and forth — they’re swinging to the left.
Y’all make the mistake of thinking that your outrages are the outrages of the masses. They are not.
“The GOP is pretty much locked into control of the House, at least through the 2020 elections.”
Yes, what a mandate for governing the nation — rig the game in every single way we can, the public be damned.
While the filibuster has a long history, that history is only codified in the Senate rules and nowhere else. The Constitution does not address filibusters, which came into being in the 1800s. It used to be 2/3rds, then it became 3/5ths. There is nothing sacred about the filibuster and nothing sacred about Senate rules invoking cloture. The people’s business must be conducted and allowing a single individual, Raphael Cruz or whoever, to hold the nation hostage should not be tolerated. The filibuster has evolved to anonymous holds on appointments with simply the threat of a filibuster. While in times past it was used effectively by gentlemen and gentlewomen, there are few of those types in Congress today. Now we have people whose objective is to slash and burn. Once we get rid of the arsonists in Congress, perhaps there will be a place for honest filibusters. Although the record holder is Thurman who filibustered the Civil Rights Act, so there’s that.
“If Republicans ever get control again they were always going to get rid of the filibuster – for everything”
Really? And you know this how?
How do we know the sun is going to rise tomorrow? Bitter experience.
” If Republicans ever get control again they were always going to get rid of the filibuster”
They wouldn’t have had to. Dems would have given them 60 vote majorities. A Dem filibuster is a weapon that never would be used anyway.
Bitter experience rules.
@J “President Obama can now fill 93 additional court vacancies with simple majority votes. Let’s see if he does it.”
That’s the plan… and before the next election. Obama has girded himself to the possibility of having zero court nominees in his last two years.
Mr Geezer wrote:
Rig the game? The only “rigging” is the provision of the Voting Rights Act — passed by the Democrats, I’d remind you — which requires that majority minority be created wherever practical. That has resulted in some skewed districts to have a majority of black citizens.
But the other part is simple demographics: when you have precincts in Philadelphia which voted 100% for President Obama, you are seeing whole neighborhoods which are politically monolithic; you can’t somehow balance those away. You would have to get away from the single-member districts specified in the Constitution and go to a system of proportional representation to change that outcome. If you think that the game is somehow rigged, then it is rigged in the Constitution itself.
In 2004, an election which President Bush won by a significant margin, Senator Kerry carried twenty congressional districts by larger margins than the margin for the President’s strongest district.
Pandora wrote:
Yet, oddly enough, they didn’t, when they had the chance. And if there are no statesmen in today’s GOP, there are no Americans in today’s Democratic Party.
As Puck points out above, they didn’t need to thanks to the non-American Democrats.
Rig the game? The only “rigging” is the provision of the Voting Rights Act — passed by the Democrats, I’d remind you — which requires that majority minority be created wherever practical. That has resulted in some skewed districts to have a majority of black citizens.
I fail to see how this is a problem. There are plenty of communities that are majority minority already so why not a district that represents them? I don’t see anyone complaining that the 18th or 12th Congressional Districts are majority white people. And nor do I ever see any wingnut complaining that there are precincts where overwhelming majorities voted for Romney. Because apparently what is unfair is that Democrats vote for Democrats and there are more of them than Republicans. Sheesh….