Washington Post: Reid, Democrats trigger ‘nuclear’ option; eliminate most filibusters on nominee

reply to post by OptimusCrime


well, they'll be against a simple majority then.

Hell, while we're at it, why not change the process for constitutional amendments so that it only requires a simple majority too? /sarc

The few people in this thread that are for this will scream bloody murder when a Republican President and Senate are confirming nominees with simple majorities.

DrEugeneFixer

xuenchen
I think these nominee conformations should require a 2/3 majority vote.

That way the unbiased integrity stays intact.

I also think legislation should require 2/3.

Single party rule is dangerous.

Yep, the only thing worse than tyranny of the majority is tyranny by a minority.

So being unable to get 60% to confirm a nominee is "tyranny by a minority"? 60% is not a lot...if you got a 60% score on a test when you were in school it would've been an "F". Unless you went to one of those schools that didn't allow failing grades.

They must really want to get some stuff rammed through, because there is no doubt next year it will be R led. Its going to be rough going next round on the Dems for sure. They have pretty much sealed their fate at this point for upcoming elections both for sentate and presidential in 2016.

And to think what power they just handed over to the Reps down the line is scary as hell, both sides scare me. You got the Dems that want to control the people, and the Reps that really dont give a crap at all about the people. Both are not good for the common man.

butcherguy
When you don't require the 2/3, a whole lot of bad can happen.

I can see where you're coming from, but that's not the system that the founding fathers created for us. Bad luck for you, I guess.

BobM88
reply to post by OptimusCrime

 

well, they'll be against a simple majority then.

Hell, while we're at it, why not change the process for constitutional amendments so that it only requires a simple majority too? /sarc

The few people in this thread that are for this will scream bloody murder when a Republican President and Senate are confirming nominees with simple majorities.

what democrat, liberal, independent, or for that matter republican, think that when the republicans get the majority of the senate, THAT THEY WOULD NOT DO THE SAME THING...especially when a democrat is the president......hello?, raise your hands...anyone?...anyone?...bueller?....bueller?.....there have been so many nominated by Obama and automatically rejected by threatening filibuster, and the republicans(s) who did it, gave no viable reason. the republican majority in the house took the filibuster to a whole new level never seen in the history of the congress.

BobM88
So being unable to get 60% to confirm a nominee is "tyranny by a minority"?

Being able to stop the senate from doing its constitutional duty with only 40 guys is tyranny by a minority.

BobM88
60% is not a lot

40 is even fewer.

reply to post by DrEugeneFixer

A certain Senator from Texas was vilified recently for filibustering against Obamacare. Even members of his own party chastised him.

Some polls show 93% of the people opposing Obamacare now that they see how flawed it is.

Who is the tyrant?

BomSquad
And this is how the tyranny of the majority begins...

there are reasons that certain things require a super majority, like constitutional changes

.....while other things, like rule changes, only require a simple majority.

By the way, "constitutional changes" are actually called amendments and they require much more than a super majority vote in either and/or both houses of Congress. Hell, they're required to be ratified by 3/4 or 38 of the states legislatures before they become law.

IMO, the republicans brought this on themselves by adopting their unprecedented obstructionist policies. I'm still wondering why the democrats tolerated it as long as they did.

reply to post by jimmyx


The Republicans had control of the Senate from 1995 to 2007 and didn't use the Nuclear Option.

There's no such thing as a filibuster in the House. To paraphrase what so many left-ish people have said, quite recently, if you want to pass bills through the house, win some elections.

DrEugeneFixer
Being able to stop the senate from doing its constitutional duty with only 40 guys is tyranny by a minority.

There are 45 GOP senators, 53 Democrats, and 2 Independents that caucus with the Democrats in the Senate. That means that the Democrats need only get 5 Republicans to vote with them. 1/9th of the total GOP caucus, or 11.1%. That's 1/20th of the total number of Senators...if they can't manage that, perhaps they should find a nominee that is acceptable to 5% of the total Senate to get their nominee installed.

DrEugeneFixer
40 is even fewer.

This is true...see my above comment regarding how they have failed to attract a very small minority to end a filibuster.

The maneuver was brought to prominence in 2005 when Majority Leader Bill Frist (Republican of Tennessee) threatened its use to end Democratic-led filibusters of judicial nominees submitted by President George W. Bush. In response to this threat, Democrats threatened to shut down the Senate and prevent consideration of all routine and legislative Senate business.

If the GOP does the same as the Democrats in 2005, is that going to be ok? Or is that obstructionist? Was it obstructionist back then? Is it only ok to do this when a particular party gets to do so?

On a side note...only needing a simple majority to pass a budget in the Senate one would think they'd do so...as it's their constitutional duty and all. But that is a duty they've not managed in 4-1/2 years.

DrEugeneFixer

butcherguy
When you don't require the 2/3, a whole lot of bad can happen.

I can see where you're coming from, but that's not the system that the founding fathers created for us. Bad luck for you, I guess.

I understand what you mean, and you're correct in the strictest sense. However, with the precendent now set, it's going to be to bad for you, assuming you're a Democrat, when the GOP takes control at some point in the future. Regardless of what the talking heads say, eventually they will.

The real problem isn't that its too bad for butcherguy when the democrats get their way, or too bad for you when the republicans do, its too bad for all of us when a simple majority wields that much power, regardless of party.

Put it this way...Bush and his neo-con idiots did enough damage as it was without using this tool. What could they have done if they had? What will the next guy do? I will all but guarantee you that this won't always look like it was such a great idea at some future point in time.

The largest and most immediate problem that I see is the D.C. Court of Appeals. They're the ones that do most of the deciding on regulatory and other government cases. They currently have eight judges, four Republican and four Democrat. Their complaint now is that they're not overworked, they could handle more.

On paper, they're supposed to have eleven judges. Obama wants to appoint three strongly Democrat judges, thereby taking over the Court, but he had never been able to get the 60 votes needed. Before this "nuclear option," the court was balanced. Now, his appointees can't be stopped, and he will have taken a major step towards his takeover of the court system.

Obama will be hard to stop then. The Supreme Court can only handle so many cases a year. A lot of perhaps unconstitutional actions will go unaddressed.

Forgive me for sounding panicky, but this is a serious blow to justice and freedom. Don't underestimate the impact this move will have. We are now in an even worse place than we imagined.

butcherguy
Funny, when Reid was in the minority, he thought the 'nuclear option' was a terrible thing.

But he is all good with it now.

Here's what top leaders have had to say about the filibuster now and back in 2005, when Republicans happened to be the majority party in the Senate:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R), Thursday:

"It reminds [the American people] of the power grab. It reminds them of the way Democrats set up one set of rules for themselves and another for everybody else... Once again, Senate Democrats are threatening to break the rules of the Senate in order to change the rules of the Senate."

Then-Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell (R), May 2005:

"The majority in the Senate is prepared to restore the Senate's traditions and precedence to ensure that regardless of party, any president's judicial nominees, after full and fair debate, receive a simple up-or-down vote on the Senate floor. It's time to move away from ... advise and obstruct and get back to advise and consent."

Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R) in a statement, Thursday:

"The Democrats' attempt to pivot at a time when we should be focused on protecting the American people from dropped health care coverage makes their true motives clear. They will do anything to take the attention off the failure that is Obamacare, even if it means breaking the rules of the Senate in a raw exercise of partisan political power."

Sen. John Cornyn (R) in a New York Times letter to the editor, March 2005:

"You disparage the Republicans' view that 51 votes should be enough for judicial confirmation. Yet the 51-vote rule is a consistent Senate tradition. By calling for an end to filibusters, the Senate is simply contemplating restoring its traditions by traditional methods you disparage as 'nuclear.'"

www.npr.org...

reply to post by Indigo5


Huge difference....the Republicans only talked about using the Nuclear Option. Reid has actually up and made the rule change.

lovebeck
I'm officially at a loss for words...Changing the U.S. one "law" at a time.

Washington Post Article

The Democrat Party is a Domestic Enemy of the United States and their leadership should be rounded up and thrown in jail.

I won't hold my breath.

On the surface this article looks like a ploy for another power grab (and Obama trying to sound like he's reasonable), but I smell more choreographed squawking by the politicians to distract us from some more impacting issues, like the TPP for instance, or maybe the rioting in Spain??

I honestly see the filibuster dilemma as a possible symptom to a broken and miserably failed system, and also as a possible symptom that the 2 party system is 100% flawed. Nobody is 100% either conservative or liberal about their views as George Carlin once observed, I think it's even more complicated than that in that some views become drastic and radical when the opposition is so diluted or deranged.

I don't know for sure, but I do know I don't trust either party or anyone associated to large industry interests, which means 99% of the current US administration.

reply to post by LeatherNLace

###SNIPPED#### A filibuster will not necessarily block a nomination only stall it. A filibuster is useful to get questions out of the nominee or expose them for who they really are.

Only two of Obama's nomination was blocked.

Did Rand Paul's fillibuster blocked Hagel nomination or did Wendy's fillibuster block the abortion law? No it didn't, it only stall and get people aware of the situation.

Harry Reid is a fascist traitor.

The Filibuster is there so the minority can expose a corrupt nominee by making it headline news.

The reason why Harry Reid used the nuclear option is because Rand was going to Filibuster yellen and expose the fraudulent federal reserve for who they are, but it will not block her nomination in the end. This would have been nationally televised and it would have awaken a lot of people.

DrEugeneFixer
Being able to stop the senate from doing its constitutional duty with only 40 guys is tyranny by a minority.

It's not tyranny. It's ... called ... process. Why are you using an inflammatory word to embellish?

What has happened here is an elimination of checks and balances. That's a spade.

reply to post by Aliquandro


I'm probably going to sound foolish here, but George Carlin was truly brilliant at pointing out and illustrating the follies of humanity and our attempts at order among chaos. He had a way of pointing out the stupidity that we bring to everything we do and make us laugh at ourselves when he did it.

reply to post by Snarl


It's just a senate rule change.