Senate filibuster rules changed

A few quotes to ponder:

  • Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) and Johnny Isakson (R-GA): “Every judge nominated by this president or any president deserves an up-or-down vote. It’s the responsibility of the Senate. The Constitution requires it.”
  • Tom Coburn (R-OK): “If you look at the Constitution, it says the president is to nominate these people, and the Senate is to advise and consent. That means you got to have a vote if they come out of committee. And that happened for 200 years.”
  • John Cornyn (R-TX): “We have a Democratic leader defeated, in part, as I said, because I believe he was identified with this obstructionist practice, this unconstitutional use of the filibuster to deny the president his judicial nominations.
  • Mike Crapo (R-ID): “Until this Congress, not one of the President’s nominees has been successfully filibustered in the Senate of the United States because of the understanding of the fact that the Constitution gives the President the right to a vote.”
  • Lindsey Graham (R-SC): “I think filibustering judges will destroy the judiciary over time. I think it’s unconstitutional”
  • Chuck Grassley (R-IA): “It would be a real constitutional crisis if we up the confirmation of judges from 51 to 60, and that’s essentially what we’d be doing if the Democrats were going to filibuster.”
  • Mitch McConnell (R-KY): “The Constitution of the United States is at stake. Article II, Section 2 clearly provides that the President, and the President alone, nominates judges. The Senate is empowered to give advice and consent. But my Democratic colleagues want to change the rules. They want to reinterpret the Constitution to require a supermajority for confirmation.”
  • Jeff Sessions (R- AL): “[The Constitution] says the Senate shall advise and consent on treaties by a two-thirds vote, and simply ‘shall advise and consent’ on nominations…. I think there is no doubt the Founders understood that to mean … confirmation of a judicial nomination requires only a simple majority vote.”
  • Richard Shelby (R-AL): “Why not allow the President to do his job of selecting judicial nominees and let us do our job in confirming or denying them? Principles of fairness call for it and the Constitution requires it.”
  • John Thune (SD): Filibustering judicial nominees “is contrary to our Constitution …. It was the Founders’ intention that the Senate dispose of them with a simple majority vote.”
 
Good move, but doesnt go far enough.  There should be no filibuster under any circumstances.  

Its good for the Senate and good for the country.  We need to have a government that can function and that simply is not possible with the tools the Republicans have.  The current situation is bad in the short term, bad in the long term.

The party that wins should be able to enact its agenda and put their people in charge.  I'd rather have Rick Santorum controlling all 3 branches of government than having the government not do anything.

 
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Dr Mario Kart said:
Good move, but doesnt go far enough. There should be no filibuster under any circumstances.

Its good for the Senate and good for the country. We need to have a government that can function and that simply is not possible with the tools the Republicans have. The current situation is bad in the short term, bad in the long term.

The party that wins should be able to enact its agenda and put their people in charge. I'd rather have Rick Santorum controlling all 3 branches of government than having the government not do anything.
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I disagree. I understand why the filibuster exists and when used for the right reasons and done in the right manner (i.e. Wendy Davis's filibuster in Texas from a few months back) can be used to block unjust laws. However, when you can literally phone in a filibuster and use it as a tool to hold the country hostage, that's when problems arise. The latter use is the tool that the GOP has been using for the past 4 years, and frankly I'm glad that abuse of the rules is finally over.

On another note, I'm loving all the conservatives over on twitter screaming "TYRANY!" over this, because, you know, Republicans politicians never ever ever change the rules to tip the scales in their favor.

 
They don't need to change this rule. I think they should return to the original filibuster rules so that everything under the sun isn't filibustered.
 
Dr Mario Kart said:
Good move, but doesnt go far enough. There should be no filibuster under any circumstances.

Its good for the Senate and good for the country. We need to have a government that can function and that simply is not possible with the tools the Republicans have. The current situation is bad in the short term, bad in the long term.

The party that wins should be able to enact its agenda and put their people in charge. I'd rather have Rick Santorum controlling all 3 branches of government than having the government not do anything.
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Rick Santorum huh? Well only if you want to start WW3.

 
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/nov/22/barack-obama/barack-obama-among-flip-floppers-senates-nuclear-o/

"What (the American people) don't expect is for one party, be it Republican or Democrat, to change the rules in the middle of the game so they can make all the decisions while the other party is told to sit down and keep quiet."

Then-Sen. Barack Obama, remarks on Senate floor, April 13, 2005  

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/nov/22/harry-reid/harry-reid-among-flip-floppers-senates-nuclear-opt/

"What they are attempting to do in this instance is really too bad. It will change this body forever. We will be an extension of the House of Representatives, where a simple majority there can determine everything."

Sen. Harry Reid, remarks on Senate floor, May 23, 2005

AHHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH....who can take any of these hypocritical clowns seriously?

 
What he also didnt expect is for the minority to stop government from being able to function.

What the Republicans started doing after 2005 changed the body forever.  Goverment can no longer function with the methods that Republicans have to obstruct.  

If 2013 was like 2005, there would be some hypocrisy here.  Right now there is none. The scope of the limits is very limited.  Nearly everything will still take 60 votes, just as the founders intended.

The filibuster will eventually go away entirely, not just for this very limited nomination process. We'll be back to having a super majority only for what is explicitly outlined in the Constitution (the horror!)

 
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The Republicans ran on the platform of stopping Obama's agenda. They would be even more hypocritical if they did not "obstruct" it by using every legal means they have. Seeing the Democrats whine and cry about the Repubs preventing them from having their way without a fight is hilarious. Seeing them change long standing rules as the majority after decrying the same actions in the past is down right shocking. I have lost all respect for these liars, Repubs included. Changing your views and carrying out actions that you once were totally against because they now hamper your ability to get your way 100% of the time is hypocritical. How can we ever take them seriously if their word changes depending on the shifting of the political winds? I would love to see you guys defend Bush if this happened when the roles were reversed.

 
If their filibusters were about policy then you might have a point, but you dont.   Did they run on filibustering their own ideas just because the President took them up?  Nothing in the past is similar to what is happening now.  There are no lies here as far as I'm concerned.  And no hypocrisy either.  You didnt have any respect for Democrats to lose, so I'm not particularly concerned about your opinion of them.

There is no reality where a role reversal would take place.  Democrats want government to function.  

Going forward there are exactly two scenarios:

1) We have a government that functions

2) We have the filibuster

We are still firmly rooted in scenario 2 for now.

The problem might actually run deeper than the situation I've outlined here.  We may be in a situation where nothing gets done anymore unless we have single party (possibly super majority) rule.  Given the near impossibility of that, we might be fucked real proper.

 
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ego never lets me down,

The Republicans ran on "stopping Obama".

A) That isnt even an argument.

B) Republicans keep losing.

C) The Republicans might be able to "stop Obama" by kidnapping his children and threatening them with harm but they havent resorted to that yet.

 
Msut77 said:
ego never lets me down,

The Republicans ran on "stopping Obama".

A) That isnt even an argument.

B) Republicans keep losing.

C) The Republicans might be able to "stop Obama" by kidnapping his children and threatening them with harm but they havent resorted to that yet.
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A) How so?

B) How so?

C) They are probably planning it as we speak.

 
Make everyone do a real filibuster ONLY... none of this threat stuff. That would do 2 things: 1. make sure you really are committed and 2. you would likely have to have at least a few allies to pull it off.

 
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