TheOak

To you Liberals that are blaming 1 third of the Hill for killing everything through filibuster... It seems the case is that Democrats avoid each and every opportunity to change the filibuster rules... Through simple majority vote.

It seems to be from the POV of a Democrat also.
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At the end of 2012 we were hearing a lot of noises about filibuster reform, remember? Noise from liberal pundits, noise in the liberal press, noise from our newly elected insurgent liberal senators. What happened to all the noise? The war cry is sounding more like a whimper lately.
Is the silence a signal? Is the issue dead – again? If so, expect another season of partisan gridlock, political dysfunction, and rising public discontent.
According to the Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Ballin (1892), changes to Senate rules can be made by a simple majority, but only on the first day of each session. Like most everything that happens in Washington, D.C., what you see (or think you see) is not necessarily what you get. To wit: Harry Reid, the sad-sack Senate majority leader is using a parliamentary tactic that shelves rule changes indefinitely but suspends a sword of Damocles over the Republicans. Under Reid's rule, each new day is still being considered as the “first day” of the new Congress so the rules can be changed at any time by a simple majority vote. Leave it to the highest rule-making body in America to f*@% with the rules!
Here's writer, George Packer ("Senatus Decadens", The New Yorker, 1/4/13) on the very day when what might have been – namely, the long-overdue death and joyful burial of the filibuster – wasn't: "Several proposals are circulating. The most intriguing is the one introduced by Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon (the same Jeff Merkley who told me, back in 2010 when I was writing about the Senate, that he winces every time he hears the phrase 'world’s greatest deliberative body'”). [Senator] Merkley would simply require filibusterers to be present on the Senate floor and speaking, just like Jimmy Stewart or Strom Thurmond. No more waivers, no more silent filibusters, the kind that take place multiple times every legislative week. (The Senate has sunk so low that there’s a nostalgia for the good old days when southern senators used to stand and read from the phone book for days on end…in order to block civil-rights legislation.)"
That's it? That's the "most intriguing" filibuster reform proposal being floated in the Senate? Uh huh.
Congress met on January 3 and (surprise!) the issue of filibuster reform was conspicuously absent. But does that mean it's too late, that 2013 is going to be a grim replay of the gridlock we've come to expect; a permanent procedural paralysis that condemns the country to a fate "the people" of no other self-respecting republic in the world would tolerate? Not necessarily. Read on...

Who really gives a fig about the Senate's rules? That's just dull procedure, right? Wrong. For any serious deliberative body the rules of order are the gateway – or roadblock – to policy. The U.S. Senate, however, has taken this principle to a new level, one so low that no light can ever reach it, a place where one rule trumps all the others. Inference: the Senate isn't serious.

If the first day of each new session of Congress really is the only time Senate rules can be changed it would undeniably be the day that can make or break each and every national election. It is (or would be) a particularly crucial day in the life of a dysfunctional republic which will (would) continue to be dysfunctional so long as the Senate neglects to change the most idiotic, anti-democratic rule ever to enter the addled brain of a bibulous legislator, namely the filibuster. Typically, on the first day the pre-existing rules of the new session are adopted in part or in full by a simple majority vote. In other words, rules do not automatically continue from one session to the next. On this day, the Senate can abolish the filibuster or place strictures on its use and abuse – what rightwing extremists, who insist (against all logic and evidence) that a rule once made remains in force forever, ludicrously refer to as the "nuclear option". In Congress, however, the definition of "forever" (like "first day") is purely a matter of political convenience, not semantics or moral conviction, so anything and everything could change if and when the Tea Party caucus, for example, or some other lunatic cabal takes control.
The Democratic majority in the Senate can abolish the filibuster at any time, but there is no indication that so "radical" a move is being seriously considered. As noted earlier, the insurgent position in the Senate, the one proposed by Senator Merkley of Oregon and supported by several other self-professed populists, including Elizabeth Warren, is to require a filibuster-bent senator to be present and babbling in order to do so.
Present. As in not absent. In other words, if you get elected to the U.S. Senate and you want to shut down the government or do something similarly wicked you just have to show up! That's a sign of the times, folks; of the culture of corruption and cynicism that now poisons our public life and pervades Congress; of the decay and decline at the core of the body politic. You know, the one founded on the principle of majority rule.
The Senate in its wisdom not only allows its members to thwart the will of the majority with impunity but makes it super-convenient for the heirs of Strom to obstruct the business of the most powerful legislative body in the land. They don't even have to show up for "work" to do it.
As things stand, a senator can prevent a proposed bill (maybe to raise the debt ceiling or fund disaster relief for victims of Hurricane Sandy) from coming to a vote while, say, cheating on his wife in a secret hideaway across Key Bridge in Rosslyn or sitting in a bar in Key West. Welcome to Fantasy Land USA, the land of the "silent filibuster".
So here's where things stand. The most far-reaching change the reformists in the Senate can get behind is a "reform" that would require a latterday Strom Thurmond (Mitch McConnell?) or some other Senate blowhard (Jerry Moran, Ted Cruz, James Inhofe, among others, come to mind) to be present and blowing. You wingnuts want to make a mockery of majority rule? You want to subvert the election results? Sabotage the economy? Shut down the government? No problem. But don't think you can get away with playing hooky. We're the Democrats, we won, and we're in charge. This time around things are going to be different; this time around if you want to walk all over us and trample on the Constitution, fine!, but you'll have to come to Washington to do it. Take that!!
It's clearly not too late for the Senate to change the rules. The tattered old Constitution says nothing about the filibuster. The hang-up is political, not legal.
Let's be honest: Democrats in the Senate don't want to abolish the filibuster any more than Republicans and they're using filibuster reform to camouflage this fact. Oh, they'd like to get some much-needed reform bills passed; it would make them look good and help them get re-elected. But they can imagine a time when the Republicans will be in the majority and then what? Without the filibuster what will happen to the country? It's a scare tactic, pure and simple.
Ask yourself this: What has happened to the country with the filibuster?
Senate Democrats would do well to consider what will happen to them if they don't get something done in the next two years. If they don't do right by the people for a change (they've done quite enough for the plutocrats). If things look no better in 2014 than they did in 2012. If they lose the next election and the rightwing extremists who control the Republican party abolish the filibuster.
Let's send a message to the Democrats in the Senate. Let's tell 'em this: A lot of us out here in the real America (aka the electorate) have totally given up on the Republicans, but that doesn't mean you can count on getting our votes. You think we have nowhere else to go, but you're wrong. The so-called silent filibuster is a farce, dear senators, a kind of metaphor for the feckless assembly of which you are a part. If you don't kill the filibuster you'll continue to get little or nothing accomplished, we'll continue to pay the price, and the nation will continue to slide deeper into recession, debt, and disgrace. And the next time an election day rolls around we, the voters, just might stage a "silent filibuster" of our own – by staying home. If that happens, we'll all be losers. But you'll be the biggest losers of all.

Filibusted! | NationofChange

Rickh

I didn't realize there were any more Democrats on this forum besides me.

but anyway...

I agree with that story. The Senate had its chance to change the rules and did very little. I'm not a big fan of Harry Reid (I'm sure you're not also) and this is one of the reasons why.

He (and McConnell ) assured everyone that the changes that were made would ease this filibuster nightmare that's been going on since 2008. It hasn't. They should have fixed it in Jan of 2013. They didn't.

So I guess it's the Democrats fault the Republicans obstruct everything.

TheOak

Loaded statement...

The factually accurate statement would look like this:

The Democrats are responsible for Republicans having a filibuster option. Democrats ALLOW the obstruction so they can do nothing and blame Republicans for it.

Have you noticed how many times Democrats have used the word filibuster as a reason they can not get anything done? You bought that hook line and sinker didn't you?

Allow me to introduce another phrase that was thrown around a while back but has been kept out of the public media recently.

Do you recall the name Trent Lott? He was the Republican Senator that coined the phrase "Nuclear Option" in regards to ending a filibuster by the.... wait for it.... DEMOCRATS in 2003

Remember Bill Frist? He threatened to use in regards to the ... wait for it.... DEMOCRATS were filibustering on Bush's judicial nominees.

Nuclear option - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An exerpt from the above link:
"In the end, negotiation between the two parties resulted in two packages of "modest" amendments to the rules on filibusters that were approved by the Senate on January 24, 2013, without triggering the nuclear option.[83] Changes to the standing orders affecting just the 2013-14 Congress were passed by a vote of 78 to 16, eliminating the minority party's right to filibuster a bill as long as each party has been permitted to present at least two amendments to the bill.[83] Changes to the permanent Senate rules were passed by a vote of 86 to 9.[83]"


Filibuster is not the one word problem they are leading you to believe is the reason they can not get anything done. The one word problem is "accountability", because ZERO Democrats are holding their elected officials accountable for not getting things done.


So lets back track and summarize.

The SEQUESTER is not the fault of Republicans, because the DEMOCRATS can execute a nuclear option and with a simple majority end the filibuster rule. OR if the DEMOCRATS would allow the Republicans TWO amendments to the bill they can no longer filibuster.

Caveat: IF the Democrats actually wanted to do anything.

Rickh

You make it seem like the filibuster was invented in 2000. You know better. I am not for ending the filibuster. It is a means by which the majority party doesn't steamroll all over the minority party and the country.

Think 2000-2006 When Republicans had EVERYTHING, and that worked out so well.

No one every said they would end the filibuster, just make it to where they actually had to get up there and actually speak or be present if they wanted to keep a bill from being voted on. Like the old days.

I've attached this link:
Physicists Twist Water into Knots: Scientific American

very interesting article on how vortexes are being twisted into knots in water, kind of like the logic of this statement:

"The Democrats are responsible for Republicans having a filibuster option. Democrats ALLOW the obstruction so they can do nothing and blame Republicans for it."

Rand Paul just today is filibustering a nominee:
Rand Paul filibustering Brennan nomination to lead CIA

Don't make this out like it never happens and this is just an excuse. It's how the GOP rolls.

Rickh

back on track:

That "nuclear option" was in the case of judicial nominees, and not normal Senate business. You can not interpret regular bills up for debate to be "constitutional grant of power to the president to name judges with the advice and consent of the Senate" that being 51 Senators.

So since this has nothing to do with appointing judges, none of the previous post was really applicable.

TheOak

Do more reading..... It is not limited to nominations brother. The Congressional Option can be used for anything, especially to kill a filibuster, that is the specific reason the Constitutional Option is present, the framers didn't care for filibustering.

The entire post is applicable because it has everything to do with filibustering.

Rickh

Work, keeps getting in my way but, I will get back to you.

I realize arguing the constitution with a constitionalist is dangerous, but not always fruitless....

TheOak

Arguing is such an ugly word... I prefer education through conflict.

Here, you may understand me a little better after.
http://blackandgold.com/poli/52008-b...-replying.html (Before I start replying)

Rickh

I agree with much of what you say there. Although Reagan and JFK would be Democrats. Reagan could not have been nominated with the state of the current GOP. Eisenhower could never have built the interstate highway system with this congress.

I served also, Army 1986-1994 what branch were you in?

TheOak

ARMY 89-93 13-M
Germany 89-92 Desert Storm V Corps
Ft Polk La. 92-93