Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 easysauce wrote:

wow... thats the kind of blind partisianism that will destroy america...

Well, perhaps, but the rise in filibustering as an obstruction tool has principally grown under Republicans, especially in the aftermath of 2006. They are exercising a form of blind partisanship to block significantly more than at any point previously. They are reaping what they have sown. Attempting to make the system work more efficiently in the face of obstruction is an attempt to revert to the way things were run prior to 1975, and for that matter, only when dealing with non-Supreme Court nominees, not Supreme Court nominees, or legislation.

 easysauce wrote:
they cant filibuster whenever they want to... still needs the house to be roughly evenly split, to force compromise. its quite hypocritical for the democrats to laud the filibuster as a minority, then change the rules, "conveniently" when they are in power, by such a small majority, and conveniently to appoint 3 new uneeded judges, who would give them more #'s there too.

The filibuster isn't dependent on the House, so I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. Filibuster numbers were higher prior to the Republicans taking control of the House, and are still high now. The filibuster is dependent on the number of minority senators.

And again, the filibuster's use increased significantly starting in the Congress elected after 2006, after Republicans lost control. The defense of the filibuster was predicated on it being used in the manner it was prior to that point. The nature of the use has changed since then.

And the "uneeded" judges argument is a bit silly. There are three open seats on the court. No seats were "added" to stack it, this is simply a function of replacing natural losses. It's similar to if the Supreme Court had only 6 justices on it, instead of 9. Sure, there might be balance, but the modern court was designed to hold 9. Blocking nominations to a court because your party got unlucky and wasn't holding the White House when people left is not sporting, when that was pretty much the S.O.P. prior to all this filibuster business.

If Obama was legitimately trying to add seats to the court, then fine, I would agree, but that's not what's happening here.

 easysauce wrote:
they just set themselves up to be able to ram pretty much whatever they want through, by changing the rules, in a way that THEY THEMSELVES have said is wrong, and unamerican.

who needs checks and balances in the US government, what with the NSA, the TSA, homeland security, the patriot act, and so on and so on....

lets just keep making it easier and easier to cram stuff they havnt read through and force it on the people.

Well, what you've said could be considered the case, except that this change deals with non-SC nominees, not legislation, or Supreme Court nominees, for that matter.

 easysauce wrote:
even if it was the best idea ever, its still hyppocritical/flip flopping, and at the most opportune time.

The most opportune time would have been shortly after the 2008 election, when Democrats realized that Republicans were going to use the filibuster a historically unprecedented number of times.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'll admit, I'm not 100% thrilled with the possibility of a race to the bottom with the filibuster, where Reid eliminates it for non-SC nominees, then McConnell/whoever eventually turns around and eliminates it for EVERYTHING, resulting in the filibuster being eliminated altogether.

The filibuster does have some value, BUT it needed to be reformed, as its present use was not in keeping with its historical purpose or function. This is probably the easiest way to do, with the caveat being that it's likely not the best way.

Of course, debate rages as to what is the best way to reform the filibuster is, so in the absence of people agreeing on reform, this relatively narrow change (compared to, say, removing the filibuster altogether) might actually be the best option.

My personal plan:
- Make it so that each Senator may start a "virtual" filibuster only ONCE per 2 year session, and only AFTER they've performed a "standing" filibuster for 2 hours (with health waivers able to be granted). Essentially, if you want to filibuster, you need to get someone to stand up there for two hours and talk, and then you can transfer to a virtual one, but it has to be someone different each time.
- Allow for unlimited "standing" filibusters in line with the rules prior to 1975.

By reducing the number of virtual filibusters, it forces the minority party to choose what they blindly filibuster far more carefully. And while "standing" filibusters can be abused, it's tougher to coordinate someone standing up there talking for hours on end, and it increases visibility of their filibuster, so if they want to filibuster something very popular, they have to deal with the consequences. It would reward good filibuster management, and punish poor management

whembly wrote:But, in this case, it's being done because of:
1. Packing the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. This court is important because most challenges to federal regulations go through that court.

"Packing a court" has a specific definition, which does not encompass routine filling of vacancies. You don't like the president filling those vacancies? Tough, as you said:

whembly wrote:But, then again... election do have consequences. So, there is that.

So, we agree.

DogofWar1 wrote:So is his prior statement inconsistent with his present action? Yes. Is there a reason they are inconsistent? Yes, the situation has changed.

Agree 100%. Things have become untenable. Claiming that this "undoes 200 years of history" is ignorant at best and duplicitous at worst because the rule has had many modifications over that timeframe. That being said, I would not have gone the route they have gone - essentially removing the filibuster except for Supremes. I think they have overreached and the filibuster is an important tool to prevent the tyranny of the majority.

My preferred resolution would have been to undo the 1975 changes to rule 22: if you want to filibuster; you have to actually filibuster. Stand there and read the phone book for 10 hours, etc - no more of this threat to filibuster being the same as a de facto filibuster. It would get used a lot less as a matter-of-course-cockblock but still be available to prevent things that really need to be prevented.

Oh man, "matter-of-course-cockblock."

That's a beautiful way to put it.

God damn, I mean the Republican leadership has shown that it's pants on head dumb, but who would've thought they'd reach this level of trying-to-feth-a-doorknob stupid?

Along with the three DC positions (and for any mouth-breathers who try and wheeze out 'court-packing' I'm going to point out that nominees picked by the president in alignment with his goals and then approved by a MAJORITY of the senate is how it's supposed to fething work) there are 873 federal judiciary positions - 390 seated by Republicans, 391 seated by Democrats, and 93 vacancies awaiting appointment. Out of those, something like less than half even have nominees, because the fight the White House would have had to go through for all of them made them low priority.

If the GOP geniuses had skipped the bs empty grandstanding on the DC appeals court positions then this equilibrium probably would've persisted right through 2016. If all the pres has got to do is pick butts to fiil those position that just has to win a straight party line vote, how do you think that balance is going to look in a year's time?

Wait, no one has said its Bush's fault yet. Can I be the first?

As a conservative I look forward to the Republicans abolishing filibuster for everything. Viva democracy!

PhantomViper wrote:
So removing stuff that is preventing your government from doing some actual governance is bad because?

Or is this just another example of: "we don't wan't the people that the majority of the US citizens actually voted for to actually do something"? The Democrats won the Senate, don't you think that its past time that the Republicans actually abide by the will of the America people instead of just trying to sandbag everything?

If these types of shenanigans happened over here in the Communist Paradise of Europe you'd have riots on the streets...

The majority of people in many states voted against gay marriage, also. Are you suggesting it should be as the majority wishes with something like that?

 whembly wrote:
Or as Mitch McConnel stated:

“Think about it: The Majority Leader promised over and over again that he wouldn’t break the rules of the Senate in order to change them. On July 14 he went on ‘Meet the Press’ and he said: ‘We’re not touching judges.’
“He may as well just have said ‘If you like the rules of the Senate you can keep them.’

Alright that was a pretty good line.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Seaward wrote:
Was that your argument when Bush was president? "Hey, the majority voted for him, do what he wants!"?

Except, of course, this doesn't remove the filibuster entirely. Just removes it on most presidential appointments. So he's the president, and if he can get 51 senators to agree with his appointments, they happen.

Well... lets just wait till the tables are turned I guess. Let the dems reap what they sowed.

 whembly wrote:

4. Longterm... this is a stupid thing for the Democrats to push. There's a chance that they may not have the majority next year. This change in the filibuster rule apparently will only apply to executive nominations according to Reid... but once that cat is out of the bag, all bets are off.

The senate procedural rules are hardly steeped in tradition, where one change would unravel the sanctity with which they've been held, and open the door to all kinds of unknown changes. They are reformed. Hell, the filibuster vote is a procedural reform to stop gumming up senate operations with endless speaches whenever some senator wants to make a stand on an issue.

I'm seeing a gak ton of twitter responses like this:

Looks like Obamacare can now be repealed with 51 votes. Excellent.

— Nathan Wurtzel (@NathanWurtzel) November 21, 2013

While that can potentially happen... what will the rest of the Senate's governance will look like?

This doesn't affect the rules for repeal, nor does it affect a minority party's ability to filibuster any repeal.

 sebster wrote:

I'm seeing a gak ton of twitter responses like this:

Looks like Obamacare can now be repealed with 51 votes. Excellent.

— Nathan Wurtzel (@NathanWurtzel) November 21, 2013

While that can potentially happen... what will the rest of the Senate's governance will look like?

This doesn't affect the rules for repeal, nor does it affect a minority party's ability to filibuster any repeal.

At this present time Seb... that's correct.

But, what's to say that they couldn't change those rules as well... and make ALL filibuster subject to be overturned by only simple majority.

 whembly wrote:
Eh... it's only been a rule since 1806.

Not really. Filibuster has been around since then, but for most of that time it required the minority to prevent a vote by actually spending all that time on the floor speachifying. Cloture rules that prevent filibustering have been in since the 1950s, being revised from time to time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 whembly wrote:
At this present time Seb... that's correct.

But, what's to say that they couldn't change those rules as well... and make ALL filibuster subject to be overturned by only simple majority.

There's nothing to say they won't change those rules. But that's the case whether this adjustment is made or not.

This adjustment was made Sebster. Happened earlier today.

You know......I would pay good money to see Whembly do a serious debate with himself.

 Jihadin wrote:
You know......I would pay good money to see Whembly do a serious debate with himself.

Only on PPV brother!

Gotta support my plastic-crack habit somehow...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 djones520 wrote:
This adjustment was made Sebster. Happened earlier today.

Seb... what this guy said.

Well, it'll come down to their self-control, I guess.

I don't think either side has the balls to do that though, which is why all the Republican whining is amusing.

The 800 pound Gorillas are Supreme Court nominees and Legislation, neither of which have been changed. Republicans are talking about how they're taking away the filibuster for everything when they get back in charge, but I don't know how seriously I take that threat. I mean, the whole reason you wouldn't remove the filibuster on legislation or SC justices is so that you have it when you need it, but because the Democrats removed the filibuster for non-SC nominees, you're going to get rid of ALL filibusters, which turns against you the moment you lose power.

I don't think Republican leadership is THAT short sighted.

There is one little detail I think people are missing here. It is supposed to take 67 votes to change a Senate rule. Reed did it with 52. He essentially changed a Senate rule without a vote. Even if this rule change is temporary, it is now a precedent and future Senates can go forward with all sorts of shenanigans with the rules, essentially becoming like the House where the minority party is completely out of power.

 Breotan wrote:
There is one little detail I think people are missing here. It is supposed to take 67 votes to change a Senate rule. Reed did it with 52. He essentially changed a Senate rule without a vote.

What is the specific mechanism by which this was done? I'm not familiar enough with legislative arcana, but I know it's not Calvinball - there must have been some clause that allowed this.

Besides the filibuster, the Senate has another rule that requires a super-majority to make changes to the Senate rules. It's not in the Constitution, it's just a rule. As I understand it, Reid decided that requiring a super-majority to change Senate rules was un-Constitutional (the nuclear part of the "nuclear option") because the Constitution has specific wording about when a super-majority is required. Once they did that, Reid put the filibuster rules up to a vote requiring a simple majority.

The problem is that doing this establishes precedent and can be used for any other instance that the Senate rules require a super-majority and the Constitution does not. This essentially threatens "minority rights" of whichever party is out of power. The minority power thus loses any ability to force negotiations on issues that the majority refuses to allow. Yes, it's the Republicans in the minority now but it will be the Democrats in the future and Reid really doesn't seem to have considered the consequences of that reality.

I think if I read it right (through no news sources seem to be pretty clear as to the "how", so this is the combined bits and pieces from many of them) they didn't really change any actual rules, so no "super-majority" was required.

As head-Senate-person Reid made a ruling that with the way the current rules are written a cloture vote doesn't require 60 votes if the filibuster deals with executive appointments and judicial appointments (except the SCOTUS). That doesn't involve any actual "we are changing the rules" procedures and is just a "this is how the President of the Senate interprets these rules" parliamentary procedure. The Republicans objected to that ruling, and then a vote was held to decide if the ruling was valid. Voting on Presidential rulings only require a simple majority to uphold, so no Senate rules were broken.

So in summary:

Changing the Senate Rules requires a super-majority.
President of the Senate going "I think this is how it works" only require a simple majority to uphold.

At least I think so. That place is a cluster-feth, so who really knows...

I was trying to read the wikipedia page on it, which more or less follows what d-usa was saying, I think, but it's not super clear.

Basically, there was some parliamentary procedure available for the party in power to eliminate the filibuster at least in part through a series of majority votes. It's not a new avenue, in terms of how long it's existed, it has simply not been used before.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option

 DogofWar1 wrote:
Well, it'll come down to their self-control, I guess.

I don't think either side has the balls to do that though, which is why all the Republican whining is amusing.

The 800 pound Gorillas are Supreme Court nominees and Legislation, neither of which have been changed. Republicans are talking about how they're taking away the filibuster for everything when they get back in charge, but I don't know how seriously I take that threat. I mean, the whole reason you wouldn't remove the filibuster on legislation or SC justices is so that you have it when you need it, but because the Democrats removed the filibuster for non-SC nominees, you're going to get rid of ALL filibusters, which turns against you the moment you lose power.

I don't think Republican leadership is THAT short sighted.

Take it as a serious threat. once the rubicon has been crossed there is no going back.

 djones520 wrote:
Well... lets just wait till the tables are turned I guess. Let the dems reap what they sowed.

I would have thought that since this was so egrgious of a violation, that any future Republican majority would immediately reinstate the filibuster rules on Presindential appointees right? That's the moral thing to do correct?

 Easy E wrote:
I would have thought that since this was so egrgious of a violation, that any future Republican majority would immediately reinstate the filibuster rules on Presindential appointees right? That's the moral thing to do correct?

It would be, yeah. I generally advise against sinking to the Democrats' level.

Of course, I half-expect Reid, when he becomes a lame duck, to re-institute them himself.

 Easy E wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
Well... lets just wait till the tables are turned I guess. Let the dems reap what they sowed.

I would have thought that since this was so egrgious of a violation, that any future Republican majority would immediately reinstate the filibuster rules on Presindential appointees right? That's the moral thing to do correct?

No the appropriate thing is to slaughter the Democrats with the same rule and then some.
"If they put one of your guys in the hospital, you put two of theirs in the morgue. Its our way. The Chicago Way."
- Candidate Obama.

 Seaward wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
I would have thought that since this was so egrgious of a violation, that any future Republican majority would immediately reinstate the filibuster rules on Presindential appointees right? That's the moral thing to do correct?

It would be, yeah. I generally advise against sinking to the Democrats' level.

Of course, I half-expect Reid, when he becomes a lame duck, to re-institute them himself.

Too bad they are just threatening to expand it from low-level judicial appointees to Supreme Court nominees; instead of saying they will simply reinstate the rules.

Political theatre is amusing.

 Easy E wrote:
Too bad they are just threatening to expand it from low-level judicial appointees to Supreme Court nominees; instead of saying they will simply reinstate the rules.

Political theatre is amusing.

It is indeed a shame. It was extraordinarily dumb of the Democrats to prompt such talk in the first place.

Relapse wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:
So removing stuff that is preventing your government from doing some actual governance is bad because?

Or is this just another example of: "we don't wan't the people that the majority of the US citizens actually voted for to actually do something"? The Democrats won the Senate, don't you think that its past time that the Republicans actually abide by the will of the America people instead of just trying to sandbag everything?

If these types of shenanigans happened over here in the Communist Paradise of Europe you'd have riots on the streets...

The majority of people in many states voted against gay marriage, also. Are you suggesting it should be as the majority wishes with something like that?

Isn't gay marriage still forbidden in those states? Did you have any state legalize gay marriage where there wasn't a majority of votes for it by the state representatives? I don't understand this question...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frazzled wrote:
Wait, no one has said its Bush's fault yet. Can I be the first?

As a conservative I look forward to the Republicans abolishing filibuster for everything. Viva democracy!

You are assuming that the Republicans will actually win any elections in the foreseeable future...

 d-usa wrote:
Changing the Senate Rules requires a super-majority.
President of the Senate going "I think this is how it works" only require a simple majority to uphold.

At least I think so. That place is a cluster-feth, so who really knows...

Some news sites are claiming it's more serious than that. One is even claiming that if a Republican is elected President in 2017 and they get even 50 votes in the Senate (the Vice President breaks ties) then they can vote Obamacare out of existence with a simple majority. I don't know if this is true or not, and would doubt it would happen even if it were, but it shows how serious this precedent is that Reid just set.

 Frazzled wrote:

Take it as a serious threat. once the rubicon has been crossed there is no going back.

Eh, it's more like one Rubicon, and two Pacific Oceans. It's the smallest of the three things they could have tossed the filibuster on. Heck, with the way the filibuster is used now, it likely increases efficiency of the government. While the DC Circuit might not be overworked atm, if another Circuit were to become overburdened, this rule would actually be positive. And filling executive positions, likewise, can increase efficiency of departments. I would be willing to bet $20 that in the long run, there could be a net positive effect of this rule BY ITSELF.

Republicans might escalate, but while this action by Democrats is fairly narrow and in response to specific action by Republicans, Republicans killing the filibuster for everything would be escalating for the sake of escalating.

Which doesn't leave me much hope for restraint on their part, admittedly.

 DogofWar1 wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

Take it as a serious threat. once the rubicon has been crossed there is no going back.

Eh, it's more like one Rubicon, and two Pacific Oceans. It's the smallest of the three things they could have tossed the filibuster on. Heck, with the way the filibuster is used now, it likely increases efficiency of the government. While the DC Circuit might not be overworked atm, if another Circuit were to become overburdened, this rule would actually be positive. And filling executive positions, likewise, can increase efficiency of departments. I would be willing to bet $20 that in the long run, there could be a net positive effect of this rule BY ITSELF.

Republicans might escalate, but while this action by Democrats is fairly narrow and in response to specific action by Republicans, Republicans killing the filibuster for everything would be escalating for the sake of escalating.

Which doesn't leave me much hope for restraint on their part, admittedly.

NO. Once you get rid of the filibuster for one thing, the other things only survive until the next election. To think otherwise is the height of stupidity. The Senate as a "deliberative body" is no more.

Meh, whatever.