Reid goes nuclear

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**DogofWar1**

I'm tired of this debate, I have a paper to work on.

I'm sorry you cannot distinguish the different ways the filibuster has been used by the different parties, or understand that the present use of the filibuster was detrimental to the American system of government and being abused.

You've been missing my point. Expanding the filibuster to the extent it currently exists is bad for ANYONE to do, as it goes from serving as a LAST line of defense to prevent the tyranny of the majority to a purely obstructionist tool (as one can see from the charts I provided, heck ignore parties for a minute and just look at the trends in a vacuum). So let's look through history. Who has significantly expanded use of the filibuster? Republicans, in '93-'94 and again in '07-'08. This would not be a partisan issue if they weren't the only party expanding and abusing the use of the filibuster, but they're the only one.

That is why it is a partisan issue. You are trying to make it a non-partisan issue when the party you're defending has spent several decades politicizing it. I'm simply explaining the trend they caused.

**whembly**

DogofWar1 wrote:
I'm tired of this debate, I have a paper to work on.

I'm sorry you cannot distinguish the different ways the filibuster has been used by the different parties, or understand that the present use of the filibuster was detrimental to the American system of government and being abused.

You've been missing my point. Expanding the filibuster to the extent it currently exists is bad for ANYONE to do, as it goes from serving as a LAST line of defense to prevent the tyranny of the majority to a purely obstructionist tool (as one can see from the charts I provided, heck ignore parties for a minute and just look at the trends in a vacuum). So let's look through history. Who has significantly expanded use of the filibuster? Republicans, in '93-'94 and again in '07-'08. This would not be a partisan issue if they weren't the only party expanding and abusing the use of the filibuster, but they're the only one.

That is why it is a partisan issue. You are trying to make it a non-partisan issue when the party you're defending has spent several decades politicizing it. I'm simply explaining the trend they caused.

I think you're missing the point.

The minority party always has used the filibuster.. .sure it evolved to it's current state, but don't lay that all down on the Republican's feet.

I think you're rationalizing it in this manner because you appear to be more sympathetic in the Democrat's plight.

That's fine...

The real issue is the dubious way how the filibuster itself was changed... which seems to be a violation of the supermajority requirement for mid-session rule changes. That set a precedent for future Senate majorities to pretty much go apeshit over future Senate minorities, no matter which party is represented by which. That guarantees that the Senate will end up with the same level of bipartisan cooperation as the House... which, we all know that the majority House can ignore the minority party if desired. (see the passage of the PPACA)

The Republicans can make Reid pay by miring the Senate through the refusal of unanimous consent... which is how things are NORMALLY processed to speed up the procedural mechanism. This is what the DEMOCRATS threatened to do when the Republicans toyed with this idea during Bush's term.

I think this was done purely for political near term distraction because it makes this fight the big story, rather than the PPACA meltdown... which is something that voters obviously noticed.

**Forar**

Didn't the House Republicans change one of their rules around the time of the government shutdown?

I distinctly recall that happening.

**Dreadclaw69**

DogofWar1 wrote:
I'm tired of this debate, I have a paper to work on.

I'm sorry you cannot distinguish the different ways the filibuster has been used by the different parties, or understand that the present use of the filibuster was detrimental to the American system of government and being abused.

You've been missing my point. Expanding the filibuster to the extent it currently exists is bad for ANYONE to do, as it goes from serving as a LAST line of defense to prevent the tyranny of the majority to a purely obstructionist tool (as one can see from the charts I provided, heck ignore parties for a minute and just look at the trends in a vacuum). So let's look through history. Who has significantly expanded use of the filibuster? Republicans, in '93-'94 and again in '07-'08. This would not be a partisan issue if they weren't the only party expanding and abusing the use of the filibuster, but they're the only one.

That is why it is a partisan issue. You are trying to make it a non-partisan issue when the party you're defending has spent several decades politicizing it. I'm simply explaining the trend they caused

So the best way to stop it being an obstructionist tool is to completely remove it rather than scale it back? I have defended neither party, that much should be clear if you actually read what I said, not what you wanted me to say. Pointing out the inherent hypocrisy of opposing something until it favours you is not being partisan.

I am glad though that you at least understand the idea of the tyranny of the majority. You seemed to be (willfully) conflating it with actual tyranny when I mentioned it.

**Breotan**

Forar wrote:
Didn't the House Republicans change one of their rules around the time of the government shutdown?

I distinctly recall that happening.

Newt Gingrich did. The difference is, Newt didn't have to turn 200 years of House rules on their head in order to pull it off. The majority party in the House of Representatives always has complete control when they have a majority by even by one vote. Been that way since it was first set up. This is why people see what Reid did as a very bad idea, because now the Senate is effectively run the same way. The filibuster now only exists as long as the majority party allows it, or as specified in the Constitution.

**d-usa**

Breotan wrote:
Forar wrote:
Didn't the House Republicans change one of their rules around the time of the government shutdown?

I distinctly recall that happening.
Newt Gingrich did. The difference is, Newt didn't have to turn 200 years of House rules on their head in order to pull it off. The majority party in the House of Representatives always has complete control when they have a majority by even by one vote. Been that way since it was first set up. This is why people see what Reid did as a very bad idea, because now the Senate is effectively run the same way. The filibuster now only exists as long as the majority party allows it, or as specified in the Constitution.

I think he might be talking about the current house. The Republicans have a rule that they will not allow any votes on bills that have enough votes to pass the house unless a majority of the Republican Caucus approves the vote first. That wasn't a change that they made during the shutdown, but people talked about it quite a bit while it was going on.

**Maddermax**

Breotan wrote:
Forar wrote:
Didn't the House Republicans change one of their rules around the time of the government shutdown?

I distinctly recall that happening.
Newt Gingrich did. The difference is, Newt didn't have to turn 200 years of House rules on their head in order to pull it off. The majority party in the House of Representatives always has complete control when they have a majority by even by one vote. Been that way since it was first set up. This is why people see what Reid did as a very bhttp://www.dakkadakka.com/ad idea, because now the Senate is effectively run the same way. The filibuster now only exists as long as the majority party allows it, or as specified in the Constitution.

The original filibuster was basically a loophole that someone found in the mid 1800's after a bunch of rules were cut to try to streamline senate procedure. It was a bug, not a feature, but a useful enough one for promoting debate over certain issues that it was kept on. The problem is now that it's being used to procedurally filibuster every candidate for any position nominated by Obama - not for reasons of incompetence of the candidates, nor even for ideological reasons (because they disagree with the politics or prior rulings of the candidate), but because of matters completely unrelated to the process itself (Bengazi is one excuse, for instance) or because republicans have openly stated they think Obama should not be able to fill certain positions AT ALL, despite laws or the constitution saying he has to appoint people to those positions (the DC circut court is currently 3 judges short, and republicans say that those positions should not be allowed to be filled during Obama's tenure AT ALL, no matter the candidate, for example).

That is unprecedented.

Now, during Bush's years, the Democrats filibusted 10 or so nominees (both for before the Republicans threated the Nuclear Option (and there are many many quote of Republicans in favor of it), and the Democrats cut a deal with Republicans to pass most of the nominees while keeping the filibuster around. Meanwhile, Obama has had what, 80 (or so?) candidates filibustered, half the total number in the entire 200 year history of the filibuster, and have broken all agreements and promises they made when changing the rules was threatened at the beginning of the session. Or, in the words of Norm Ornstein of the American Enteprise Institute (a major conservative think tank):

For whatever reason, the Republicans decided to go nuclear first, with this utterly unnecessary violation of their own agreement and open decision to block the president from filling vacancies for his entire term, no matter how well qualified the nominees," Ornstein told TPM in an email. "It was a set of actions begging for a return nuclear response.

Now, Republicans are threatening to remove the filibuster entirely, instead of just for non-supreme court nominees (so they'll remove the filibuster for general legislation and supreme court nominees), the two areas where it actually made some sort of sense in. But then again, the American system has so many choke points to get any changes through that lowering the bar for the senate is probably a good thing anyway, though they should probably leave at least the speaking filibuster (rather that the stupid silent hold crap) for legislation to allow for more public debate (which is good), but it shouldn't be used as a way to simply stop the senate from operating.

**Ouze**

whembly wrote:
I think this was done purely for political near term distraction because it makes this fight the big story, rather than the PPACA meltdown... which is something that voters obviously noticed.

I will agree the timing is suspect if you will agree the Democrats had little choice in the matter. They threatened the nuclear option earlier, they came to an agreement for the filibustering of nominees to stop, and Republicans broke the agreement and kept doing it. As the social contract had been broken, only Thunderdome remained.

Frankly, the only surprising thing about this whole affair is that the Democrats didn't wuss out as is traditionally their way.

I'd like to reiterate at this point that I think this was a poor choice and I'm not defending it, so much as debating points.

**Ensis Ferrae**

djones520 wrote:
From what I'm seeing on the news, it's no longer proposed, but enacted.

This fething country...

Yeah, I got a random email from one of my state's senators saying how awesome this rule change is.... I dunno, as many times as he said something to the effect of making the government work FOR the people who put them there, I am seriously doubting this will be a good thing.

**dogma**

Co'tor Shas wrote:
Polonius wrote:
Tyranny of the majority is a pretty common phrase in political philosophy, and its use is not incorrect.
Yes but it's not actually tyranny. Just because elected officials use it wrong, doesn't mean you should.

I was unaware that J.S. Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville were elected officials of the United States.

But, if you prefer, we can go way back in time and call it "mob rule".

easysauce wrote:

IE now constitutional amendments will be on the table to go through all the "houses" senate congres ect with just a simple majority.

Senate rules do not impact House rules.

**whembly**

Ouze wrote:
whembly wrote:
I think this was done purely for political near term distraction because it makes this fight the big story, rather than the PPACA meltdown... which is something that voters obviously noticed.

I will agree the timing is suspect if you will agree the Democrats had little choice in the matter. They threatened the nuclear option earlier, they came to an agreement for the filibustering of nominees to stop, and Republicans broke the agreement and kept doing it. As the social contract had been broken, only Thunderdome remained.

Frankly, the only surprising thing about this whole affair is that the Democrats didn't wuss out as is traditionally their way.

I'd like to reiterate at this point that I think this was a poor choice and I'm not defending it, so much as debating points.

Yeah... I'll agree with that.

Both party man...

It's no wonder that there's a large segment of the voters simply throw up the hands at both.

**Jihadin**

Another nail in their coffin to send them to the Unemployment line or whatever. I vote "Do Over" with both parties or something

**easysauce**

dogma wrote:

easysauce wrote:

IE now constitutional amendments will be on the table to go through all the "houses" senate congres ect with just a simple majority.

Senate rules do not impact House rules.

I did not say they did, congress was a simple majority before, I said now they ALL are...

the senate was the last super majority needed, now its ALL a simple majority, what part of that do you not get...

they removed a bottleneck to the whole process, for good or bad, to push through whatever they want to push through without GOP opposition. stop denying it.

now its a free for all, and things are going to swing wildly one way or the other depending on whos in power.

The main reason why a majority of the Senate needs to be able to change the filibuster rule is that otherwise a simple majority of the Senate could effectively amend the Constitution. If a majority of the Senate said that the Senate could not pass a law that increased (or decreased) taxes without a 2/3 vote, and that this rule could not be changed except with a ¾ vote, then – if valid and enforceable – this rule would function like a constitutional amendment. It would give the Senate the power to change the fundamental law of the nation.

http://www.libertylawsite.org/2013/01/03/why-a-majority-of-the-senate-change-the-filibuster-rule/

**DogofWar1**

I'm fairly certain you couldn't get constitutional amendments proposed with a simple majority, the two thirds requirement is written into the Constitution and can't be modified by rules changes. And then you've still got to get it ratified by the state legislatures, so Constitutional Amendments are safe.

whembly wrote:

I think you're missing the point.

The minority party always has used the filibuster.. .sure it evolved to it's current state, but don't lay that all down on the Republican's feet.

Except to understand why this change in rules occurred, you have to understand the evolution, and the evolution is a direct result of changes that have occurred when Republicans have been in the minority. It is a FACT. You keep playing the "well, Democrats did it too" card, when there is a distinct difference to how and how often the filibuster was used prior to 2006 and post 2006.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/11/charts-explain-why-democrats-went-nuclear-filibuster

Maddermax explained what happened very well. Exalt for him.

Once people finally accept the that the filibuster was being used in unprecedented and abusive ways, then this rule change is a fairly obvious one. Could it have been done in a different way? Perhaps, but frankly the filibuster in its current form needed to be done away with. If Republicans do come to power and get rid of it, good. Maybe Congress will actually get something done for once. I'll take a functioning body doing things over one not doing anything any day. At least that way, if they do something we don't like, we can vote them out, versus it not really mattering because nothing's happening anyway. There's still the requirement of the House and President, so there are still checks and balances, and there are still procedural hurdles, like getting things out of committee. But if Congress really wants a filibuster again, they'll hopefully re-implement it with some controls on how its used.

**Ninjacommando**

So having the Filibuster in place to prevent seat stacking with radicals who will put their political ideologies before the good of the country is a bad thing? I'm sorry what?

**DogofWar1**

Ninjacommando wrote:
So having the Filibuster in place to prevent seat stacking with radicals who will put their political ideologies before the good of the country is a bad thing? I'm sorry what?

There was no seat stacking here.

Many of the filibustered judge candidates were actually approved unanimously by committees, meaning Republicans had to vote for them at the committee level as well. If they were truly terrible candidates, there wouldn't be nearly as many coming out of committee by large margins. Some weren't unanimous, but a large number were.

When a candidate gets bi-partisan support at the committee level, but an automatic unbeatable filibuster when it goes to the Senate floor, something fishy is happening.

These were also naturally occurring vacancies. It's not as if anything sinister was happening to create these openings, or as if they were adding seats to benches, these were just naturally occurring openings, and based on the number of times committees approved the candidates by fairly wide margins, they appear to be fairly qualified.

**dogma**

easysauce wrote:

I did not say they did, congress was a simple majority before, I said now they ALL are...

the senate was the last super majority needed, now its ALL a simple majority, what part of that do you not get...

The US Constitution specifically stipulates that a 2/3 majority, in both houses of Congress, is required for the Constitution to be amended. A change in Senate procedural rules does not affect that in any way. All that this change has done is eliminate the possibility of a filibuster regarding Presidential appointees...for now*.

At any rate, to me this reads as vindictive behavior by a Democratic Senator followed by a promise of vindictive behavior by a Republican Senator.

*As Senator McConnell alluded to.

**whembly**

dogma wrote:

At any rate, to me this reads as vindictive behavior by a Democratic Senator followed by a promise of vindictive behavior by a Republican Senator.

Yeah... that's my read too...

Both parties are sucking now.

Imma proposing a "GW-fanboi" party... WHO'S WITH ME!?

**dogma**

whembly wrote:

Imma proposing a "GW-fanboi" party... WHO'S WITH ME!?

How much money do you have?

**whembly**

dogma wrote:
whembly wrote:

Imma proposing a "GW-fanboi" party... WHO'S WITH ME!?

How much money do you have?

Seemingly an unlimited supply of 40k bits, Cheetos and Mountain Dew.

**Forar**

Another arm of the conservative party?

... please proceed.

**Frazzled**

whembly wrote:
dogma wrote:

At any rate, to me this reads as vindictive behavior by a Democratic Senator followed by a promise of vindictive behavior by a Republican Senator.

Yeah... that's my read too...

Both parties are sucking now.

Imma proposing a "GW-fanboi" party... WHO'S WITH ME!?

The wiener legions would be amenable to a coalition government with the GW/Avalon Hill Fanois party, as well as the militant Chocolate Uber Alles! party.

**whembly**

I'd bet this is why Reid went nuclear with respect to those Appellate Judges nominations:

Here come more Obamacare lawsuits

They spell more trouble ahead for the health-care law

The Obamacare rollout has been a debacle, with delays in the implementation of mandates, technical glitches in the exchanges, cancelled individual policies and more.

It's about to get worse. The federal judiciary is currently hearing four cases challenging decisions made by the Internal Revenue Service that could soon deliver more major blows to the Affordable Care Act.

One such decision extended subsidies provided by Obamacare for lower-income individuals and families (those making up to four times the povery level) to people in the 36 states served by the federally-operated exchange, HealthCare.gov.

But the law spells out clearly that such federal subsidies will be granted "through an exchange established by the state" - not that they can be granted by the federal government.

Fair enough. But why would anyone sue to prevent the federal government from giving them money?

Surprisingly, some folks will actually face higher healthcare expenses if they take the federal government's cash.

The first lawsuit - Halbig vs. Sebelius - shows how. One of the plaintiffs, David Klemencic, a West Virginia man who does flooring work, argues that under the Affordable Care Act, he is exempt from the individual mandate because of his low income.

But if the federally operated exchange is authorized to hand out subsidies in his state, he'll no longer be eligible for the exemption. He'll either have to buy an insurance plan on the exchange or pay the fine for refusing to comply with the mandate.

In both instances, his wallet would be lighter than if he were allowed to simply go without insurance.

Klemencic isn't alone. Two other lawsuits that turn on the same issue - that is, whether the federal government is legally authorized to distribute subsidies in the 36 state exchanges they operate - are wending their way through courts in Richmond, Va., and Oklahoma.

There's a fourth legal challenge facing the IRS in Indiana, where the state and 15 public school districts are disputing a ruling from the agency that would extend the employer mandate to state and local governments.

Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller argues that the penalties for failing to comply with the employer mandate - which have been justified by the U.S. Supreme Court as "taxes" - should not apply to his state because the federal government doesn't have the authority to levy taxes on state governments.

The Indiana school districts claim that they'll have to reduce working hours or lay off workers in order to shoulder the increased costs - or financial penalties - the employer mandate would impose upon them.

These school staffers won't be the only ones harmed by the IRS's interpretation of the law. Students will suffer, too, as their teachers will be forced to put in fewer hours.

The decisions in these four cases will only be binding in the jurisdictions where they're brought. But as the American Enterprise Institute's Thomas P. Miller notes, court rulings against the IRS rules and the federal subsidies could create a ripple effect, encouraging other states without state-based exchanges to file similar cases.

The Justice Department claims that not issuing subsidies in states with federal-run exchanges would defeat the purpose of the law and run contrary to what Congress intended.

But there's no better indication of congressional intent than what the law actually says. And as folks in Virginia, Oklahoma, Indiana and around the country are discovering, the administration's preference for implementing Obamacare as it wishes is leading to real harm.

If the courts strike down the IRS rulings, Obamacare will be on its way to busting first in the 36 states served by HealthCare.gov - and then in the rest of the country.

**Easy E**

Whembly, I'm sad that you have moved to Obamacare as the root of all evil instead of Benghazi!

What happened? I thought we had something special. This Obamacare hate is simply cheap and tawdry. Everyone is doing it. Benghazi, Benghazi was something special!

**whembly**

Easy E wrote:
Whembly, I'm sad that you have moved to Obamacare as the root of all evil instead of Benghazi!

I haven't moved on... but, most of ya'll didn't care to hold a lying administration accountable.

What happened? I thought we had something special. This Obamacare hate is simply cheap and tawdry. Everyone is doing it. Benghazi, Benghazi was something special!

PPACA is fething up people's lives... real tangible hardships.

While we lost 4 Americans in Benghazi, the public's attention isn't as sensitive to foreign embassy/wars as they are with hardships on the homefront.