Democrats Killing Filibuster
The Filibuster is a Senate construct that is not in the Constitution. The Senators have simply agreed to allow this option to exist as an exercise in fidelity with each other. It was agreed to for various reasons, but mainly because the Senate was designed to be collegial and deliberate in its actions. The Senate was never designed to be representative of a democracy. Its purpose was to protect the interest of states, not the people.
Over the last 200 or so years, the minority party has been able to take advantage of this agreement without overstepping the bounds where the majority stops agreeing to it. The Majority has always been able to take it away, but left it in place because it recognized that it would some day be in the minority. But at the same time, the majority was not willing to punt the power of the majority for the future use of a filibuster.
So, it is a balancing act. Use the filibuster on key issues, and use it sparingly. When the majority is no longer willing to take it, use it less, or cave. It will be the rare issue that 51 senators feel strongly enough to kill the filibuster forever.
Currently, we have the most monolithic parties ever in the senate. There has never been a time where the republican party, for example, were so closely aligned in their beliefs. The same is true of the democrats too.
So the Democrats are now using a filibuster against a unified majority party that has the ability and will to end the practice altogether. The Republicans know that they will be in the minority someday, but enough believe that the democrats are so wrong in the use of the filibuster to block 10 judges that they are willing to punt the practice altogether. And the Republicans have the power to do that.
Are the democrats insane? What in the world are they thinking about? Not only will they be left with no filibuster for the Supreme Court nominations this summer, but they will have irrevocably changed the nature of the Senate.
Take a step back from the abyss! Save the filibuster! Vote on 10 judges to save the practice for the future!
posted by Jrudkis @ 9:03 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Can a filibuster be used to block the move to end the filibuster?
Only if the majority agrees to keep the rules. Which they are not likely to do.
I believe that the last time it was modified (by Bird and the democrats) such that it went from 67 votes to 60 votes to break the filibuster, the change was made with a simple majority.
Using the filibuster to delay debate or block legislation has a long history. In the United States, the term filibuster -- from a Dutch word meaning "pirate" -- became popular in the 1850s when it was applied to efforts to hold the Senate floor in order to prevent action on a bill.
In the early years of Congress, representatives as well as senators could use the filibuster technique. As the House grew in numbers, however, it was necessary to revise House rules to limit debate. In the smaller Senate, unlimited debate continued since senators believed any member should have the right to speak as long as necessary.
In 1841, when the Democratic minority hoped to block a bank bill promoted by Henry Clay, Clay threatened to change Senate rules to allow the majority to close debate. Thomas Hart Benton angrily rebuked his colleague, accusing Clay of trying to stifle the Senate's right to unlimited debate. Unlimited debate remained in place in the Senate until 1917. At that time, at the suggestion of President Woodrow Wilson, the Senate adopted a rule (Rule 22) that allowed the Senate to end a debate with a two-thirds majority vote -- a tactic known as "cloture."
The new Senate rule was put to the test in 1919, when the Senate invoked cloture to end a filibuster against the Treaty of Versailles. Despite the new cloture rule, however, filibusters continued to be an effective means to block legislation, due in part to the fact that a two-thirds majority vote is difficult to obtain. Over the next several decades, the Senate tried numerous times to evoke cloture, but failed to gain the necessary two-thirds vote. Filibusters were particularly useful to southern senators blocking civil rights legislation in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1975, the Senate reduced the number of votes required for cloture from two-thirds (67) to three-fifths (60) of the 100-member Senate.
Many Americans are familiar with the hours-long filibuster of Senator Jefferson Smith in Frank Capra's film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, but there have been some famous filibusters in the real-life Senate as well. During the 1930s, Senator Huey P. Long effectively used the filibuster against bills that he thought favored the rich over the poor. The Louisiana senator frustrated his colleagues while entertaining spectators with his recitations of Shakespeare and his reading of recipes for "pot-likkers." Long once held the Senate floor for fifteen hours. The record for the longest individual speech goes to South Carolina's J. Strom Thurmond who filibustered for 24 hours and 18 minutes against the Civil Rights Act of 1957.
http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Filibuster_Cloture.htm
I'm not sure if I understand your answer. If the majority is not likely to agree to keeping the rules, could the minority filibuster to prevent a vote on the change in the rules?
The republicans have to pitch several rules and traditions to do this at this point. Theoretically, the rules themselves prevent changing the rules during a session. The republicans are theoretically barred from making this change now based on the same rules that provide for the filibuster.
So what I am saying is that the Republicans are simply having a coup and saying that only the Constitution matters, and none of the Senate made rules are binding on a 51 member majority.
So they have to break the rules, which they say do not matter, in order to change the rules, which they say do not matter.
Right.
Post a Comment
<< Home