A quorum only requires 51 senators. So the minimum number of senators needed is 35.
Nope. Ratification of treaties requires a supermajority to be ratified. A supermajority is 67, not 35. Nice try, though.
Yes, the constitution requires a supermajority (2/3)–of the senators present.
emphasis added.
And how many senators need to be present?
Not for the Dems it wouldn’t; the GOP will hammer home the message that your taxes went up because the Dems wouldn’t vote to extend the Bush tax cuts for everybody. “We kept offering to extend the cuts for everybody, but the Democrat party kept saying no.” (There’s a flip side to that – “The Republicans wouldn’t sign off on keeping your taxes low unless we agreed to keep everybody’s taxes low” – but it’s a losing argument in the war of sound bites, and by all indications the post-midterm Dems know it.)
By all indications, the Repubs already ain’t going that route.
The cites I’ve found all indicate that a supermajority is required, with the historical reasoning being that a treaty needs to have broad bipartisan support to be successful, and because one party seldom holds 67 seats. Thirty-five senators is barely over one-third of the Senate; it’s difficult to see any scenario where such a minority can have broad support.
I am aware that the Constitution says "members present " (Article II, Section 2), but in practice anyway, it really means “2/3 of Senators”.
The Senate passed the London Naval Treaty 58 to 9 on a quorum of 67 (there were 96 senators at the time). This vote would not have met a 2/3 requirement of the full Senate, which would have required 65 votes.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,739908,00.html
I believe there are other examples.
I did a search and see no one mentioned the stunt New Gingrich pulled in 1995 after the pubs won their “mandate” (the kind that doesn’t involve an airport bathroom). It was shown to be petty and mean-spirited and they ended up paying for it with their constituents.
The tax cuts were fucking retarded to begin with. Let them expire. Good riddance.
Your first win assumes the House (using that democratic majority we all love) doesn’t pass the tax cuts on 1/3/11.
That is the Democrat doomsday scenario.
Can’t really blame the Republicans at this point. Looks like they are going to get pretty much everything they want.
In further news, the GOP has also demanded that Obama give the Republican members all of his lunch money. Obama responded by crying by himself in the washroom, and then trying to find a different route home, so the Republicans couldn’t find him.
The country, I mean. If the repulicans do get this, and it looks like they will, they’re not about to stop there. I think it’s called “smell blood”.
Crap.
Perhaps Pelosi will decide to primary him in 2012.
There’s no upside for Pelosi.
Try it this way, then: the Senate can conduct business whenever 51 or more Senators are present – actually, if one or two seats are vacant, as often happens, with 50 present. I completely agree that in practice nearly all seated Senators will be present for a vote – and that advice and consent call for 2/3 of the Senators present, likely to be in the high 90s, and hence requiring yea votes in the upper 60s to ratify treaties and appointments. But the requirement is for 2/3 of those present, not 67 (2/3 of the full complement of 100). In fact, until Al Franken was seated, even if every seated Senator were present. tje 2/3 majority in this Congress was 66, 2/3 of 99.
In the statistically improbable but not impossible event that death, severe illness, severe weather, or a combination of them and other factors, reduces the number of Senators who are physically able to make it to Washington and into the Senate chamber to 51, it would still be possible for the Senate to continue conducting the nation’s business, providing all are present at the time – and they can pass measures by a simple majority of 26 Senators, and those things requiring a 2/3 supermajority by 34 yea votes (not 35 – a 2/3 majority is 2/3 or more, not more than 2/3). It’s a case of taken-to-extreme trivia, but true. In practice, you might have later this month a situation where 13 Senators are snowed in after Christmas and cannot return to Washington in response to a continuing lame duck session. The remaining 87 Senators would be able to conduct business however, as 87 is well above the quorum figure – 44 (not 51) Senators could pass by simple majority, 58 (not 67) by 2/3 supermajority. In practice, anything it is not critical to pass immediately (e.g, budget continuation bill) will be tabled for vote after the 13 snowbound Senators are able to join them. But we are talking about what they are permitted to do by law, not what they are likely to do. I have the legal right to join the Mormon Church, a nudist camp, and the Glenn Beck Fan Club. The fact that I’m about as likely to do any of them as I am to receive the Nobel Peace Prize does not invalidate my right to do so. Likewise, what the Senate is likely to do does not invalidate statements about what they could legally do.
How about “Republicans are holding the unemployed hostage to continue deficit expanding tax cuts for the rich?” That sounds pithy enough for a sound bite.
BTW, it’s the Democratic Party, not the “Democrat party.”
Our people, as a more or less general rule, don’t want to be bothered with the burdens of citizenship in a democracy. They want things to just go along, they dislike difficult choices intensely. They will dislike the man who insists that there are difficult choices to make, and further insists that they make them.
You can’t just send them the memo, you have to staple it to their nose. And they will resent you for your rude intrusion. Its entirely true, what you just said, clear as the memo stapled to the nose on your face. But the Pubbies hire skilled, cynical professionals to advise them how to frame their deflection, how to deny the perfectly obvious.
But this time, its really weak. Did you listen to what they were saying? Their excuse was “uncertainty”, that the engines of the economy weren’t turning because the hiring class was “uncertain” about the tax structure, paralyzed by uncertainty. That was their main talking point, pretty weak tea. Why, we could remove that uncertainty in an instant, if they would have let us.
I think this time it didn’t work. This is just the impression I get from waving my antennae in the air and picking up the vibes, no cite will be offered. “Give us what we want, or your unemployed brother-in-law will be hitting you up for Christmas money. Or food. We will shoot this dog, border collie brains all over the wall!”
Sometimes, the best we can hope for is that they overplay their hand. I think they have.
Polycarp, you’re right. 34. I screwed up the math.
I know; it was supposed to read like what I figure the GOP would say, and I was figuring they’d say “the Democrat party”.
As for the larger point – yeah, it’s a good try, but pass over the symmetrical response – “Democrats are holding the unemployed hostage to fight tax cuts for all” – to note that the problem now is that the GOP can enthusiastically hold themselves out as compromise-minded pragmatists: “We agreed with President Obama about extending unemployment benefits and tax cuts for everybody, but the Democrats in Congress shot it down.” That would, IMHO, rile up the voters something fierce against the Democrats in Congress, no?
Granted, if we turn back the clock and imagine Obama hasn’t yet signed on for that – well, again IMHO, it still plays out worse for the Dems. “We kept offering continued unemployment benefits in exchange for continued tax cuts for everybody, but the Democrats kept refusing. We suggested various spending cuts; they wouldn’t compromise.”
When talking to my conservative friends at work I mention that about the only thing we can do that would show an immediate and obvoius effect on the deficit is to let the republican tax break expire. They grunt and grumble that that’s right, but won’t admit that it’s worth a try. They like to go on about “small business” solving the employment problem. Minimum wage jobs are not going to solve anything. What’s needed is jobs that pay enough to buy 52 inch tvs and the like. People who make good money (such as myself) always seem to have opinions about what “they”, meaning others, need.
The gap needs to shrink.