Yeah go read up on Milgram’s shock experiements. He’ll be “just following orders”.
When they don’t have a majority, their options are limited. But they have something.
In the early days of both the House and the Senate, unlimited debate was permitted. This permitted a parliamentary tactic called the “filibuster:” members would simply continue to speak, ostensibly on the topic. In reality, they’d simply talk, going so far as to read the dictionary into the record. This continued until the majority yielded.
As the House grew, it adopted a rule permitting the majority to end debate. The Senate resisted this, the smaller body having a long tradition of letting members have their say, until 1917, when, at the behest of President Wilson, they adopted a rule permitting a two-thirds majority vote to invoke “cloture,” which would end debate and force a vote.
The new rule meant that a single Senator could not filibuster and hold the assembly hostage (“Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” notwithstanding) but getting the required two-thirds was difficult. Southern senators in the fifties and sixties used the tactic to derail civil rights legislation, for instance, because although they lacked the majority, they had enough votes to keep 2/3s at bay. Senator Thurmond once held the floor personally for over 24 hours, talking against the Civil Rights Act of 1957.
In 1975, the Senate changed its rules to permit cloture upon a three-fifths (60) vote instead of two-thirds.
It’s interesting to note that changing the Senate Rules requires a simple majority. Theoretically, a simple majority could force a change to the rules and permit cloture at a simple majority.
But for now, any nomination made by the President under the Senate’s “advise and consent” role requires the Senate to vote, and that vote can be delayed by a filibuster, which can only be defeated by sixty votes.
Thanks for the explanation Rick.
If the Senate Dems don’t take the opportunity to get Gonzalez before them and give him a very lengthy, very public grilling over that torture memo he wrote, I think we’ll have to have them examined to see what happened to their brains.
I THINK the American people are still AGAINST torture. After the last election, I could be wrong …
Actually the appointment is timely. The courts have started the cascading process of repudiating the administration’s “Geneva Conventions do not apply” policy.
Who better to suffer that humiliation than the architects of that policy? Gonzales by name.
The Link: The Roots of Torture
Now that the Courts are deciding the detainees are entitled to Geneva protections, the consequences of unlawful interrogations and detention will play out, on Gonzales’s watch.
I totally agree. The AG needs to be shown right from the get-go that Ashcroft’s way was the wrong way to go, and that the System will destroy anybody who attempts to subvert the rights of the American People.
Og, that sounds pretentious! Oh, well. Pretentious be damned…our rights are more important than getting information from 5th level “terrorists.”
Here is another link: Guantanamo Decision
Well, of course! My wide latitude attitude doesn’t mean not giving him a hard time. Just don’t get too carried away with roadblocks; save that for a more important hill.
Heh. Except that ending a filibuster intended to prevent changing the rules requires the old 67-vote supermajority (cite).
I know that some Constitutional scholars believe that it may be possible to change the rule-change rule with a simple majority, with the claim that it is unconstitional for a prior Senate to bind a present one with a supermajority rule in excess of those called for by the Constitution. But that sounds like a big battle that’s going to take a lot of provocation if it’s to happen.
[QUOTE=manhattanI know that some Constitutional scholars believe that it may be possible to change the rule-change rule with a simple majority, with the claim that it is unconstitional for a prior Senate to bind a present one with a supermajority rule in excess of those called for by the Constitution. But that sounds like a big battle that’s going to take a lot of provocation if it’s to happen.[/QUOTE]
Thanks, now I have to reboot my brain, it just hung.
“It is my great pleasure to introduce you to our new Attorney General, Mr. Matt Drudge.” :eek:
I can’t take credit for this, since a friend of my boyfriend’s wrote it, but I thought it was appropriate for the thread:
John Ashcroft pre-resignation checklist
November 9, 2004
*Remove personal articles from his desk.
*Clean out office mini-fridge.
*Submit final timesheet to the office secretary.
*Disconnect secret red office phone that provides direct line to Jesus
Christ.
*Refill water dish for the six hooded detainees chained up in the crawl
space behind his closet wall.
*Call family, promise to spend more time in the future creeping the hell out
of his grandchildren.
*Spend a final whimsical afternoon on the roof of the RFK Building, dropping
hardcover Bibles onto the heathens on the sidewalk below.
*Remind American people that no domestic terrorist attack has occurred on
his watch except for the one three years ago that killed more than 2000
people and forever shattered our national sense of security.
*And the anthrax letters. Almost forgot about those anthrax letters.
*Head to National Archives, borrow original U.S. Constitution for one last
long, satisfying ass-wipe.
*Seek rematch in his beyond-the-grave rivalry with deceased Missouri Senator
Mel Carnahan.
*Spot-check the nation’s library reading rooms one last time with his
patented Ashscope.
*Release sickly, emaciated bald eagle from the tiny birdcage above his desk,
leave it to fend for itself through the winter on the cold streets of
Washington, D.C.
*Make hurried, last-ditch effort to detain and successfully prosecute an
actual terrorist.
*Halfheartedly search office for those civil liberties that went missing
while he was in there.
Janet saved the brat from the dolphin.
You forgot to mention the Nipples of Statues.
Unless all topless statues are covered, the Terrorists have won!
The problem here is that, due to the overlapping terms requirement, the legal conception is that while there have been over a hundred Congresses since the adoption of the Constitution, there has been only one, continuing Senate, which happens to change up to a third of its membership every two years. Therefore, while a bicameral Congressional or House rule could be construed as “a previous Congress/House attempting to bind a later one,” the Senate has been the same body, merely with a changing membership, since John Adams first convened it, and its rules continue until changed in accordance with themselves.
This is potentially the most intriguing comment ever made on the SDMB.
As a person with limited knowledge of and an initial negative view of Mr. Gonzalez but who believes in forming opinions based on the best possible information, including the insights of reliable persons, I would be most grateful if you would be willing to essay a more in-depth characterization of the man, perhaps in a new thread, based on your own experience. I’m rather disinclined to believe in either the halo mentioned by the Decembrists or the cloven hooves and red arrowhead tail which some of the more liberal members here have described; who is he really?
I think that’s called the “limitations of statues.”
What I want to know is will Gonzo attach electrodes to the sculptures?
But does that matter? If a majority of the Senate makes an illegal rule change, who’s going to stop them? Can’t call the police, can’t take it to the Supremes (or if they could, it would be an excercise in futility.)
I fear our only hope in this is that what few moderate Republicans remain grow some stones and some scruples. Chances: slim and none.
Amen post.
Another Amen to Poly.
A personal vouch from Minty might be enough to turn me around on Gonzalez. I’d like to hear more.