Are the Democrats so arrogant that they think they’ll control the Senate forever?
At some point there will be a Rep majority. Then the Democrats will curse the day that Reid changed the rules. This change ultimately screws both sides.
“This is the single most significant vote any one of us will cast in my 32 years in the Senate. I suspect the Senator would agree with that. We should make no mistake. This nuclear option is ultimately an example of the arrogance of power. It is a fundamental power grab by the majority party…”
–Senator Joe Biden, May 2005.
“What [the American people] don’t expect is for one party, be it Republican or Democrat, to change the rules in the middle of the game so they can make all the decisions while the other party is told to sit down and keep quiet.”
–Senator Barack Obama, April 2005
“A simple majority can change anything. Mr. President, this is the way it should be. You should not be able to come in here and change willy-nilly a rule of the Senate.”
–Senator Harry Reid, May 2005
Intransigent, my foot.
The Republicans would certainly have done it themselves, if the Democrats had started using the Filibuster as profligately. They threatened to change the rules, back when the Democrats were using it far more sparingly.
Yes, it screws both sides, but the Republicans were the fools by using it at every drop of a hat, instead of reserving it as a tool-of-last-resort, as it had been used for over a century.
Too bad they also didn’t end the fillibuster period. That they can still use it for regular legislation is stupid. But it sounds like it’ll be gone entirely in 2014 when republicans win control of the senate (I see this as inevitable). So the republicans will do one decent thing at least, if they follow through with the nuclear option of destroying the fillibuster entirely. It was long overdue.
No, it ultimately allows a majority to decide when to vote on certain nominations, rather than a super-majority. By allowing a simple majority to conduct business, it allows the nation’s business to be conducted by the party in control of the chamber, rather than at the pleasure of party that is perpetually pissed off. Will the Democrats someday be in the minority? Of course, and then they will not be able to control the agenda of the chamber on appointments. Fair play is not screwing both sides.
I predict that will change if say Scalia retired and Obama got to name his replacement.
I applaud the move, I don’t think for a minute that McConnell would hesitate to eliminate all filibusters should he gain the majority and had a Republican president, even if Reid didn’t do what he did.
I have to laugh at the idea of Republicans threatening to nominate more Scalias and Alitos and Janice Rogers Browns if they’re ever in the majority again. Is there a word for threatening to do the thing you intend to do regardless?
Also, the notion that executive branch nominees are something that should be subject to the filibuster is ridiculous. Judges serve for life, so the filibuster is actually somewhat defensible there. But executive branch appointees get cycled out every time a new president assumes power, so filibusters should be extremely rare in that case, like if the president wants to appoint a Rasputin, or Ron Paul to head the Federal Reserve. Does anyone really believe that a Rasputin was nominated to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and needs to be stopped?
Several sources have mentioned another benefit–this means Obama can shake his cabinet up. In particular, he could let Sebelius go and hopefully take some of the heat off from the ACA implementation. Before this he never would have been able to get a replacement confirmed.
Andrew Cohen had a great column in The Atlantic about why ending the filibuster for judicial nominees would be a good thing, because it will force discussions about nominees to be in the open and on his/her own respective merits.
The republicans can change the rules themselves when they’re in power. Do you really think the current Republicans would fail to make that power grab out of some sense of fairness or something?
The reality is that the republicans put well-meaning democrats in a tricky position. Essentially, the Republicans are willing to trash the country if they think the public will blame the democrats for the trashing just a little bit more. So they continuously act out of pure partisan politics rather than any greater purpose.
So what can the democrats do? They either try to act like the responsible adults and do what they think is best for the country overall, while the republicans stir up fake controversies and stymy their attempts to run the government in any way they can, or they fight fire with fire and we’re all worse off for it. Either of their choices either concede power to the republicans, leading to the country overall being worse, or stoop to their level, leading to the country being overall worse. It’s a really tough position.
So when they finally make a move like this, after years of reluctance, it isn’t driven by arrogance. It’s not a naked power grab. It’s a realization that despite all efforts to make it so, they aren’t going to make republicans act like they actually want responsible governance. They’re forced to make this move to fight unprecedented obstructionism simply to be able to govern. It’s a desperation move after all previous good-will efforts have failed.
Furthermore, given the clear republican goal of political power above all else, it seems clear that if and when they took control again, they would change the rules in their favor anyway. There’s no reason to think the republican party as it currently operates would maintain the rules that the democrats were so reluctant to cast off.
The great mistake of the democrats in this instance is taking way too long to realize that they couldn’t appeal to the good nature or civic duty of the opposition, that their goals are no longer to do what’s best for the country.
Do I recall correctly that in the past you had a higher opinion of Republicans than is current and not so especially good an opinion of Democrats? I ask because I seem to recall that and I am interested in how much people’s opinions are changing.
I am living in a different country with no sort of filibuster.
What we have seen is a lot of back room negotiations and little in the way of public debate. By the time a matter is put up for a vote the majority party is ready to pass it and will sometimes vote to limit debate. This deprives the minority party of any input whatsoever.
Yes, my first few years on the board I was much more sympathetic to conservative and libertarian positions and various things have swayed my mind. Learning more about positions, the merits of various arguments, and the complete fucking assholery of the republican party, who would gleefully burn everything down if they could rule the ashes. And I have no tolerance for partisans who will defend this behavior, or even deny its existence, as you can see from this very thread.
You could probably search for me in the pit by post and see some much more detailed, vitriolic rants in that direction.
You can number me among those who thought there wasn’t that much difference between the Dems and Pubs up to about 11 years ago. I figured they were two sides of the same corporate coin.
Now I can’t imagine voting for a Republican for congress, no matter how reasonable he sounds, because the Republican leadership is batshit crazy, so I don’t want them in control. I think this is about 20% from following the news more closely than I did before I retired, and about 80% the Pubs turning very, very sharply right.