They have the balls, it’s just that they keep gluing them to their thighs.
Playing nice is a disease that needs to be drummed out of leadership positions.
Unfortunately it’s so pervasive that the only people who can make a dent in it are individual votes. They’ve got to stop electing wimps, even if they are three term senators.
As it exists now? No. As it was used a long time ago, I can see an argument. Basically it would come down to allowing a small minority who feel very strongly prevent action by a majority that does not care as much. It gives attention to the issue and forces those on both sides to suffer somewhat to get what they want. It could also just serve to slow down the process and encourage compromises.
How many times have the Republicans actually filibuster anything in this congress?
Is there a procedure?
Or it’s not even a procedural filibuster but rather the threat of a procedural filibuster?
There is some logic to it. It prevents the senate from simply ignoring issues that the a minority finds important. The idea is even a minority should get enough time to make their case for or against any legislation.
While I like the concept of unlimited debate in the senate and it has many merits, I find the senate has proven they can’t be trusted to be responsible about it. So we can either replace senators as elections allow or convince the ones we have now to do away with these rules. In a perfect world I’d like to see responsible senators, but in our political structure I thinks that’s to much to ask for.
I’m going from memory here, but are you sure this is accurate? I thought that in the absence of a quorum, the Sargent at Arms could compel the attendance of any and all absent members, under threat of arrest, in order to establish a quorum.
Nice graph here:
White House Signals That It Will Fight Back Against GOP Abuse Of Filibuster
Titled “Cloture Voting, U.S. Senate, 1847 to 2008”,
with link to Senate’s own data page: U.S. Senate: Cloture Motions
A few Democratic senators appear to be actually making a little noise about the issue, and getting a little press for it.
I am Shocked!
The initial idea is sort of a noble one: That any senator ALWAYS has the privilege to speak his or her mind about a subject, and that he or she cannot be silenced simply because the majority in the senate don’t want to hear it. Rather civilized, no?
Unfortunately, in practice, it can lead to the sort of nonsense you see now.
That only works if the persons needed to make up a quorum are where the Sergeant-at-arms can find them. The fact remains that the Dems would have to keep 50 Senators within that ambit, and the GOP would only have to keep a few Senators at a time within the Sergeant-at-arms’ reach.
Please barf in the trashcans, not in the thread.
Seriously, this is just a pile of unrelated right-wing glurge that doesn’t have anything to do with anything. This is just flinging poo in the hopes of…I’m not sure what. Every statement in your first paragraph means nothing, isn’t backed by any cites, isn’t connected with the actual issue under discussion, they’re just stuff to throw in, like sand in the gears.
You should be ashamed of yourself.
I’ve heard (and from sources I tend not to trust) that all these “Republicans fillibuster much more than Democrats” charts/comments do not include Democrat fillibustering over judicial appointments. If so, these charts/stats are useless. If not…then yeah, there’s major change.
Can someone point me to a source that would address this?
I agree that there should be some way to either stop the minority from excessive use of procedural filibusters, or at least making them more visible to the public at large.
But just because something should work a certain way, doesn’t mean it does.
I’ve been thinking about this problem for years, and one by one, my good ideas have been dashed by people who knew or understood the Senate rules better than I used to, until I’ve got nothing left. For instance, “make 'em filibuster!” used to be my battle cry, until I was enlightened about the quorum rule. I agree that if filibusters had to be out in the open where C-SPAN would show the minority talktalktalking to block a vote, it would be a game-changer in all the right ways. But first you’d need a 2/3 majority of the Senate voting to change Rule 22.
Wikipedia on the nuclear option has this to say:
If I’m reading that correctly, the blocking by filibuster of 10 nominees does not stack up well against the 112 Republican cloture maneuvers in 2007-2008.
Perhaps there are more such blocked nominations hidden in other parts of government?
This isn’t going to make this debate more productive, so please do not get personal. But I agree it would help if Sam Stone would explain how his statement relates to this topic. I think he’s saying that the influence of private groups is more important than filibuster rules, and if so, that’s a separate discussion for a separate thread.
It does seem that someone is trying to draw an equivalence between 10 and 112 (+39 so far in the 111th congress).
This is hardly a new strategy for the GOP. Harper’s has published some great articles describing Republican policies to deliberately make Americans hate their government. And of course “saving taxpayer dollars” by underfunding very inexpensive programs like meat inspection or even programs that pay for themselves (e.g. IRS!) is particularly pernicious.
Demos would have to play hardball. Televise Senate sessions with frequent cloture votes, with a voice-over explaining that 41 Senators are happy if uninsured people die.
Or the President of the Senate could pound his gavel and declare that under Article I of the Constitution, a motion by the Rules Committee to amend the Senate’s Standing Rules is in order at any time.
Or just roll over and play dead, letting Rush Limbaugh run the country, regardless of how American voters vote.
So noted. My apologies.
Who’s gonna pay for this? C-SPAN already televises Senate sessions, whether they’ve got cloture votes going on or not. But the Democratic Party would have to find the money somewhere for televising sessions with voice-overs, and anyone who got irritated by the voice-overs would change back to C-SPAN.
Article I is a pretty big place. Got a specific part that you think Biden should cite?
There’s a lot I think the Dems could do in the way of not rolling over, starting with not collectively wetting their pants after one lousy special election went against them, leaving them with only a 59-41 majority in the Senate.
But with respect to the filibuster, they really don’t have any immediate options that I can see. First step is simply educating the public to what’s going on, and that will take some time.
Section 5: “… Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behavior, and, with the Concurrence of two-thirds, expel a Member.”
“Each House may determine [its] Rules…” Do you need a cite why this implies simple majority? The Senate can impose rules on itself, but, short of a Constitutional Amendment, it can’t self-impose a meta-rule that prevents it from “determining [its] Rules.”
Now, how the proposed scenario would play out may be an interesting question! Would the Sergeant-at-Arms end up dialing 911? Would the South Carolina militia start bombarding Fort Sumter again? But do let’s agree that the possibility is not off-limits just because FoxNews says so.
I don’t think this interpetation is particularly novel, by the way; it’s essentially the oft-mentioned “Nuclear Option.” The problem is not the legality of such a vote, but rather finding 51 Senators willing to defy Glenn Beck.
Republicans had no problem making the “Nuclear” threat in order to pack the federal judiciary with right-wingers, and were doubtless called “brave patriots” for doing so. If Democrats dare to go “Nuclear” to achieve something worthwhile, they’ll be labeled “baby-killing Fascists” or some such gobbledy-gook: will they dare?
(Of course this all presupposes that Demos intend something “worthwhile.” Some liberals now believe that the health-care bill has been so compromised that right-wingers are giggling in glee and only pretending to oppose it.)
The quorum to conduct business in either House of Congress is constitutionally defined to be a majority.
The Vice President is given a vote in the Senate in the event of a tie. If pretty much every bill has to pass by a three-fifths majority, that’s a pretty pointless stipulation.
Senate convictions in impeachments, expulsions of members from either house, veto overrides, and Senate approval of treaties all require approval by two thirds (either of the Houses of Congress generally or the Senate specifically; that last one is from the President’s Article, not Article I.) And of course from Article V Constitutional amendments require a two-thirds majority, followed by an even larger supermajority of the states. The Framers of the Constitution were perfectly capable of specifying supermajorities where they deemed it necessary, and if they intended for practically all business in the Senate to require a three-fifths vote, presumably they would have said so (and left out the bit about the Vice President having the power to break tie votes).
I really wish Alexander Hamilton had been a better shot.