Does anyone know what exactly is being proposed? I oppose getting rid of the filibuster altogether, and I opposed it when the Republicans wanted to use the “nuclear option” to get rid of it. There are just too many crazies out there and we need some sort of fail-safe like the filibuster.
If I were to reform it, the reform would be simple. When someone filibusters, the Senate shuts down. Period. No committee meetings, nothing. And it stays shut down until the filibuster is defeated. Make people pay a political price for filibustering bullshit, but keep it in place to defend issues like civil rights.
Other reforms I would like to see are getting rid of anonymous holds, and changing the rules so that appointees get a, get this- up or down vote. No more dragging that out forever. The President proposes someone for a position, you vote on it. No more endless committee hearings, no more scuttling the nomination because McCain missed his Geritol or Mary Landrieu wants to tongue-kiss the oil industry.
Here is where you tell me why I am wrong.
Tim
Would your proposal require that filibuster-ers actually do an old fashioned filibuster where they have to maintain the floor at all times?
wmd
i’ve heard the proposal is to eliminate anonymous holds. filibusters would still be allowed, but to sustain them 40 Senators in favor of continuing debate would have to be present on the floor; as soon as that number dropped below 40 a vote would be scheduled with no further debate.
I could be wrong on many details. This is from memory of reporting at the Reality Based Community and FDL.
Tim
omg…I was first again. This is becoming disturbing.
Zifnab25
I think the committee hearings are good. Not a big fan of SCOTUS judge Robert Bork. That said, I would like to see a uniform threshold on votes. Not 60 for me and 51 for thee.
Cassidy
I want fillibusters to be maintained by physical conflict. Put your fists where your mouth us.
Southern Beale
John:
Don’t know if this helps but a while back Norm Ormstein, a hack at the American Enterprise Institute, suggested several filibuster reforms in this NY Times Op-Ed piece.
While I’m suspicious of anything coming from the AEI these reforms struck me as very reasonable. You might give his column a look.
I do sorta feel like, what difference does it make? 50 votes or 60, isn’t it really just all the same? Won’t there always be some senator on one side of the aisle or another who doesn’t feel like they’re being catered to sufficiently, threatening to play spoiler on some piece of legislation or the other and jump ship to the other side? I dunno….
It seems like the problems we have in the Senate are a little bigger than just the filibuster.
satby
Can’t, because you’re right.
Shadow's Mom
@wmd: WMD, thanks for clarifying the 40 supporters point. I’d heard the same.
Tom Udall, Bill Bennett of Colorado and another senator have plans to invoke the ‘constitutional option.’ This allow a simple majority of the Senate to rewrite the rule book on the first day of a new Congress. Link to most recent article I’ve seen on discussion of rules change possibilities
danimal
Make 40 senators hold the floor for a filibuster. Eliminate judicial and executive appointment filibusters. Yeah, you got it about right.
Filibuster reform may just happen this January. Dems are pissed over obstruction and Reps think they’ll be in the majority in 2012. This is the window of opportunity.
John - A Motley Moose
The best part of it that I can see is that opponents will now have to muster 40 votes to even begin a filibuster. Everyone will have to go on record up front.
Dollared
Ornstein is so reasonable it’s a miracle he’s still at AEI. He’s kind of the Ezra Klein of the right – relatively factual, but still a member of the Village.
JC, I’m with you on all points except up-or-down votes on Supremes. One more conservative vote and the Roberts Court will not only reinstate slavery, they will move the capital to Richmond.
General Stuck
There is a reason it’s called “the nuclear option”.
And there is no such thing as filibuster “reform”. Either the minority has the option to block, or stop a bill they can’t accept, or they don’t. And setting hoops to jump through to delay a simple majority vote is nothing more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
That said, I am at a point where I don’t much care what the senate does, because at some point, I don’t have much doubt, that the usual suspect states will begin turning treasonous in the open and refuse federal authority. Then we settle things the old way.
lol
@Southern Beale:
Yes, except instead of having to bargain with the conservative members of the caucus, you’re bargaining with the moderate members and have to give up less. Or possibly you have to bargain with liberal members and have to make the bill more liberal.
Cat Lady
OT, but yay! Gastritis Broke My Calculator made the rotating tag after heavy lobbying by commenters over the past day! Readership capture – they haz it!
cmorenc
@John Cole:
You are wrong for one simple reason: out of the 100 Senators, each of whom look in the mirror every morning and see a could-be, and in many cases should-be, President in the mirror looking back, it will be extraordinarily difficult to get enough extreme power-trippers like this to voluntarily agree to relinquish unilateral power tools that are as intoxicatingly addictive to such control-freaks as a mix of cocaine, crack, and meth.
Under enough pressure, it *might* be possible to gain enough agreement to some sort of filibuster/hold reform, but you betcha it’s highly likely that such agreement can only be assembled with enough provisos and loopholes built in that clever tacticians will quickly find new ways to unilaterally pour glue into the works if their wishes are not catered to first.
flounder
I think the rules for sustaining a filibuster should flip from taking 60 to break one, to needing 40 on the floor to sustain one, so that the second that 40th vote isn’t on the floor, a cloture vote can be passed. I cannot see the teabaggers hanging around the floor for 4 days straight to stop a couple judges or an undersecretary to the FDA from coming up for a floor vote.
Also, the “ripening time” crap needs to be shortened.
I am optimistic something good will happen. All the worst Democrats derive what power they have from being the last vote in on a bill. When there was close to 60 Dems, Nelson, Lieberman, Landrieu, et al. were able to take their hostages via the filibuster and the dynamic favored no changes.
Now that there are only 53-54 Dems, or whatever it is, they need to devise a way to take their hostages on the 50th vote. Therefore the Lieberdems should want filibuster reform more than anyone.
mclaren
AFAICT the main reform being proposed would require that senators actually hold the floor and speak in order to maintain a filibuster. That used to be the way it worked. But not anymore.
John - A Motley Moose
Even if they do pass filibuster reform, it probably won’t affect the upcoming congress. It will probably be set to take effect in the future.
cleek
i believe the proposal is to replace the filibuster with Feats Of Strength And Agility. in this system, the minority may issue a Challenge to extend debate, whereupon each party will then field a team of five who will face off in American Gladiator-style combat – giant foam clubs, inflatable-sumo wrestling, trapeze fights, etc.. should the minority team prevail, debate continues. if the minority is defeated, debate ends. after the first Challenge, the loser may file a duo ex tribus motion which will extend the Challenge to a best-of-three situation.
all Challenges must be fought in the nude. no Senator may be on a team more than once per calendar year – which naturally limits the number of Challenges which may be issued.
mclaren
@General Stuck:
Oh, you mean Americans will refuse to abide by the constitution? The way you and your idol Obama have done? By ordering the murder of Americans without charges or a trial, by ordering the kidnapping of Americans without a trial, by signing “indefinite detention” orders which grossly contradict the most basic requirements of the constitution?
So I guess “settle things the old way” means we try these people for treason and execute them by firing squad?
I dunno. Your suggestion that we try people like you and Obama for treason and stand you up against a wall and shoot you seems a little extreme to me…but, on the other hand, if that’s what you really want, well, I guess you’ve got a right to your opinion.
Shade Tail
My thoughts:
I agree the filibuster shouldn’t be abolished entirely. There needs to be some recourse, but it also needs to be tough to abuse.
Filibustering should require actually holding the floor and talking, rather than just painlessly saying, “We don’t want the vote to proceed.” Other commenters have already mentioned this.
40 votes to sustain a filibuster? Fuck that. Move it up to 45. The requirements need to be major enough to actually be painful and require some politicking. If you’re going to block a majority vote, you need to actually *work* at it.
That’s all I have offhand.
General Stuck
The problem isn’t the filibuster, or cloture rule. The problem is a party representing a significant part of the country being in a stage of general political rebellion because they aren’t in power, and believe they should be, always, regardless of elections, and fueled by the demographic reality it will only worse for them. These are white people of course.
If somebody could come up with a cure for that, we could call them Jesus.
Shade Tail
@mclaren:
No, Mr. Ignorance. Do look up what treason really means. It’s actually defined right in that Constitution you claim to revere.
El Cid
I didn’t think that there was yet any concrete proposal that Reid et al were working on, just that every Democratic Senator had signed a letter that reform of the filibuster / cloture process be carried out on Jan 5th as new Senate opens.
Pancake
No need to. That follows as the night the day…..
General Stuck
@mclaren:
You seem slightly more insane than usual. Must be the Holidays. Bless you my son, go forth and be a nut no mo.
fucen tarmal
tie the filibuster to finance reform.
all donations, even from the party, go into holding accounts, senators only unlock the free speech made on their behalf, if they play by the senate rules, not the old ones, the new ones.
if a legislation is proposed, the paid for yeas and the paid for nays, they unlock more of the free speech made on their behalf by declaring their intention early. and taking themselves off the floor.
then, only the senators who might actually be trying, in good conscience to improve a legislation, or have things they want to add, are left to declare, at the risk of not getting as much free speech.
so if you want to filibuster, not take a vote, no free speech for you.
The Grand Panjandrum
This is a link to Jeff Merkley’s proposal to fix the Senate (and the filibuster rule). It protects the minority without giving them control over the agenda by slowing EVERYTHING down.
danimal
@cleek: Well, that sounds good until you think about nude senators. There’s only one Gillibrand (for the men) or Cosmo Brown (for the ladies), while there are a whole lot of ugly, old fat men.
mclaren
@General Stuck:
You’re ignorant and you’re spewing nonsense. The devil’s in the details, as always. Requiring people to actually speak on the floor raises the bar on filibusters.
They’re also talking about eliminating “secret holds.” That would be a good move.
The claim that no reform will help is just more “learned helplessness,” just more bullshit whining that everything is going to hell and no possible reform can fix everything and we’re all doomed so we might as well load a shotgun with double ought buckshot and put it in our mouths and pull the trigger.
Horseshit.
The details matter. History proves it. Back when senators had to hold the floor in order to maintain a filibuster there were many fewer filibusters. That’s an historical fact. Changing the rules around the filibuster will dramatically help, just as changing the U.S. tax code to make it more progressive will make a huge difference in America (another well-documented historical fact), instead of mindlessly and destructively cutting the marginal tax rates for billionaires as Obama has done.
Empty-headed whimpering that nothing will help and we’re all doomed is bullshit. Specific policy proposals have been suggested. They will clearly and demonstrably improve the situation. If you don’t have anything substantive to offer, don’t open your mouth. Endless impotent whimpering despair is not useful.
Montysano
I thought Tom Harkin’s bill, which required a decreasing number of votes over several days, made sense, but Harry Reid absolutely opposed it, thinking that it was too close to a “nuclear option”.
At the very least, restore the requirement to actually hold the floor.
General Stuck
@mclaren:
Do you ever even read your scratchings on this blog? But I do like the new Mclaren bringing some hopey change to the non stop doom he is famous for.
You really don’t have a clue how the senate operates in that big diseased brain of yours. There are many other ways, other than the cloture rule, for the minority to shut down, or “blow up” the senate and if you haven’t been paying attention, what would give anyone doubts that the here and now wingnuts would not do just that? You would have to nuke all the rules in the senate, or the senate itself, or turn it into a reflection of The House to accomplish a majority rubber stamp senate. Not to mention what would happen with no filibuster cloture rule, when the wingnuts take back over the entire government.
LosGatosCA
Three part filibuster reform. First a physical challenge of the opposition choice. Vitter must celibate for three days, Nelson has to make 7 of 10 free throws, etc. Second a mental challenge. A timed IQ test that requires a majority chosen filibuster-er to score in triple digits. Let’s see a 99 year old Strom Thurmond or a pissed off John McCain do that. Third, the maintenance of 41 votes on every cloture vote.
And it would be great for all executive branch appointees to get an up or down vote within 6 months.
But the filibuster and anonymous holds are shields to protect senators from accountability and they like that very, very much. That’s why reform is a long shot.
scarshapedstar
Um… what? This is a terrible idea. This is Mitch McConnell’s wet dream. “Democratic Senate can’t move forward with committee meetings”
I’m much more into the Marshall plan: instead of 60 votes to invoke cloture, it takes 40 votes to deny it. So 40 Republicans have to bust out the cots while one of them reads the phone book, and a few Democrats can be on hand to yawn while the rest go on talk shows and roll their eyes at the obstructionism.
mclaren
@Shade Tail:
Hey there, spit-for-brains, the definition of treason in the constitution is “levying war against [the United States], or in adhering to their enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”
Obama and his obot supporters clearly and demonstrably demostrate adherence to the enemies of the United States when they advocate turning America into a tyranny by eliminating the fifth and sixth and eighth amendments of the constitution.
…Just as Obama and his obot supporters clearly and demonstrably give aid and comfort to the enemies of American when they tear up the constitution and wipe their asses on it by ordering the murder of American citizens without a trial or charges. Nothing delights the totalitarians and would-be theocratic dictators who are America’s sworn enemies than to see America destroy its basic way of rule and toss out the rule of law, because the erstwhile theocratic dictators recognize that this makes America more like the theocratic dictatorships they advocate.
Notice that word “or”?
Obviously you didn’t. Obviously you haven’t yet passed your remedial reading test, spit-for-brains. Get back to us when you can parse simple sentences.
General Stuck
I do support ending the “anonymous holds” but that is cold comfort in a body that operates under the notion of unanimous consent.
Nathan A. Stine
That’s a pretty bad justification. Why not the House? Why shouldn’t Justice Breyer be able to stop a decision from being issued because he thinks it’s a really bad one? Why shouldn’t we require 60% of the Electoral College to elect a President? Somehow just about every other western democracy gets by A-OK without having to require a super-majority to approve a bill in the upper chamber. The fail-safe is supposed to be the veto power of the President.
I think what you’re really saying here is that elections shouldn’t matter. If a single party convinces the voters to give them free reign over Congress and the executive…well we shouldn’t allow them to do whatever they want because bad things would happen.
From first principles, extended debate doesn’t make any sense. I don’t think anyone here would have a super-majority requirement if they could create Congress in their own image.
Maybe I’m crazy. I just think if you can get 218 congressmen, 51 senators (or 50+ the VP), and the President behind a piece of legislation, it should be law.
ronin122
Actually between you and first comments, I agree.
Tonal Crow
@General Stuck:
When the wingnuts take over, they’ll nuke the filibuster and unanimous consent rules first thing, no matter what Democrats do in January. [1] Thus, Democrats should do whatever they think best on filibuster reform. At the very least that’ll head off some judicial filibusters, which means fewer wingnuts on the federal bench. And that’s damned important.
Or maybe we should just give up and cry, while spinning fantasies of another civil war, like you’ve urged.
Gee, tough choice, that.
[1] Analogously, the Republicans lambaste Democrats as “sockialists”, etc., no matter what they do — so fear or Republicans shouldn’t prevent then from doing the right thing.
mclaren
@General Stuck:
Of course. For example, the minority could simply walk out and deprive the senate of a quorum. So what?
Preventing that sort of radical bizarre behavior is not what anyone is talking about here — no one has suggested instant perfection forever. “Reform” means improvement. Not perfection. Not eliminating the possibility for shutting down the senate.
Because, like you, the fanatical minority in the senate is lazy. Make it a little harder for ’em to filibuster and they won’t do it. These people are lazy and stupid. Even slightly raising the bar means they won’t have the wherewithal to actually get up off their asses and obstruct.
You see, if it’s hard work, the Galtian Overlords won’t be bothered. These people are fundamentally lazy and ignorant and stupid. Require them to perform even a small amount of work to make their obstruction operate and they’ll just sit back and bitch and whine. Like you. When was the last time you got out of your mommy’s basement and manned the phones for Obama? When was the last time you went door to door for Democratic candidates? You’re an ignorant lazy foolish couch potato who can’t be bothered to do anything but sit in his mommy’s basements typing crazy crap like “your diseased brain” and “butt rabies.” That’s the sum and substance of your total contribution to this forum.
This is the classic logical fallacy of the excluded middle. You foolishly and ignorantly leap to the conclusion that unless we reform the senate to the point where it becomes a “a reflection of the house” that reform is pointless.
Nonsense.
Even small reforms have the potential to improve the general poltical situation quite a great deal. The fallacy of the excluded middle is the standard scam used by fools to argue against any improvement on the failed and foolish reasoning of the perfect being the enemy of the good. Why bother to make anything better if we can’t make it perfect? Even a six-year-old child knows the answer to that — improving things is worthwhile in itself even if it doesn’t result in perfection.
You’re making a fool of yourself, as usual. But what else it new?
lol
@General Stuck:
One big problem is that one single Senator can make the Senate waste time going through the motions of the filibuster (which takes days) even if the outcome is assured. That’s not a problem for the major bills. Holds are a courtesy – if you have the votes, you can pass it.
The problem is when some jackass decides to object to dozens and dozens of nominees. The Senate doesn’t have enough time to waste 3+ days on every single nominee even if the final vote is going to be 99-1.
So even if the 60 vote requirement remains, cutting off the ability of one person to single handedly fuck the executive branch on nominees will be a big big big win for good government.
Just Some Fuckhead
Meh, they’ll just figure out some other way to make sure good, necessary stuff dies and bad stuff gets all the Republican votes and a handful of the DINO votes.
Pass a rule that requires the filibuster to be called the “gay anal rape maneuver” so we can at least smile when Republicans invoke it.
Tonal Crow
@Tonal Crow: Ugh! Spelling errors abound in my race against the edit timer. That last sentence should end: “…so fear o[f] Republicans shouldn’t prevent the[m] from doing the right thing.”
shortstop
Can’t be said often enough.
mclaren
@Just Some Fuckhead:
So in other words we should just give up and whimper in impotent despair, because it’s hopeless?
Boy, I’m hearing a whole lot of learned helplessness on this forum. And I categorically and systematically reject that infantile attitude of self-defeating self-indulgent nihilism.
The world is a good place and worth fighting for.
lol
@Montysano:
Slowly decreasing the number of votes solves the problem for big legislation but doesn’t fix it for routine business like nominees.
Putting the burden on the minority to get the votes to obstruct is the best reform short of getting rid of the filibuster.
General Stuck
@mclaren:
What we are arguing about here is making these changes to the cloture Rule 22, right now, without the minorities consent, and by over ruling the parliamentarian, thereby in practical effect, breaking the rule to change a standing rule of the senate. When the dems threatened to “blow up” the senate for the wingers taking this action on judges, they would have been right to do so. Same principle applies now. So no, I am not against reform, but just trying to state what will happen if it is done in such a way without the current minorities consent.
As somebody upthread mentioned, the only way for the minority of today, the wingnuts, to go along with any filibuster reform, would be to set a date several years into the future for such changes to take effect. Otherwise, the minority, no matter dem or repub at the time, would blow up the senate. and would be right to do so, imo.
Just Some Fuckhead
@mclaren:
What say we storm the White House and demand some answers from Obama, McLame?
I’m not opposed to filibuster reform. I just don’t think it will ultimately amount to much change. The Senate doesn’t work for us, whether it works or not.
Citizen Alan
@Dollared:
Yeah, but the Dems didn’t filibuster Roberts or Alito when they had the chance. For that matter, the Republicans didn’t filibuster Sotomayor or Kagan despite threats to do so, and in fact, didn’t even filibuster Ruth Bader Ginsburg even though she actually worked for the ACLU! Even Bork wasn’t actually filibustered — he got voted down outright, with six Republicans voting against him.
Simply put, even in these debased times, no one is going to filibuster a nominee to the Supreme Court unless the nominee is so unacceptable that members of the president’s own party won’t support him (see Harriet Miers). In the entire history of the Court, the only nominee to be filibustered was Abe Fortas, and that was (a) the elevation of a sitting justice to Chief Justice and (b) a nominee who did raise legitimate ethical concerns.
AAA Bonds
I do like the idea of public and political consequences, including shutting down all Senate business, but there are some concerns here. Well, mainly, one concern.
Frankly, I don’t think Rand Paul would be able to resist it.
Paul will probably attempt to shut the entire government down in the next year anyway through the normal budget methods.
You have to realize that it is his life philosophy that the government do nothing, and only successful co-opting by the Republican establishment will prevent this. Rand Paul and his dad are really eager to see how America performs when all our nonessential services get shut down, as they believe this will usher in prosperity.
That’s why I was dumbfounded by the cackling support for Paul here and elsewhere during the election.
Here’s a reminder: we don’t have guaranteed health care, and when the government shut down last time, large parts of the Centers for Disease Control shut down as well. A government shutdown combined with an epidemic could kill hundreds or thousands of Americans.
We need reform of some kind, for sure, don’t get me wrong, and forcing 40 Senators to come out in favor right away is one of the best parts of what’s being proposed, as is the elimination of “holds”.
The only successful controlling power in any advanced democracy (besides gobs and gobs of money) is public shame. We need to make sure that this power is directed at Senators, the people who should be most controlled by it, and who are least controlled by it in the current system.
Happy Holidays!
catclub
I hope it is reformed.
Now the hurdle to clear.
Ben Nelson
Max Baucus
Kent Conrad
Mary Landrieu
Claire McCaskill
Jim Webb
all have to stick together and vote for something that the DFH’s really, really want.
General Stuck
@Tonal Crow:
Oh fuck off, and take Mclaren with you. I spin no such thing. I am simply addressing the main problem in this country right now, that you simpleton clowns think will be solved by breaking the senate rules to change them, and that somehow, magically, the senate will operate the way you want it to. Now there is spinning a fantasy.
None of you would have dreamed of doing such a thing when Bush was president. And if you say you would have, then you will need to prove it, or I label you as liar.
Citizen Alan
@General Stuck:
Well that’s just not true. Right now, the problem with the filibuster is that it is more onerous on the party opposing it, since only one person is needed to maintain the filibuster, but the party that wants to proceed has to keep enough people on the floor to maintain the quorum. A requirement that the filibustering party must keep 40 people on the floor at all times would, I think, go a long way towards curbing the frivolous use of the filibuster we’ve seen the last two years. Senators have shit to do, and they’re not going to spend every minute sitting out on the floor listening to Jim DeMint read Bible verses unless they care enough to stop whatever is being filibustered.
Tonal Crow
@General Stuck: Typical. You’re now on ignore.
Citizen Alan
@catclub:
Well, there is that. I personally don’t expect filibuster reform to happen because it requires 50 out of 53 Dem Senators to vote for it and we have a half-dozen or more Fifth Columnists who support the GOP more than the party they pretend to belong to.
General Stuck
@Citizen Alan:
I clarified this comment, as we were talking about doing it now/ It could be reformed, if a future date was set in several years for them to take effect. But my point stands, neither side will agree to this, because they would not give up the right to kill a bill they hate, no matter how many hoops and delay there would be for the majority to get a simple majority vote. The threshold for invoking cloture could possibly be agreed to take effect down the road, say 55 votes instead of 60, but I doubt that would even fly. Why do you think the cloture vote and rule 22 was created in the first place? and with the majority required to keep a quorum with a real filibuster. and not the minority.
And senate dems are just pulling your alls leg, as a bone of red meat, for an xmas present to calm the restless natives . There will be no significant filibuster change for the next congress. Which wouldn’t matter if there was, as the House is wingnut run now. Now merry christmas to all, I have to walk the dog.
Citizen Alan
@General Stuck:
I fully supported the abolition of the filibuster back when all that “nuclear option” crap was happening. I anticipated then the Dems would soon take the Senate, and I wanted the Republicans to be the ones to get rid of it and then reap the results of a filibuster-free Dem Senate. C’est la vie.
General Stuck
@Tonal Crow:
Thank you. One less wanker to respond to.
A Humble Lurker
And he’s not going to invite you to his birthday party either!
jcricket
@The Grand Panjandrum:
I’m in favor of this reform, especially. Imagine how much would have passed the Senate, with 59 Democrats, if you could only use the filibuster to actually stop the final piece of legislation.
Not to endlessly delay debate, or prevent bills from even getting to the floor.
I know, we’ll be in the minority at some point, but constantly acting like we need the filibuster and every other arcane Senate rule to protect America from the consequences of the GOP is silly. First off, when we are in charge, these rules prevent us from actually enacting a Democratic agenda.
And secondly, let’s stop protecting America from the basic GOP agenda. If America elects a GOP Senate + House, let’s let the GOP legislate. I’m fairly confident that the GOP would get tossed out right-quick if they actually got to enact their hyperbole. The GOP benefits from being to claim all kinds of things about their agenda, but then America is protected from understanding the consequences of that agenda b/c the GOP doesn’t actually enact it.
Yes, I know in the time between the legislation happening and the eventual GOP undoing there’d be some real harm, but I think we’re at the point we have to take some bad with the good to get a functioning Senate.
Tonal Crow
@Citizen Alan: I agree think the 40-vote-to-prevent-cloture rule is a good idea for most Senate business. I’m not quite certain, though, about whether that change should also apply to the confirmation of federal judges. That’s because legislation can be (and often is) changed, but it’s very difficult to remove crazy federal judges from the bench, or even those (such as Clarence Thomas) who appear to have lied in their confirmation hearings. [1] At the same time, the current filibuster rules permit large-scale obstructionism on judicial confirmations, which can’t be allowed to continue. I’m just not sure how to find the right balance.
[1] Thomas testified that he had never discussed Roe v. Wade when in law school (or maybe at all?) http://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/16/us/thomas-confirmation-senate-confirms-thomas-52-48-ending-week-bitter-battle-time.html?pagewanted=all . He was *in* law school when it was decided, and it really stretches credulity to think that he never discussed it there, let alone not at any time between then and his confirmation hearings.
Tonal Crow
@A Humble Lurker: [Quote]And he’s not going to invite you to his birthday party either![End Quote]
Damn! I forgot about that! And all the moolah I spent on that anatomically-correct inflatable Obama doll: wasted.
[Who broke blockquotes???]
adolphus
I don’t dislike the filibuster, but like so many I dislike how often it is used and all the stuff that can get done anonymously. I support any reform that would force Senators to take responsibility for their actions. A lot of good suggestions have been made to do this. I’d like to suggest one more. In addition to getting rid of the anonymous holds, they should name filibusters after the Senator that places them like they do bills. Calling the filibuster of the 9/11 First Responder Health Care Bill the “Enzi Filibuster” or the “Coburn/Enzi 9/11 Health Care Blockage Filibuster” early and often and loudly would force people to own their acts (or lack of action.)
cleek
and now you done broke the thread
Tonal Crow
@cleek: WordPress strikes again.
Thomas Beck
My reform on holds would be, you want to put a hold on anything, you have to show up every single day to justify it in person on the record in the Senate chamber. Every single day – Sundays, holidays, illness, plane delayed by bad weather, death of a spouse, nuclear war – no exceptions. Miss a day for any reason whatsoever, the hold is off.
I too want to keep at least some form of the filibuster, although I’m not sure how to preserve any use it may still have while also eliminating the potential to abuse it. Maybe there should be a limited number of times you can use it, after which either the proposition must be voted on, or you can’t have any more filibusters during the same session. That would force a minority party to strategize – to choose its fights – rather than simply reflexively oppose everything.
General Stuck
@Thomas Beck:
They will stop abusing it when the press calls it like it is, and the voters hold the abusers accountable at the polls. Not until then.
nicteis
The whole ostensible idea behind the filibuster was that the minority ought to be able to insist on extended debate – in order to present their case more fully to the electorate. It constitutes a right of the minority to be heard, in the JSMillsian faith that sustained examination of issues will ultimately serve the truth, not any right of the minority to block the majority’s will.
Both the reforms most often mentioned in this thread, requiring 40 votes to sustain a filibuster, and allowing filibusters only on final votes, not on procedural motions along the way, serve that original vision.
Though I kind of hate to say it, the one point where John is wrong is on confirmations. Okay, no filibusters should be allowed on confirmations – except in the case of judges. On the one hand, every administration deserves deference in its choice of executive personnel. On the other, a judge is appointed for life, and should be minimally acceptable to both the majority and the minority, that mutual acceptability being pretty much the only guarantee we’ve got that the judge will be somewhat impartial on the bench.
It’s a pity that, in the climate of the last forty years, one side insists that no judge is acceptable who does not hew to their own political ideology, while the good guys are content with just about anyone who doesn’t wear a swastika to the confirmation hearings. But the proper solution to that is a less cowed set of good guys. Meanwhile, if each judicial filibuster actually carries a cost, it could persuade some of the bad guys to a modicum of flexibility.
WhyKnot241
Well John, you’re just wrong about shutting the Senate down for a filibuster. You assume this would be a bad thing for any party involved. Recent history has shown that little/no opprobrium accrues to bad actors.
How about this: for any given session of congress a senator only gets one shot at filibustering? And if their filibuster is not sustained (proposed 40 co-filibusterees?) they lose their right to filibuster in the following session of congress.
But they can still lead with their helmet and not be penalized.
mclaren
@General Stuck:
Keep whimpering in helpless impotence. The rest of us have work to do putting society right.
Rook
Okay. You’re wrong. There. Are you happy John? It’s not that I think you’re wrong. Far from it. It’s just, that, well……. You said to tell you were wrong, so I did.
megamahan
Regarding holds, I’m not entirely sure what the rationale for a hold is in the first place. Secret holds just strike me as bullshit. What is the reason for holds anyway?
Regarding the filibuster, I like the idea of requiring 40 votes to maintain it rather than 60 to break it. I also think that someone should have to get up there and hold the floor with a speech for as long as it takes. However, fuck the phone book. I want them to actually have to stay on-fucking-topic while they filibuster. Admittedly, I don’t know exactly how you judge how on-topic something is. Allowing it only on the final vote seems okay to me as well.
I’ve been reading this blog for quite a while, but have only commented once before (and that comment was pretty stupid). I usually stay out of the comments, but having read through this thread, I’ve come to the conclusion that mclaren and General Stuck really need to get a room. Are they always like this?
magurakurin
@megamahan yes, somewhat.
but I have to score this one something of a draw. I definitely feel it is worthwhile to try and reform the Senate. However, I also feel there is quite a bit to the notion that America’s problems have less to do with Senate rules and far more to do with the portion of its population which is comprised of 100 million+ greedy, selfish assholes who are willing to bomb anyone for their right to stuff their fat faces with Big Macs, to paraphrase Dr. HST.
They are, first and foremost, the problem. Their representatives in the Senate are just that, representatives.
The problems run deep in America.
Evolutionary
@mclaren: @mclaren: Actually the number of Senators needed for a quorum is 51.
Evolutionary
@megamahan: AFIK a “hold” is just a Senator telling the Leadership that they (the Senator) will vote No when there is a call for Unanimous consent to move a bill to a vote (on the floor or in committee). Without unanimous consent they have to vote on cloture and the whole current filibuster mechanism takes effect. With the current unwillingness of so many Repubs to bee seen as agreeing with Democrats on most subjects, that means no go! Making this at least a non-secret process is a no brainer.
Peter J
Use lie detectors. A group of senators can filibuster as long as a certain number of them won’t fail a question about if they filibuster for political reasons.
General Stuck
@mclaren:
Merry Christmas tough guy.
thefncrow
@lol: Merkley’s proposal, if I’m reading it right, contains a great rule about this. Essentially, he wants to create a filibuster petition, in the vein of the cloture petition.
As it is now, the Senate looks for unanimous consent to proceed, and Coburn decides to be a jackass and obstruct. Now we have to go through with cloture and waste our time with this jackass’ obstruction.
If I’m reading Merkley’s proposal right, if Coburn stands up under those rules, he has to find another 9 Senators to concur in his objection. If he can’t find 9 Senators to concur in his objection, he’s failed to file a valid filibuster petition, and as such, we can just proceed to a vote in the face of his objection.
Now, maybe he always finds those other 9 Senators, but the GOP can’t get away with saying “Look, that’s just Tom Coburn, he doesn’t stand for the rest of us”, when 9 fellow Senators have to publicly make a stand with him just for his obstruction tactics to work.
megamahan
@Evolutionary: Thanks for the clarification. I’m pretty new to questions of Senate procedure, so I appreciate your explanation.
tkogrumpy
@Tim: You need to get a life. ;=)
Ron
@Southern Beale: The differences are that a)The constitution requires a majority vote, and the idea of a filibuster has nothing to do with anything in the constitution itself and b)It is simply much more difficult to get 60 votes than 50+VP (or 51)
PIGL
@mclaren: He did’t say “consitutution” he said “federal authority”.
The consititution itself is meaningless. Nobody believes any word it contains except insofar as it can twisted to support whatever position they hapenn to be peddling at the moment.
RobW
Make people pay a political price for filibustering bullshit, but keep it in place to defend issues like civil rights.
I hope you were laughing when you wrote that.
If you have even a passing familiarity with the history of civil rights legislation, then surely this was intended ironically, yes?
Filibusters by the Dixiecrats prevented passage of civil rights laws until the early ’60s when the movement finally had sufficient popular support for a supermajority in the Senate to overturn the redneck minority that had been blocking such laws since Reconstruction.
Glen Tomkins
The Republicans did use the nuclear option to get rid of the filibuster.
They threatened to use the nuclear option unless the Dems backed down from the one intention by the Dems to use the filibuster in the Dubya administration — to block a few of Dubya’s truly toxic judicial nominations. The threat worked. The Dems backed down. The Dems never threatened again to filibuster anything they did that they really wanted.
I should revise my initial statement. The Republicans used the threat of the nuclear option to get rid of only the Dem filibuster. Had they gone through with it, the filibuster would not still exist to empower the R minority in the Senate.
So they got the best of both worlds. They killed the filibuster for the Dems, but kept it intact for themselves.
Neat trick if you let them do it. I say end the filibuster. Level the playing field. Forget about the vain idea that it will ever be used to stop the other side from the worst craziness their majority woud ever get behind. Our filibuster is already dead. The would just use the nuclear option on us. Or, better yet, just threaten to us it, again.