The Filibuster

[thetragichippy]

Chuckie boy was planning on ending the filibuster if Democrats had control.

I think the most savage thing republicans could do would be bring it to a vote and watch every democrat vote against it......

No way it passes - but would really call out the Democrat leadership

 

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[tvc184]

I said that in another thread.

The government was originally planned to make legislation and constitutional changes difficult.

For merely enacting a law, it took two different houses, elected by different means. Then it took the president to agree with both houses. If the president disagreed and vetoed the bill, both houses could still override the veto. Then…. if someone gave a challenge, the Supreme Court could rule a law unconstitutional.

The Senate has the rule of allowing a senator unlimited time to speak once he takes the floor in debate. Once he stops, his time is over but there is no limit so if he could talk for 30 hours (with short breaks), he can do so. If 40 senators wish to use such a debate tactic, the filibuster, they can tie a bill up for a month or more and potentially kill it. Again, it makes enacting legislation difficult, as it should be.

 The House with its 435 members could debate for months on a single bill if it had the same debate rules as the Senate. For that reason, they have much more restrictive rules on limiting debates.

To end the filibuster the Senate enacted a new rule a little over 100 years ago called cloture. In cloture, if 60 senators agree to it, they can end debate and go to a vote. Cloture will kill a filibuster but it takes a 3/5 60 vote majority to do so. 

 The Dems seem notorious for wanting to change long standing rules if they think it gives them an advantage. It’s basically like cheating but legally.

The Democrats could not get several Republican senators to side with them in order to kill the filibuster so the Republicans could effectively stop any presidential nomination, like to the federal courts. That is the rules that they put in place for a reason. When Obama was not nominating moderate judges but more left leaning activist judges to the federal courts, the Republican threw up a roadblock with the filibuster. The Democrats could not gain the 60 votes needed to end debate and force of vote where they would only need 51 votes for confirmation.

That left two options. Obama could appoint more moderate judges and get a few Republicans to agree to allow the vote or they could use  the nuclear option.

 In the nuclear option, nicknamed because it’s the most devastating weapon in Senate legislation, there was a loophole to get around cloture. It is basically a legislative trick/loophole in the rules where a senator would ask the majority leader of the Senate (Senate equivalent of Speaker of the House) to suspend the rules on cloture. By rules that is not legal, however….. the loophole allows for a call to clarification the decision and in this clarification process, the rule could be suspended. So there is a back door way around cloture but it kind of makes a mockery of the Senate rules and the intent of making it more of a deliberate body than the House. But….. it’s legal under a loophole.

Harry Reid as the Democrat majority leader, had a tantrum with Democrats backing him up. Reid threatened to use the nuclear option unless the Republicans gave them what they demanded. I believe it was Mitch McConnell, who was head of the Republicans as minority leader, who said you really don’t want to do that because you’re not going to be in charge forever. Too bad, the Democrats continued with their temper tantrum and forced the nuclear option.

So they got their federal judges appointments.

They were fine with that because they expected Hillary Clinton to win the next election and they can continue on for years. Oops!!

Shockingly to the Democrats, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton and lo and behold, three Supreme Court justice seat came open. The Democrats could have blocked the seats with the filibuster, but… they had changed the rule by ending the cloture requirement for federal judges. So while they could have had the votes needed to blocked Trump‘s Supreme Court nominations, they had given up cloture on federal judge nominations. Oops!! With all the talk of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and the bump stock ban, overturning of Chevron, etc., because of Trump nominations, guess who caused it? That’s right, the Democrats, who did not like the rules applying to them and changed the rules. Because they changed the rules, it came back to bite them in the butt big time.

So move forward to January 2022 with a tied Senate of 50/50 with Kamala Harris being the swing vote/tie breaker. The Democrats again wanted to change the rules to completely do away with the filibuster and cloture. It would in effect become another House of Representatives. Fortunately, for Republicans at the time and the Democrats now, Democratic Senator Joe Manchin would not side with his own party because he knew the importance of the rules. The long-standing rules were more important than a brief party victory.

As Hippie brought up in the OP, if the Republicans remain in control of the House, Trump would have basically a super majority in both houses. A single vote could pass any legislation that the Republicans wished. Obamacare could end with a single vote in both house, the Republicans can vote on making a 15 member Supreme Court and adding six new conservatives to the court almost immediately (a recent Democratic threat), pass a complete abortion ban, make a law making all firearms laws invalid and so on.

Again, fortunately for the Democrats, one of their own senators knew the intent of the Senate as opposed to the House and the meaning of the Senate rules to make things difficult. He decided to go with the intent of the Constitution and took a dramatic stand against his own party.

Just like they did when they changed rules to get federal judges confirmed, the Democrats would have changed the rules on the filibuster and again it would’ve come back to bite them in the butt big time but one of their own saved them by voting against them.

Yes, I think it would be hilarious if the six vote Republican majority in the Senate brought up ending the filibuster. Then watch all 47 Democrat remaining senators who voted to end the filibuster two years ago… vote unanimously to not change the rules.