Is it time to get rid of the 60 vote filibuster rule?

[cascadiance]

Poll question: Is it time to get rid of the 60 vote filibuster rule?

Republicans threatened to go nuclear to prevent filibustering of their nominees to SCOTUS... The power IS there to do this now for the Democrats.

Consider:

1) The argument for the filibuster rule was to prevent a majority largely consisting of states that represent smaller number of populations dictate with simple majority rule agenda that a majority of people don't support (when the no votes are representing a majority of the population).

2) We now have the opposite, where a small 40% minority of states that represent an even smaller portion of the population than their 40% are blocking everything from passing at a record pace.

If there is some other way to provide for the original intent to allow states representing a larger segment of the population from being dictated to, then lets look for it. However the filibuster is being shown to work against this goal, not support it now. It is time for that undemocratic POS to go, especially with the level of abuse it is being used for now!

Do you support getting rid of the filibuster? If not, please explain!

[GodlessBiker]

1. Every session of Congress should vote on its own rules, not be bound by the rules of a ...

previous session.

[FBaggins]

16. They do.

One Congress can't bind the next (apart from passing a law).

[mkultra]

2. No, it helps protect the minority from a slim majority AND

helps keep legislation from jumping back and forth every time the senate changes hands.

[cascadiance]

3. So how come it didn't protect us from Alito?

[mkultra]

6. good question, we did succesfully filibuster over 150 nominees.

[FBaggins]

17. Because the filibuster is not an unanswerable power.

If the action being filibustered is popular enough, there are political consequences that go along with it. If Republicans filibuster everything and the "everything" is sufficiently popular, they would quickly find themselves with too few senators to hold a filibsuter.

[dhpgetsit]

4. First I would like to see the threat of the "nuclear option" used for leverage.

If that doesn't work, of course the Majority should follow through and end the rule.

[cascadiance]

5. Perhaps the threat might be enough...

However, that takes leadership. I think we might have missed that window when that could have been used. I think if Obama and Senate leadership had been united in earlier last year threatening this, it would have told the blue dogs that we mean business, and we might have had some decent health care bills on the table too now. If they just threaten to "go nuclear" now, it might sound like a hollow threat, unless some other actions (like firing Rahm and others) are also done in concert to show that the White House and the party is starting to get serious about this.

[FBaggins]

18. The nuclear option isn't an option

You can't argue that the senate has a constitutional duty to vote on a healthcare bill. The key to the "nuclear" option with judges was the claim that, since the Constitution requires advice and consent on judicial nominees, the Senate couldn't have a rule that overrode the Constitution. They would then ask for a ruling from the parliamentarian to this effect and Democrats would object. The vote to uphold the ruling required a simple majority.

No such option exists for the filibuster itself. The only way to end it would be to change the rules directly. And this requires a super-majority vote (and most Democrats would oppose it anyway... having long enough memories to know that they will one day need to use a filibuster).

[Iggo]

7. No.

It won't be time until I actually start seeing some filibusters.

[cascadiance]

9. Do you actually mean "don't" see some filibusters?

That's pretty much all the Republicans and Blue Dogs have been doing, and at a pace that is not been done before. We are in a war for the survival of the middle and working classes of America. We should start acting like it, and stop acting like surrender monkeys in my book!

[Iggo]

10. I see a bunch of people THREATENING to filibuster.

Granted, I don't watch C-SPAN, and maybe I missed the actual filibusters as they were happening.

[cascadiance]

11. Oh, perhaps you are talking about the "old" filibustering...

Both parties have simplified this by just using cloture votes as the means of blocking bills (60 vote majorities needed instead of simple majorities), instead of forcing someone to read a book all night standing next to a pee pot. That went away a long time ago. Now that's perhaps another thing the Dems could do to make the record-breaking cloture blocking Republicans go through more pain to block stuff.

It is the Republicans that are making this an art form. There isn't a "gang of 14" now that is trying to prevent filibusters (of judicial nominees in particular) that were in place when the Dems were a minority. Now many of those same Dems that were in that gang of 14 to block Dem filibusters then (Nelson, Lieberman, Landrieu, etc.) are the same entities that are working with the Republicans on filibustering everything the Dems try to do. So all of the crap they were spouting before about making sure nominees were brought to the floor for a vote was just that! CRAP! They prove that they are partisan Rethuglicans in Dem clothing, and we should seek to disempower them in this war.

[Iggo]

19. That's what I'm talking about. Make them actually do it. (n/t)

[557188]

8. Abolish the Senate as well

Undemocratic institution that should be done away with.

[Johonny]

12. I agree

[Nederland]

13. Depends

Are you willing to live with the fact that the next time the political winds shift and the Republicans have a slim majority they get to ram their agenda through?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

14. No, We will probably be in the minority soon.

[FBaggins]

15. #1 is flat wrong.

The Senate's very existence was to keep the majority from ruling unchecked over the minority. The filibuster rule is just part of that.

This is known as a strawman argument. Redefine what the original intent was so that you can then pretend to uphold it while actually destroying it.

In answer to the question. No. I don't support changing the rules just because I don't get my way under the existing rules (note that this tendency didn't exactly help us in MA yesterday).

It's also spin to constantly refer to it as "undemocratic". To the extent that it IS, the founders were as well. This is the same strawman. It implies falsely that the original plan was "democratic" (by this usage) and therefore we should return to it.

[invictus]

20. +1

[TheIdiot]

25. That's why they call it a "deliberative body"...

if it were as simple as 50%+1 (as it is in the House), who needs to deliberate?

[TheIdiot]

21. No... remember, the pendulum swings both ways. n/t

[hyphenate]

22. I think if we bitch and moan

we are no better than they are. Some of these things were set in motion many years ago when there was not as much acrimony between the two parties, and there is no real way to justify them--in fact, we didn't complain when the rules were seemingly more on our side when Jr. was prez.

The fact that our current members are too fucking useless and spineless to pass a bill is a truer indicator of how and why nothing gets done in D.C. even when Congress is seemingly "on our side." I suggest that we heed the warning of WHY Brown was elected, and send the same message to every elected member of Congress--if you can't do the job, you won't be sitting in your chair much longer. Perhaps this will scare enough people into action, though my gut tells me it won't. "Business as usual" is how many of these people operate, and "fuck" the general public. They're in "charge" and until we can impress on them that we won't take their shit, we're going to keep getting screwed by them. That's what the GOP did to Massachusetts--they told the blue state and made it bend over and turn purple. Did it change anything? Absolutely. It made enough people realize that not everything is a given or a sure thing.

The thing is, we're not the same country we were 60 years ago--we live in an instantaneous environment, where fortune and fame can lift you up and simultaneously drop you to the nadir position. Instant fame, instant loss of fortune. We need to keep up, we need to put our egos in check and try to understand and accept the new rules, regardless of who is making them. In the end, we can only listen to the collective voice of the voters, despite what we "think" we can here.

Hasn't anyone realized that every single member of congress listens more to the PACs, the lobbyists, and the corporations, regardless of whether they call themselves D or P? Until an election time comes and they still somehow win, so they never hear our anger and frustration at them. And it's a vicious circle, and unless we send them a message 100,000 strong, they don't even bother to blink.

WE have to change things. We have to flood the Congress phone banks, flood the computer email center, and even the postal service, and change things with our voice, as voters, consumers, and members of the general public.

As far as the original question about filibustering, changing the rules won't do us any good, because it's Congress' game, and we would never be able to make the process work in our favor, because next election, it might no longer be in our favor. and believe me, the GOP will take complete and full advantage of the change in rules, just like they did in 1994, when they took over Congress and wouldn't let most of Clinton's agenda go through at all.

Work with the rules, but use the rules to chasten, lecture and teach our supposed representatives that we're not going to put up with their shit any longer. Here in Massachusetts, the electorate made that very clear yesterday.

[invictus]

23. If not for the 60 vote filibuster rule, the Republicans would have privatized Social Security ...

... when they were in power. They probably would have wrecked Medicare too.

[underpants]

24. SUMMARY OF THE BYRD RULE

Under the Byrd rule, the Senate is prohibited from considering extraneous matter as part of a reconciliation bill or resolution or conference report thereon. The definition of what constitutes "extraneous matter" is set forth in the Budget Act; however, the term remains subject to considerable interpretation by the presiding officer (who relies on the Senate Parliamentarian). The Byrd rule is enforced when a Senator raises a point of order during consideration of a reconciliation bill or conference report. If the point of order is sustained, the offending title, provision or amendment is deemed stricken unless its proponent can muster a 3/5 (60) Senate majority vote to waive the rule.

Subject matter - The Byrd rule may be invoked only against reconciliation bills, amendments thereto, and reconciliation conference reports.

Byrd rule tests - Section 313(b)(1) of the Congressional Budget Act sets forth six tests for matters to be considered extraneous under the Byrd rule. The criteria apply to provisions that:

* do not produce a change in outlays or revenues;

* produce changes in outlays or revenue which are merely incidental to the non-budgetary components of the provision;

* are outside the jurisdiction of the committee that submitted the title or provision for inclusion in the reconciliation measure;

* increase outlays or decrease revenue if the provision's title, as a whole, fails to achieve the Senate reporting committee's reconciliation instructions;

* increase net outlays or decrease revenue during a fiscal year after the years covered by the reconciliation bill unless the provision's title, as a whole, remains budget neutral;

* contain recommendations regarding the OASDI (social security) trust funds.

Exceptions to the Byrd Rule - Section 313(b)(2) allows certain otherwise covered Senate-originated provisions to be excepted from the Byrd rule if the provisions are certified for exemption by the Senate Budget Committee chairman and ranking minority member, as well as the chairman and ranking minority member of the committee of jurisdiction. The permitted exceptions are:

* a provision that mitigates direct effects attributable to a second provision which changes outlays or revenue when the provisions together produce a net reduction in outlays;

* the provision will result in a substantial reduction in outlays or a substantial increase in revenues during fiscal years after the fiscal years covered by the reconciliation bill;

* the provision will likely reduce outlays or increase revenues based on actions that are not currently projected by CBO for scorekeeping purposes; or

* such provision will likely produce significant reduction in outlays or increase in revenues, but due to insufficient data such reduction or increase cannot be reliably estimated.

Effect of points of order - The effect of raising a point of order under the Byrd rule is to strike the offending extraneous provision. If a point of order against a conference report is sustained, the Senate may consider subsequent motions to dispose of that portion of the conference report not subject to the point of order.

Waivers - The Byrd rule is not self-enforcing. A point of order must be raised at the appropriate time to enforce it. The Byrd rule can only be waived by a 3/5 (60) majority vote of the Senate.

http://www.rules.house.gov/Archives/byrd_rule.htm