Sen. Byrd calls proposed Democratic changes to filibuster rules 'misguided'

[slipslidingaway]

By Michael O'Brien - 02/24/10 01:34 PM ET

Sen. Robert Byrd warned Democratic colleagues against changing filibuster rules in order to advance their legislative priorities.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/83437-byrd-calls-changes-to-filibuster-rules-misguided

"...Sen. Robert Byrd warned Democratic colleagues against changing filibuster rules in order to advance their legislative priorities.

In a "Dear Colleague" letter dated Tuesday, Byrd, the longest-serving member of the Senate, said that the Senate's rules on ending debate shouldn't be changed, but he encouraged forcing senators to actually sustain debate in a real, live filibuster...

The frustration over the filibuster has been especially manifest in the healthcare debate, where all 41 Republicans, sticking together, have been able to sustain a filibuster.

Byrd said the solution to the Senate's impasse would be to force Republican senators to actually filibuster — that is, continually talk and debate on the Senate floor without yielding.

"Senators are obliged to exercise their best judgment when invoking their right to extended debate," Byrd said. " They should also be obliged to actually filibuster — that is, go to the floor and talk, instead of finding less strenuous ways to accomplish the same end."

[Deep13]

1. Sorry, but I have to disagree with him.

When the Rs have a majority, they do whatever they want. When the Ds have it, they get nothing done.

[slipslidingaway]

3. Why is that and who is to blame? n/t

[Deep13]

14. Money. Those with a lot of it. nt

[LynneSin]

4. The fact that we have kept some very heinous judges off of the court

has me agreeing with Byrd.

Sure, I wish we'd use it more often. But we have used it at key times keeping people like Robert Bork off of the bench.

And remember we won't always have the same democrats in office - things always change, let's not shoot ourselves in the foot.

[Deep13]

13. The Ds had a majority when Bork was nominated...

...and he was defeated by a straight majority vote. And I have to wonder how many progressive judges were just never nominated because of this obstacle. And we have a reactionary SCOTUS now and they have been getting worse over the past 20 years or so.

The fact is a system that preserves the status quo helps them and hurts us. It's not enough to prevent evil judges or legislation. We simply need progress and we can't get it if the minority can hamstring the Senate.

[LynneSin]

16. You have very valid points but I still stand by the filibuster

It sounds really good now when we have the majority but it may not always happen like that.

I find it ironic that everytime the republicans get the minority they start harping about 'Term Limits'. THey use that as a rallying cry as to why republicans should be elected because they 'vow' they'll bring term limits back into action. And yet as soon as republicans have the majority the Term Limits idea is tossed out the window.

Maybe today the idea of revamping the filibuster seems like a good idea but it will bite us in the ass down the line.

[Deep13]

17. I believe at this point in a political discussion...

...we are suppose to start calling each other names and accusing the other of not being loyal to the progressive cause. :evilgrin:

[LynneSin]

19. Um, Ok I'll start

Your mama smells, you're a Nickelback/Creed fan and not loyal to the progressive cause.

Your turn!

[Deep13]

20. So, it's come to this, has it?

You are a closeted disco fan who also eats at the Olive Garden and refuses to admit that kudzu is going places.

[LynneSin]

21. I actually like the breadsticks from Olive Garden and have an extensive collection of Disco...

on my Ipod

But damnit - you're just going to far with that kudzu shit!!

:grr:

Them is fighting words, you secret worshipper of all things Ann Coulter!

[Deep13]

23. Coulter!? Why you Glenn Beckistani!

:evilgrin:

[SharonRB]

2. I'd like to see this, too

Maybe they wouldn't be so quick to use it if they had to stand on the floor for hours, possibly days, on end. It's made too easy for them now.

[slipslidingaway]

7. Yes, it is too easy now. n/t

[Jennicut]

5. Byrd has a point....make them actually filibuster. Why the hell don't we do that anymore?

[Igel]

24. There are reasons.

It's inconvenient. Not only do the repubs have to stay there, but so do the various other employees. And even congressfolk with (D) after their names.

It's time consuming. If you have 34 bills you want passed in the next 3 weeks, taking 9 days, 24/7, listening to the phone book (or whatever) is a waste of time and leaves you with 33 bills to pass in the remaining 12 days.

It's the elephant in the schedule. Hearings are a problem, meetings are a problem, press conferences are a problem. Not only can the chair not control his committee's time, he and other allies can't control their own time.

Not to mention the hit on the budget that all the takeaway orders amount to. And the smell that builds up from having lots of unbathed old men in a relatively confined space doing essentially nothing but age.

A bummer, all the way around.

[Jennicut]

33. The unbathed old men smell would be the worst thing about it, no doubt.

LOL! My husband smells after one day without a shower and he isn't even old yet.

[Overseas]

6. That's the change I want-- just to make them actually carry out their filibusters

I am afraid that Republicans want to kill the filibuster so they can crush Democratic opposition the next time that they are in the majority, although, of course, I hope they never achieve that status again.

They've used such techniques before, like impeaching Clinton for private sex play to make the whole impeachment process unpleasant enough so that when they imposed the Bush Cheney gang on us, the Democrats would be reluctant to employ the most appropriate response to their sending the nation to war on false pretenses.

Edited to add--

And it worked. The Bush Gang committed some offenses that were much more deserving of impeachment than Clinton's affair.

At the time Republicans were pushing the impeachment of Clinton and spending millions investigating and instigating outrage, I wondered just who they had in the wings that they wanted to put into power that would need the public to be so tired of impeachment that Democrats would avoid putting the country through it again. When Bush and Cheney were selected, that question was answered.

Yet I was still quite demoralized by the lack of impeachment proceedings against them.

[slipslidingaway]

25. It has become too convenient to say there are not enough votes ...

if senators were inconvenienced and could be blamed for holding up other legislation maybe some would think twice.

The Democrats should have started impeachment proceedings against Bush regardless of what happened with Clinton and I agree they were reluctant after the Clinton.

:(

[Vinnie From Indy]

8. I agree with Byrd on this one

If the filibuster required actual effort, it would not have become the impediment to progress it is today. It has become a tool deny the majority governing power.

[zipplewrath]

11. I'm close

I think the same thing could be accomplished, only better, by requiring some distribution of the opposition. Say, a minimum of two votes from each federal district or something.

[slipslidingaway]

26. Agreed :) n/t

[kentuck]

9. I agree with the Senator.

wisdom

[slipslidingaway]

27. Thanks n/t

[slipslidingaway]

10. Fixing the Senate by Forcing Real Filibusters

By Karen Tumulty / Washington Monday, Feb. 22, 2010

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1967034,00.html

"...On an almost daily basis, the Republican minority — just 41 Senators — stops bills from even coming to the floor for debate and amendment," Democratic Senator Tom Harkin wrote recently in the Huffington Post. "In the 1950s, an average of one bill was filibustered in each two-year Congress. In the last Congress, 139 bills were filibustered. The Republican abuse of the filibuster is unprecedented, routine, and increasingly reckless."

...But there is an answer here. It's not fewer filibusters; it's more of them. And by that I mean real filibusters — something we haven't seen for quite a while in the Senate.

Anyone expecting the classic scene from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, in which Jimmy Stewart talks until he collapses, should drop by the Senate Chamber during what passes for a filibuster these days. The place is usually all but empty. The only sound is the voice of a clerk droning through a slow roll call of the names of absent Senators. More often than not, even the filibusterer himself is nowhere to be seen.

It has been more than two decades since the last time we saw the majority actually make the minority put up or shut up on a filibuster. In 1988, while attempting to shut down a Republican filibuster of campaign finance reform legislation, then majority leader Robert Byrd even went so far as to invoke a power that hadn't been used since 1942: he dispatched the Senate sergeant-at-arms to arrest missing Senators and escort them to the floor. Oregon's Bob Packwood was carried onto the floor at 1:19 a.m., after a scuffle in which he attempted to jam his office door and ended up reinjuring a broken finger. Byrd didn't give up until a record-setting eighth cloture vote failed to end the debate..."

[burning rain]

12. I completely disagree with Byrd but I understand why he takes this position.

He is a zealous defender of states' rights, and the institution of the filibuster is a major prop of states' rights (as against human rights). It is not a coincidence that he used to be a prime opponent of civil rights, a lead attack dog against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a signatory of the Southern Manifesto, and the Senate's oppressive overlord of DC in the bad old days before home rule when DC was ruled by Congress. Byrd has stopped bingeing on overt racism since the old days, but he is still bound and determined to preserve the Senate's states' rights-oriented rules and traditions of the filibuster and vast prerogatives for each individual senator, that do so much to give power to racism, plutocracy, and other forms of oppression.

In his views as to how the Senate should work, Byrd remains a throwback to the days of the old-time Southern senators, and Democrats should not set him up as a sage.

Glad to give you a rec, though, to give visibility to this issue and Byrd's backwards views on the subject. I see I've brought you up to a "handsome" zero net votes... the knives are out here, eh?

[slipslidingaway]

28. Thanks for the rec even though you disagree, back in 2005 many ...

prominent Dems agreed with Byrd.

[Renew Deal]

15. I have mixed feelings, but Byrd makes a good point.

This "gentleman's filibuster" is BS.

[slipslidingaway]

29. Yes... "This "gentleman's filibuster" is BS." n/t

[gratuitous]

18. The trouble with an actual filibuster is . . .

That everything else the Senate wants to do stops. Hearings, other legislation, votes, everything. And the way the Senate operates, if a bill misses its turn, it's done for. Think about when an airport gets jammed up due to bad weather. When a plane is cancelled, the people who were supposed to be on that plane have to go somewhere, and the next plane for that destination is full up, too. The airlines and airport personnel do their best to get people on other flights, but if the bad weather continues for a day or more, you've got dozens of flights cancelled and thousands of people stuck.

The same thing happens with items on the Senate agenda. If you're okay with bill after important bill going by the boards because Senator Nitwit from Dumbfuckiana wants to hold up health care reform, then be ready for that trade off going in. Byrd's comments don't appear to address this eventuality, but I'm sure he knows about it.

[slipslidingaway]

30. If one party or one senator continuously blocks legislation the people

will take notice.

[gratuitous]

31. The people might notice

But with Fox News yammering away 24/7, and other outlets parroting at least some of those talking points, you can actually get to the point, which we did with Bunning, where the fault for the delay was laid at the Democrats' feet. Given this half-assed permission, the irreducible 28% will gladly blame the Democrats for a Republican filibuster, which nitwittery will be amplified by Fox, repeated by the rest of the echo chamber (even if they disagree with the point, in their endless quest for "balance"), and much more time will be wasted in explaining the obvious: Senate paralysis is due to Republican truculence.

[slipslidingaway]

32. Years ago filibusters did not happen all the time, and Bunning did not filibuster...

although that is what has been reported so many times. And some blame should be laid at the feet of the Dems for waiting too long, why not bring this up under regular rules.

:shrug:

[bridgit]

22. "their best judgment when invoking their right to extended debate" now there's a hoot!

When their judgment is not the best but clearly the lesser; when their right to extended debate is instead an over-extended obstruction to easements meant to enhance a more perfect union it would seem to me the senate runs the risk of nullifying its own charge

I wonder how Byrd felt about this 60 vote super majority BS when it came barreling down the pike - republicans routinely ignore Byrd till he bloviates something they can tag & bag then, voila! - he's some American Voltaire in Repose sawing on his scratchy little fiddle and republicans love it they just *love* it when Ole Byrd reaches for his fiddle

"the solution to the Senate's impasse would be to force Republican senators to actually filibuster — that is, continually talk and debate on the Senate floor without yiel......" whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa stop-stop-stop: they already "talk" waaaay too fucking much on the Senate floor as it is, hey - maybe let that be the guideline? Like a station on an obstacle course: unless or until you are able to filibuster for days on end round the clock you cannot be a member of the Senate. Or if in the event you are no longer able, then you are to be shown the exit, it is your time to go

Oooh the precious filibuster, well you just know we have to preserve that sanctity in which "Well and now I ain't no big city lawyer I should have my esteemed, august, silver tongued friends and colleagues understand I say I say I say in the well of this body" Sen. Fog Horn LegHorn fucking BS is heard bouncing off the statuary for hours and days on-end. How bout more like putting an errant child into time out?

"Now, Robert, until you and your friends are able to respect your own guidelines I'm putting this filibuster up on this high-high shelf and you are simply not to touch it until you and your friends have earned your privilege to do so now isn't that right?"