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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLawrence O'Donnell just reported on MSNBC that Schumer is set to nuke voting filibuster next week!
WOW! This is tremendous. He said that once the GOP blocks moving to debate on the new voting rights legislation next week, Schumer will make a motion to overrule the chair, which, for those of us familiar with senate parliamentary maneuvers realize, is jargon to suspend the 60-vote requirement or have a carve out, whatever. The majority leader announced today that the senate will take the Freedom to Vote bill up early next week, FYI. He was interviewing Sen. Padilla from CA during this who said "what are we reading tea leaves from Joe Manchin, but yes, he understands we need to have filibuster reform for this bill."
I think O'Donnell is a bit too soon on the timeline though. I expect that the moves to nuke the filibuster will come in tandem with the move to raise the debt ceiling, which the Republicans are also threatening to filibuster (of course, since they're bottomless jerks). That's not until early to mid October or later.
If accurate, this is a gigantic step towards saving democracy!!
JohnSJ
(92,204 posts)NewsCenter28
(1,835 posts)In the interview with LOD, well Manchin anyway. He didn't mention Sinema, who I can't imagine blocking this all on her own.
JohnSJ
(92,204 posts)LeftInTX
(25,356 posts)But he still thinks he can twist the arms of 10 Republicans....
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/14/politics/democrats-manchin-voting-overhaul-bill/index.html
AZSkiffyGeek
(11,024 posts)Johnny2X2X
(19,066 posts)They made a deal with him it sounds like, take a week to find 10 Reps or come back and nuke the fillabuster next week.
diverdownjt
(702 posts)is their own love train's..........
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)Sounds like this is a very specific carve-out, not a total "kill the filibuster." Whatever it takes, we have to get voting rights done.
OAITW r.2.0
(24,504 posts)Time to reconsider these two....
ColinC
(8,300 posts)It's because the president and Schumer likely made them an alternative deal of some kind that they could not refuse. I'm still skeptical they would ever get on board doing the right thing in this regard, no matter what.
Irish_Dem
(47,109 posts)A lot of horse trading going on.
Celerity
(43,389 posts)Legislative Calendar and not the Executive Calendar (like the 2 previous mini-nukes did) that it is quite possible that if they vote a carve-out for one specific thing (say voting rights), that the entire scope of the filibuster for anything on the Legislative Calendar could possibly be voided.
That would be fantastic, but the experts said that is why Manchin and Sinema are so far steadfast in their refusal for even reform, as that reform may well equal binning it for all Legislative Calendar business.
NewsCenter28
(1,835 posts)Senate democratic leadership has decided to do this. My hypothesis and longstanding sneaking suspicion, however, is that Manchin has probably asked that they do this on the debt ceiling, rather than voting rights, which may allow him to sell this to his constituents better. I knew that there was a reason Dems were so insistent on demanding Republican buy-in on the debt ceiling. When McConnell refuses, bam, Schumer nukes the filibuster and uses the legislative calendar argument to nuke it for voting rights as well. Also, this probably helps us to sell our case to the broader public. Brilliant!
Celerity
(43,389 posts)knowledge on Senate procedural minutiae)
BumRushDaShow
(129,053 posts)is if Yellen comes out again in the next week to emphasize what can and cannot be done, to stave off a default.
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER and ALAN FRAM September 8, 2021
WASHINGTON (AP) Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is warning Congress that she will run out of maneuvering room to prevent the U.S. from broaching the governments borrowing limit in October. In a letter to congressional leaders Wednesday, Yellen said that she still could not provide a specific date for when she will be unable to keep the government funded, absent action by Congress to raise the debt limit. Based on our best and most recent information, the most likely outcome is that cash and extraordinary measures will be exhausted during the month of October, Yellen wrote. Yellen said recent measures to address the debt limit had enjoyed broad bipartisan support, But Republicans have said they will oppose an effort by Democrats to deal with the debt limit by attaching a provision to an emergency budget bill that Congress will need to pass before the start of the budget year on Oct. 1.
That legislation is needed to avoid a government shutdown. Instead, some Republicans have said Democrats should attach a debt limit increase to the $3.5 trillion infrastructure plan that Democrats are hoping to pass without Republican votes, using a process known as budget reconciliation. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday that Democrats will not be putting the debt limit increase in the reconciliation measure. She said Democrats have several options for raising the debt ceiling but she did not specify for that they were. She said Democrats supported lifting the borrowing limit under Trump because its the responsible thing to do. I would hope that the Republicans would act in a similarly responsible way.
(snip)
While Republicans in Congress have often used the debt limit debate to extract budget concessions from Democratic presidents, lawmakers have never failed to raise the debt limit or suspend it to allow the government to keep borrowing. However, in 2011, a budget battle between the Obama administration and Republicans dragged on for so long that the credit rating agency Standard & Poors downgraded a portion of Treasury debt from its AAA rating for the first time in history.
We have learned from past debt limit impasses that waiting until the last minute to suspend or increase the debt limit can cause serious harm to business and and consumer confidence, raise short-term borrowing costs for taxpayers and negatively impact the credit rating of the United States, Yellen said. A delay that calls into question the federal governments ability to meet all of its obligations would likely cause irreparable damage to the U.S. economy and global financial markets, she said. I respectfully urge Congress to protect the full faith and credit of the United States by acting as soon as possible.
https://apnews.com/article/business-janet-yellen-ac00e6452c48fba9a2bd21d9f633e961
The bolded part is what is intriguing.
As a possibility, there are 3 different types of reconciliation that can be used each fiscal year and they can each be used as "standalone" measures OR can be used in a combo of any 2 "types" or using all 3 "types". So it's possible that given the debt ceiling one is one of those "types", it could be a "standalone" OR be included in combo with a different type - i.e., a "revenue" one (taxes), since she is ruling it out a combo of it with the "spending" one (for the Infrastructure).
Of course another possibility is the carve-out mentioned for the filibuster.
FBaggins
(26,743 posts)No reason to create a carveout for that.
PortTack
(32,771 posts)FBaggins
(26,743 posts)I just watched it again. Here's my transcription:
"So it sounds like Senator Schumer is going to bring this to a vote - watch it get blocked on the 60-vote threshold by Republicans - and then presumably ask for a vote to overrule the chair on that ruling on the 60-vote threshold."
He wasn't "reporting" that it was going to happen. He was speculating in exactly the same way that some have for several months now. There was no indication that either Manchin or Sinema had changed their mind... there was just the argument (which is exactly what Schumer intended by putting the bill forward) that surely this would be enough to convince Manchin that Republicans aren't going to compromise on voting rights... and thus he would have to nix the filibuster (or at least create a carve-out) if he want's it to get passed.
That's really the exact same speculation that Manchin has shot down for months. Perhaps it will work this time, but O'Donnell was not "reporting" on a known shift in the landscape.
ColinC
(8,300 posts)Although I think Schumer just bringing it to a vote is a shift of some kind -maybe not the landscape, but it feels something must have changed for him to be willing to bring it to a vote finally.