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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"The Filibuster Fight is Back" or Lucy pulls the ball out once again. Poor Charlie Brown (Reid).
From The Nation Magazine by George Zornick on November 1, 2013
http://www.thenation.com/blog/176958/filibuster-fight-back
The Republicans bowed to the threat and let a few appointees get a vote. But some were skeptical that this new cooperation was merely temporary.
So here we are again. When will Senate Democrats get some backbone?
benld74
(9,888 posts)napkinz
(17,199 posts)markpkessinger
(8,381 posts). . . Reid's failure at the outset of the previous Congress, when many urged him to, or the current Congress, is infuriating.
fadedrose
(10,044 posts)Let it be your legacy instead of "Harry always caved."
Hutzpa
(11,461 posts)Senator Turtleman's gentlemans' agreement and here we are a year later after 2012 presidential
election, history repeating itself.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)Scuba
(53,475 posts)renie408
(9,854 posts)Scuba
(53,475 posts)I've never seen anything offered that makes any sense.
renie408
(9,854 posts)Scuba
(53,475 posts)renie408
(9,854 posts)Scuba
(53,475 posts)Does anyone think they won't?
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)being perpetrated on Americans and not doing anything about it. I feel he is more of an accomplice. Forgive me for being picky but I think there is a difference. A bad analogy would be to say that in the good cop bad cop scenario, the good cop is "complicit" with the actions of the bad cop, but I feel he/she is more of an accomplice.
Messy way of saying that I believe that most of the Senators are in the same club. Some play good cop and some play bad cop, but at the end of the day, the American public isnt being served.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)If he can't get 50 votes + Biden, he has no play here.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)makes individual Senators more powerful. So, they can have temper tantrums and hold nominees hostage in order to extract concessions.
Democrats as well as Republicans are not biased towards diminishing their personal influence.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)same team.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Senators have massive egos and don't see themselves as taking orders.
Especially red-state Senators.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)Just saying.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)Therefore the filibuster is a very unequal tool. It's outdated. I am curious why you take the Republicans view on this.
KoKo
(84,711 posts)Repugs always seem to get away with pulling every trick in the Senate Book to get their way...but, when we had a larger majority we still can't seem to learn to fight back dirty as we get.
But, then. We do want to get along and "COMPROMISE" is what the Democratic Party stands for ....so we go along to get along.
dmosh42
(2,217 posts)rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)dmosh42
(2,217 posts)rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)want progressive laws but the big bad republicans wont let them. And they can still be ok with their corporate financiers.
Democat
(11,617 posts)Democrats will line up to help republicans if another Republican president ever gets elected.
DonCoquixote
(13,615 posts)Considering that John Bhoner has been nuetered, let me ask this, what would it take for us to either make reid step down, or at least stay out of the way?
onyxw
(36 posts)The filibuster has its place, but clearly the Republicans are abusing it.
At the very least I'd like to see the onus shifted from a 60 vote threshold to break a filibuster to a shift to a 40 vote requirement to sustain the filibuster. It's a subtle tweak, but it'd put the onus on those filibustering to be more on record and accountable as it'd shift the narrative slightly to "these 40 senators are blocking this from going forward" rather than "the party in power weren't able to get 60 votes to proceed". It'd preserve the minority power for items people are truly passionate about, but it'd let more things proceed as it'd be easier to call out the 40 people holding up nominees for political reason and peel a few off unless it was a truly extreme type nominee that the collective minority party took issue with, rather than a few senators with axes to grind.
Also instances where a senator is ill wouldn't be held against proceeding. So 59-39 with 2 no-votes would still be able to proceed. Frankly, 51-39 would still be able to proceed and maybe we could get back to a slightly more normal order. I'm confident Republicans would still abuse it, but it might be a middle ground to ease some of the more egregious gridlock that you could maybe get a few old guard republicans with interest in actually governing to go along with, without resorting to a full nuclear option completely doing away with the filibuster.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)that if get in this position, you better believe they wont hesitate to invoke the nuclear option. So the idea for the Dems to be fair now because they might some day want fairness in return is pure folly.