Why does CNN continue to lie? You do NOT need 60 votes for a bill to pass the Senate....

[RollWithIt]

They only needed 60 votes to close debate on the bill (Closure vote). Now that the bill has passed through confernece all that is needed at this point is +1 vote. FIFTY ONE. Not sixty. It's really annoying to hear them continue to just make shit up.

[madaboutharry]

1. Because they have second rate journalism grads,

who are too lazy to look anything up, writing copy.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

2. You need 60 votes to circumvent budget rules.

So for this bill, you do need 60 votes.

[napi21]

3. Don't they need cloture again on this final version?

I'm not questioning you. I know it only takes 51 to pass a bill, but I thought a cloture vote was needed to stop the debates this time too.

[onenote]

11. yes

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

4. You need 60 votes for bills that add to the defecit. It's a senate rule

[LostinVA]

5. They aren't lying -- they are 100% correct -- 60 votes are needed

[valerief]

6. They probably graduated from Liberty College. nt

[Occam Bandage]

7. They are correct. It's a budget issue, so they need 60 votes. nt

[bottomtheweaver]

8. They don't need 60 votes.

Without 60, a senator could raise a "point of order" objecting to the vote, but Reid could decide against him, and any challenge to Reid's decision would have to be sustained by a simple majority.

So even if they had to go through the Kabuki, and I don't recall when the last time they ever did, they still don't need 60 votes.

[Metta]

9. Yes, it is. They've long since been part of the problem.

Too bad they move their lips.

[biopowertoday]

10. IT was Harry Reid who brought up the needed 60 votes the

other day when he found out Kennedy was off for a treatment and would not be there.
He said he still had the 60 (if the 3 Republicans were still on board). But he still worried as it was cutting it close. (it passed by 61 the first time).

[bottomtheweaver]

14. Good ol' Harry.

He knows which side his bread is buttered on. Where was all this hyper attention to obscure technicalities -- which incidentally would require HIS sustaining any objections raised in light of them -- for the last eight freakin' years?!?!

[Barack_America]

12. Just adding to the chorus noting that bills violating the Budget Act DO require 60 votes. nt

[onenote]

13. Conference reports can be filibustered.

Your statement that "Now that the bill has passed through confernece all that is needed at this point is +1 vote. FIFTY ONE. Not sixty" is wrong. Cloture is necessary on conference reports.

I'd never say you were lying. Just wrong.

[Two Americas]

15. yes and no

It is pretty complicated. There are Senate rules that may apply, should Republicans raise a point of order, and overcoming the Senate rules requires 60 votes.

The broader question we should be asking is this - why did the Republicans not need 60 votes (neither party has had 60 votes since 1976) in order to get their massive wish list enacted? Why is it so much easier for the Republicans to succeed at anything than it is for the Democrats?

If the Republicans can stop any left wing legislation now, why were the Democrats unable to stop all of the extreme right wing legislation that passed over the last few years?

So, in general, you are right and CNN is full of it. But there is a lot more to it.

If you are asking "how can we avoid taking a sober look at the Democratic party and our own partisanship, and still explain why they fail" then I would say that is not possible. We can say "oh it is the media's fault," or "it is the Republicans' fault" or "it is the fault of the stupid sheeple," but that is like blaming the arsonist for the failure of fire fighters to show up at the scene of a fire, let alone put the fire out.

[bottomtheweaver]

16. If someone raised a point of order on this rule,

all Reid would have to do is overrule it. If someone then appealled his ruling, they would need a majority to sustain the appeal, and the pukes don't have a majority.

How come Harry never dragged out this "rule" when the Senate was having a ball voting up Bush tax cuts and war appropriations and funding the idiotic Bushler DHS?

:shrug:

[Hippo_Tron]

17. Part of it is because tax cuts can pass without 60 votes

The Budget Act of 1974 says that legislation dealing with entitlements and medicare can go through reconciliation and thus can't be filibustered. The only caveat is that they must sunset within 10 years.

[Two Americas]

18. as I said, it is complicated

I think it is a distraction to argue about the Senate rules.

Here is my point - why are we being asked to apply a different set of standards to the Democrats then we do to the Republicans? If the Democrats can do little or nothing for this or that reason, why were the Republicans so successful when they had no more or even less power?