What would be bad "unintended consequences" for eliminating filibusters

[annabanana]

for cloture votes only? Isn't a filibuster on a cloture vote just like a unilateral decision to extend lunch hour? Isn't just another excuse not to put in a decent day of work?

[CanonRay]

1. +1000

but our spineless friends in Congress won't see it that way.

[Indydem]

2. The Future

Do you think that Democrats will control the Senate's majority forever? The 60 vote rule was pretty damn important in our efforts to stop the privatization of SS, and many other whackadoo RW policies.

We can end the filibuster now for short term gain, but doing so will have consequences extending through the rest of our children's children's lives.

[annabanana]

3. I'm talking specifically filibuster on cloture... would that have

allowed the worst of the excesses of the RW?

[ManiacJoe]

16. You cannot filibuster a cloture vote.

[annabanana]

20. How did they keep the Defense bill from coming onto the floor for discussion?. .n/t

[immoderate]

26. Cloture vote, which ends a filibuster, requires 60.

--imm

[ManiacJoe]

29. Technically it is still in discussion.

A vote for cloture would end discussion (filibuster) and start the main vote.

The problem with the "fake" filibusters allowed by the Senate is that no one is actually talking as is required for a real filibuster. Once a person starts a filibuster, he keeps talking and thus allows no one else to talk (there are exceptions) so that the debate mostly ends. With the fake filibuster, a person declares the filibuster, the Senate stops the debate and skips the endless talking, and the Senate moves on to other business.

The more honest approach would be to just "table" the bill and bring back real filibusters.

[global1]

6. So It's Better To Be Deadlocked And Not Have Any Progress Whatsoever?.......

Do you think that those consequences are good to extend through the rest of our chlidrens lives?

Do you not think that the Repugs would end the filibuster if the shoe was on the other foot? If the Repugs get back in power and want to privatize SS - they'll do it any way they can and that includes ending the filibuster if they have to.

Seems to me we need to get back to a majority that is 51 if we want to have a chance at ever recovering from the years of Repug destruction. We need to have the courage to do what is right - and if we are successful - the voters will speak and make sure that a non-filibusterable Senate is the way to progress and setting this country back on the right path.

[Winterblues]

21. You don't believe consequences are incurring as we type for having it?

I am not convinced Majority rule is a bad thing...Seems to work just fine in the House..

[MiniMe]

24. Exactly, that is why the group of Repugs blocked doing away with it

When Frist wanted to do it for the judges. Do away with 1 Senator being able to put a silent hold on a bill. Make them actually debate the bill if they filibuster it. I would agree with those things. But the minority needs some way to keep the majority from doing really stupid things. And the Dems will be in the minority again at some point.

[zipplewrath]

4. John Bolton would have been UN ambassador for years

Bush's tax cuts would have been "permanent".
NCLB would have been a GOP wet dream.

Flip side is:

Federal anti-lynching laws would have been enacted a decade or more earlier.

[Warpy]

5. The filibuster comes in handy when an ideologically driven party

tries to force something completely unacceptable to the country through. Used appropriately, it can be more of a help than a hindrance.

Unfortunately, the ideologically driven party is now abusing it to stop even necessary business both parties agree on, just to make the opposition party look bad. The rules need to be changed so that when there are more than 50 bills pending with filibuster threats, the filibuster is suspended for six months or until all the bills are cleared. Threatening a filibuster should not be a filibuster. If some fatass wants to stop cloture just because, he needs to get his ass down to the floor and start talking, not just announce he will filibuster. Forcing them to do the work would also act as a disincentive to abusing the process. It would also force them to stick their necks out and announce to the country just who they are and what they're up to.

No party should be able to do what the Republicans have done over the past year.

[bluethruandthru]

28. [phone]

Make them actually filibuster...not just threaten to do it!

[kenny blankenship]

7. People will get the govt they elect and deserve.

For good or ill. Most other countries don't have this kind of extreme antidemocratic institution/procedural elite veto, yet they survive and manage to enact things like Universal Health Care, which apparently we will never get.

[Romulox]

8. It's all a bunch of excuses for the fact that the Senate isn't very democratic.

Many people feel comfortable with this, but even with this supposed check, our Senate runs far to the right of the House, and this has been true whether it is majority Democrat or Republican.

[Ozymanithrax]

9. The Senate becomes another House of Representatives...

Ruled by majority rule only. The tyranny of the majority can every bit as bad as the tyranny of the minority, and the founding fathers thought it a much larger problem. I think the filibuster rules should be changed more to the way they were in the early 60's. The filibuster rule actually fits well with the political theory and purpose of the Senate.

[kenny blankenship]

11. the political theory and purpose of the Senate: ELITE VETO

Yup. Same as when it was created to protect the property right of slavery.

[Ozymanithrax]

13. LIke the bill of rights, the Senate is supposed to protect the minority...

The property right of slavery is not the same as the fear of the tryany of mob rule.

I supported the filibuster rule when Republicans held the majority. I support it now that Democrats hold the majority. It's rules should be changed rather than its use eliminated.

[kenny blankenship]

14. Oh yes and it DOES. Madison's "minority of the opulent" have MUCH to thank the Senate for

The rest of us, not so much.

[Ozymanithrax]

25. And we were thankful for any check on mob power when Republicans were in control.

And they will be in control again, eventually, and we will be upset becasue there is no check on majority rule.

The filibuster has a purpose in modern politics. Many on the left don't like it now because it limits what can be done. The rules need to be changed so that tool remains but is less easy to abuse.

[Johonny]

15. +1

[LiberalAndProud]

10. I would address your attention to the year 2005.

http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2005-05-01-1.html
However, the filibuster is the Big One. It's an entire minority group -- in this case, the Democratic Party -- declaring war on the President and refusing to allow him to exercise his constitutional authority to appoint judges and other officials with the "advice and consent" of the Senate.

We are in record-breaking territory now. The Republicans have made 60 votes a requirement for any of Obama's legislation, but I do appreciate safeguards against the tyranny of the majority. Especially since 51 senators do not necessarily represent 51% of our population. Every state has two, and only two, representatives.

[Gold Metal Flake]

12. We don't need to abandon the FB, just make them talk.

The "painless filibuster" is the problem. Right now there are no political costs to filibustering. It's cheap and easy obstruction. Harry Reid is the reason why there is no political cost for republican obstructionism. Have you seen his Republican opponent for his election? I mean, we either allow this pre-planned, bipartisan obstructionism to continue for six more years or we allow a lunatic to take Harry's seat.

Seems almost like it was planned this way.

[ManiacJoe]

17. Exactly - make them talk.

[LiberalAndProud]

19. I've often seen this criticism, but I'm missed the "meat" of the argument, if you will.

What "political cost" has Reid failed to extract? What should he (or Obama) be doing to extract payment?

[Gold Metal Flake]

23. Posted in my original reply.

[Jim__]

18. I don't think you can filibuster on an invocation of cloture.

Am I understanding correctly that you just want to prevent a filibuster of cloture? My reading of wiki is that an invocation of cloture allows interruption of a speaking senator:

• A minimum of sixteen senators must sign a petition for cloture.
  
• The petition may be presented by interrupting another Senator's speech.
  
• The clerk reads the petition
  
• ...
  

[LiberalAndProud]

22. I have no idea what you're talking about.

http://uspolitics.about.com/od/usgovernment/a/filibuster.htm

[sofa king]

27. The one tool of minority input--delay--would be lost.

Just imagine if the filibuster for cloture votes was pulled in January, 2005.

* Your social security would have been privately invested in real estate and subsequently lost.

* We would be fighting three land wars in Asia at the same time, and losing them all.

* The judiciary would now be packed with dozens more unqualified right-wing judges who can't be removed.

* Several (more) nations would have been deeply offended by the appointment of corrupt Bush fundraisers as ambassadors.

Deficits would have gone unchecked, contractors would have bilked us out of billions more, dogs and cats would be living together, and hunting season on gays would last 364 days a year.

Using the filibuster, the Democrats successfully shielded the United States from the full brunt of the Republican Party's disastrous policies in the 00s. What little we have left today is thanks to the filibuster.

We would be insane to squander that kill switch in exchange for a couple of weeks of unhindered but routine legislative activity, and then possibly have to hand the newly created power over to the criminals who nearly did us in. First chance they got, the GOP would use the precedent to squash minority opposition in as many cases as possible. And the next time another Bush sneaks in, that's it for democracy in America.