Please explain to me right now why Harry Reid cannot invoke the nuclear option

[Hawkeye-X]

He has the Senate until 2012, and the R's are at its zenith and going downhill. Nuclear option needs to be invoked before they seat the House so we can pass meaningful bills and get the R's out of the fucking way.

Hawkeye-X

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. 4 weeks of mega-legislation!

:woohoo:

[katnapped]

2. Powder must stay dry n/t

[aquamarina]

3. Because. He. Is. Spineless.

[Better Believe It]

4. Because President Obama doesn't want him to.

[madokie]

5. Yes

this 60 votes the dems have to have is starting to piss me right the fuck off too.

[CBGLuthier]

6. Honestly and Truly they just plain don't care.

It's just a game and they (the power elite) have always won.

[fascisthunter]

7. because he cares more about his career

[aquart]

8. Right now I would favor a real nuke.

Doesn't have to be a big one.

[NNN0LHI]

9. Did you forget when the Republicans were threatening to invoke the nuclear option?

If you didn't forget how did you feel about that at the time. If you forgot never mind.

Don

[defendandprotect]

10. Still 51 votes to change the Senate rules?

[Ozymanithrax]

11. At the start of th 112th congress, the Senate can change the rules with a simple majority vote...

To change it now either needs a super majority of 66 votes or a trip to the supreme Court to attack the very idea of the necessity of a super majority.

He doesn't have time to go to the SCOTUS. he doesn't have 66 votes now. He must wait until the beginning of the 112th congress to change the rules.

[Better Believe It]

13. The Senate can change its rules right now with a simple majority of votes.

This has been clearly explained many time on Democratic Underground.

There is no constitutional or legal requirement demanding 67 votes to change Senate rules.

This is true no matter what previous Senates have decided. The Senate is free to change its rules and can revoke previous rules whenever it chooses too. The Senate can decide to change its rules by a simple majority vote and that is constitutional.




Government running to stand still
By Clive Crook
February 14, 2010


Contrary to the belief of many Americans, the filibuster rule – which requires 60 senators to support “cloture”, thus bringing a measure under consideration to a vote – is not in the constitution. Getting rid of it does not require a constitutional amendment, which is a demanding process. The Senate could do this at its own initiative. Not only that, it could do it by simple majority vote.

Like most things on Capitol Hill, the process would be somewhat convoluted. A different Senate rule says that a supermajority in the chamber is needed to change Senate rules. Democrats would first have to revoke that rule, before moving on to the filibuster rule. The question is whether the change to the rule about changing rules would itself be constitutional, if it were passed only by a simple majority. The answer is that it would be.

Under the constitution, this is a matter of internal procedure, for the Senate to decide. If it chooses, it can impose on itself restrictions like the filibuster rule or the rule-making rule. But it can also subsequently remove them: otherwise, any one Senate might bind its successors in perpetuity. There is nothing in the constitution to say that changes to the rule-making rule need a supermajority.

In effect, by institutionalising the supermajority requirement, Republicans have amended the constitution without going to the trouble of passing an amendment. So why are the Democrats hesitating?

Read the full article at:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5261ee22-199b-11df-af3e-00144feab49a.html#axzz17elQPYsq

- I don't agree with some of the political views of the author expressed in the article, however, he does explain how Senate Democrats can change Senate rules and end fake Republican procedural "filibusters" with a simple majority vote.
BBI

William Greider recently explained:

"In 1975 the filibuster issue was revived by post-Watergate Democrats frustrated in their efforts to enact popular reform legislation like campaign finance laws. Senator James Allen of Alabama, the most conservative Democrat in the Senate and a skillful parliamentary player, blocked them with a series of filibusters. Liberals were fed up with his delaying tactics. Senator Walter Mondale pushed a campaign to reduce the threshold from sixty-seven votes to a simple majority of fifty-one. In a parliamentary sleight of hand, the liberals broke Allen's filibuster by a majority vote, thus evading the sixty-seven-vote rule. (Senate rules say you can't change the rules without a cloture vote, but the Constitution says the Senate sets its own rules. As a practical matter, that means the majority can prevail whenever it decides to force the issue.) In 1975 the presiding officer during the debate, Vice President Rockefeller, first ruled with the liberals on a motion to declare Senator Allen out of order. When Allen appealed the "ruling of the chair" to the full Senate, the majority voted him down. Nervous Senate leaders, aware they were losing the precedent, offered a compromise. Henceforth, the cloture rule would require only sixty votes to stop a filibuster."

[Ozymanithrax]

14. There are Senate rules, and he will not get this through without...

a trip to the SCOTUS to show he can. That takes time he doesn't have. Republicans arn't willing to capitulate.

[Better Believe It]

15. Senate Democrats have had 4 years to change Senate rules. They can do it now in one hour.

But you're right. Republicans aren't willing to capitulate .... unless facing real threats.

Such as when Democrats forced Republicans to filibuster on the Senate floor last March. That filibuster was busted in less than 24 hours!

Democratic Senators, led by Reid, are all too willing to capitulate and surrender at the slightest sign of opposition from Republicans.

[Recursion]

12. Because 50 Democrats and Biden would have to go for it, and it would be permanent

Once the nuclear option is done, the filibuster is gone from the body forever, and Senators are a little leery of that.

[WonderGrunion]

16. Because even the nuclear option requires a certain level of support

Support that Reid does not have in the Senate to pass the legislation you want him to go nuclear on.