Filibuster Busters

[sleepyjeff]

Originally Posted by Drince88

Oh yea, that's right, they aren't REALLY filibustering as I was taught (in the dark ages) a filibuster was supposed to be. If you're going to filibuster, DO IT - but don't change the rules so it's not so hard on you to do!

Hear, Hear!!!

The filibuster was supposed to be hard to do. That way it would only be done when the strenght of the convictions of the minority was so strong that they were willing to go thru with it.

[Motorboat Cruiser]

Originally Posted by Drince88

One thing that's had me confused is that it sure looks like they're getting a lot done on the Senate floor during these filibusters, and we haven't been hearing about what obscure book they're reading from to keep the filibuster going, and how long Senator X spoke, etc.

That is because, at least to my understanding, that there has been no filibuster yet. There has only been a threat of one, up to this point. Again though, I could be wrong. Last I had read, there was a compromise in the works.

Here is an interesting article that explains the changes in the filibuster over the course of time.

[Scrooge McSam]

To those trying to follow this story...

Keep in mind the New York Times is counting Bush's nominees twice in arriving at their figures, since Bush re-nominated his failed nominees in another session.

The authors of the New York Times study explain their method thusly...

[J]udicial confirmation rates include nominees who are renominated in a subsequent Congress. Thus, a nominee who is not confirmed in one Congress, and is then renominated during the next session, is counted twice. We debated reporting the proportion of individuals who were confirmed. We opted not to do this since we think the proportion of nominations that are confirmed gives a better feel of the obstacles presidents and their nominees encounter.

Their full explanation can be found here

Gathering their statistics in this manner insures that Mr. Bush's record with Congress looks worse than it actually is.

Carry on

[sleepyjeff]

Originally Posted by Motorboat Cruiser

That is because, at least to my understanding, that there has been no filibuster yet. There has only been a threat of one, up to this point. Again though, I could be wrong. Last I had read, there was a compromise in the works.

This is true. In all fairness it is the Republicans that are letting the Dems do this. Maybe instead of getting rid of the fillibuster for judicial nominees they should just make the dems actually and for true really fillibuster.

[wendybeth]

Be careful what you wish for, SJ. They might get up there and read Hillary's "It Takes a Village" book, or Bill's autobiography.

[Motorboat Cruiser]

Rick Santorum on 5/19/05:

SANTORUM: I mean, imagine, the rule has been in place for 214 years that this is the way we confirm judges. Broken by the other side two years ago, and the audacity of some members to stand up and say, how dare you break this rule. It's the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in 1942 saying, "I'm in Paris. How dare you invade me. How dare you bomb my city? It's mine."

Now, Rick Santorum on 3/5/05:

Santorum: Senator Byrd's inappropriate remarks comparing his Republican colleagues with Nazis are inexcusable. These comments lessen the credibility of the senator and the decorum of the Senate. He should retract his statement and ask for pardon.

How soon we forget...

[sleepyjeff]

Originally Posted by wendybeth

Be careful what you wish for, SJ. They might get up there and read Hillary's "It Takes a Village" book, or Bill's autobiography.

NOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!


(I just saw Ep III )

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by Motorboat Cruiser

How soon we forget...

Oh....I agree. Senator Byrd is frequently excused for his rhetoric and offensive comments. Honestly, I wasn't even aware that Byrd had made some sort of Nazi comparison. I was aware that he used the "N" word more than once being interviewed, but that was simply because he was tired, not because he was a member of the KKK or radically opposed the any civil rights legislation. Lott gets demoted for simply praising someone with a less than acceptable past, but Byrd - no, doesn't matter.

Yes....we forget all too easily.

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by wendybeth

Be careful what you wish for, SJ. They might get up there and read Hillary's "It Takes a Village" book, or Bill's autobiography.

Shudder.

[Motorboat Cruiser]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

Honestly, I wasn't even aware that Byrd had made some sort of Nazi comparison.

Well, this is what Byrd actually said that prompted the response from Santorum.

With no right of debate, what will forestall plain muscle and mob rule? Many times in our history we have taken up arms to protect a minority against the tyrannical majority in other lands. We, unlike Nazi Germany or Mussolini's Italy, have never stopped being a nation of laws, not of men.

But witness how men with motives and a majority can manipulate law to cruel and unjust ends. Historian Alan Bullock writes that Hitler's dictatorship rested on the constitutional foundation of a single law, the Enabling Law.

Hitler needed a two-thirds vote to pass that law, and he cajoled his opposition in the Reichstag to support it. Bullock writes that: "Hitler was prepared to promise anything to get his bill through, with the appearances of legality preserved intact." And he succeeded.

"Hitler's originality lay in his realization that effective revolutions, in modern conditions, are carried out with, and not against, the power of the State: the correct order of events was first to secure access to that power and then begin his revolution. Hitler never abandoned the cloak of legality; he recognized the enormous psychological value of having the law on his side. Instead, he turned the law inside out and made illegality legal."

That is what the nuclear option seeks to do to rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate.

I'm not so sure that Byrd was that far off the mark.