{"id":128300,"date":"2015-10-13T19:30:32","date_gmt":"2015-10-14T01:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/10\/13\/senate-majority-considers-weakening-the-minority-filibuster-again.html"},"modified":"2015-11-05T11:11:48","modified_gmt":"2015-11-05T18:11:48","slug":"senate-majority-considers-weakening-the-minority-filibuster-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/10\/13\/senate-majority-considers-weakening-the-minority-filibuster-again.html","title":{"rendered":"Senate Majority considers weakening the Minority filibuster (again)"},"content":{"rendered":"

So all those GOP Senators who were so adamant that the filibuster was the critical tool to maintain civility, order, and to prevent radical law-passage by a tyrannical majority — back when they were the minority in the Senate — are now beginning to wonder if they should chip away at it a bit more now that they are in the Majority and the Democrats are the ones blocking stuff.<\/p>\n

True, Harry Reid did make a Senate rules change by eliminating the filibuster on certain federal appointments (once the judiciary and some federal agencies were getting to the point of not being able to operate because of nominees being blocked). But the proposal here seems more fundamental — and, not surprisingly, it's actually being spearheaded by more recent (and radical) GOP Senate electees who seem to assume that (just like Oceania's War with Eastasia), the GOP has always and will always run the Senate.<\/p>\n

The surprising thing is that the older, ostensibly wiser heads are beginning to agree with the firebrand and ignore the truism that, sooner or later, the majority will be the minority again.<\/p>\n

(I will be honest enough to say that while the GOP obstructionism prior to the last mid-terms caused me a lot of heartburn, I have little problem with the Democratic obstructionism since then. Though that's also driven, in part, by a bit of "sauce for the gander" sense of justice.)<\/p>\n

(I also enjoy some of the inter-chamber sniping in the article. Regardless of the party in control, neither chamber of Congress likes being dictated to by the other.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n
\n<\/a>
\nSenate Republicans open door to weakening the filibuster<\/a><\/span>
\nMcConnell is setting up a task force to look at changing the filibuster rules.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So all those GOP Senators who were so adamant that the filibuster was the critical tool to maintain civility, order, and to prevent radical law-passage by a tyrannical majority — back when they were the minority in the Senate — are now beginning to wonder if they should chip away at it a bit more … Continue reading “Senate Majority considers weakening the Minority filibuster (again)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":39782,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/11\/22\/going-nuclear-in-the-senate.html","url_meta":{"origin":128300,"position":0},"title":"Going Nuclear in the Senate","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 22-Nov-13 2:34pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Gee, remember back when the GOP had the majority in the Senate, and they were peeved that some of Dubya's nominees were being filibustered by the Dems, and they called the Nuclear Option the only way to preserve American democracy? \u00a0Fortunately, someone does, as attached. (Limbaugh's neck-snapping pivot from 2004\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31521,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/27\/reforming-the-senate-filibuster.html","url_meta":{"origin":128300,"position":1},"title":"Reforming the Senate Filibuster","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 27-Nov-12 9:36am","format":false,"excerpt":"People still tend to think of the filibuster in the Senate as Jimmy Stewart pulling an all-nighter talk-a-thon to desperately block something he felt, in his heart, was wrong.Today, it's a mere procedural move, far too easy to invoke. One can see that in the GOP minority's abuse of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31307,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/10\/a-world-without-filibuster.html","url_meta":{"origin":128300,"position":2},"title":"A World without Filibuster","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 10-Nov-12 2:09pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A look at some recent Senate actions that would have passed without the GOP refusing a cloture vote. Of course, it's possible some of these might not have passed if the Senate Dems hadn't known they would be blocked, but still... Embedded Link 13 things that would have passed the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":133932,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/21\/the-senate-parliamentarian-says-the-senate-gop-health-bill-needs-60-votes-not-50.html","url_meta":{"origin":128300,"position":3},"title":"The Senate Parliamentarian says the Senate GOP health bill needs 60 votes, not 50","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 21-Jul-17 6:12pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The Senate has an elaborate interlocking set of rules that dictate how and in what ways it conducts business and passes bills. For most legislation, for example, the Senate must vote to close debate on the bill. These cloture votes require a super-majority of the Senate -- 60 votes [1].\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11335,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/09\/19\/voting_rights_redux.html","url_meta":{"origin":128300,"position":4},"title":"Voting Rights Redux","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 19-Sep-07 2:20pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The Senate GOP minority blocked (through filibuster threat) a move to give District of Columbia residents congressional representation through some crazy-ass arrangement splitting the representation with Utah (the idea being...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14456,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/04\/06\/despicable.html","url_meta":{"origin":128300,"position":5},"title":"Despicable","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 6-Apr-09 9:52am","format":false,"excerpt":"I really, really don't want to believe this is so. 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Senate Republicans are now privately threatening to derail the confirmation of key Obama administration nominees for top legal positions by linking the votes to suppressing critical torture memos from the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128300"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128596,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128300\/revisions\/128596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}