Journal pudge's Journal: On Appointments and Filibusters and Recesses 7
There's nothing new under the sun. Five years ago, the Republicans were using recess appointments to avoid (then unprecedented) Democratic filibusters. Now we're looking at a reversal. Then, Democrats lambasted Bush for undermining democracy with his use of the recess appointment; now, surely, Republicans will do the same to Obama.
I do love Harry Reid's completely incredible claim that while recess appointments under Bush were an "an end run around the Senate and the Constitution," now he supports them because, well, "what alternative do we have?"
How about
Unless of course, you never actually believed that. Which is, of course, true.
Please, Senator Reid, realize that no one, of any political stripe, believes you when you pretend that this is not pure partisanship. And let's be further clear here that never before in our history had judicial nominees been blocked from a vote by filibuster until the Democrats, led in part by Reid, did it under Bush. So not only is Reid being a hypocrite, but let's face facts here: in this war over nominees, he started it.
Not that the Republicans are blameless, of course. There's more than enough blame to go around.
For those who want to end filibusters, my plan has been -- for many years -- and remains this: end the ability of Senators to block a vote on anything, using the filibuster. There's various ways to do this, but the key point is this: change the rule now, but don't have it take effect for two more legislative sessions. So if you do it now, it would take effect in 2014. That way no one knows who would be in the majority or minority by the time the rule change takes effect.
Cross-posted on <pudge/*>.
I'm for more filibusters (Score:2)
I actually want the value for filibusters to be higher than 60 votes.
Maybe 75 or even 90 votes.
Similarily for the House I want one for like 70% or 305 people.
And before you ask I am a democrat; or at least, on average, I like people with 'd's next to their name better than people with 'r's next to them.
Of course I also like a House rule where a bill can't be voted on until after a week from when it was submitted.
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The filibuster itself didn't really exist until the mid-1800s. They had rules that allowed for essentially unlimited debate, which allowed FOR a filibuster, but that didn't happen for about 50 years.
Cloture didn't come about for another 80 years.
What you say about forcing them to actually filibuster would help, but for years, the mere threat of a filibuster was sufficient to prevent a bill's vote, and that's essentially how it works now, and you can't get rid of that. But you can change the (technical and
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Your dead on, the 17th amendment is the problem. Should the 17th be repealed, the Democratic party as we know it today would be completely destroyed on a national level. No state in its proper mind would send a senator to Washington DC to steal more money from its own revenue base (aka: citizens). Senators would act as representatives of state governments and thus would be more concerned about... wait for it... states rights. Not because of some ideological benevolence, but because the desire for states to
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There's a problem with your analysis, which I generally like, but you said "the Democratic party as we know it today would be completely destroyed on a national level" because "No state in its proper mind would send a senator to Washington DC to steal more money from its own revenue base." The problem should be obvious: many state legislatures are controlled by people who are not IN their proper mind.
Take, for example, Washington State. The Democrats are being set up for major losses this year; we are sti
2015 is better... (Score:2, Interesting)