Saying something over and over doesn’t make it true. Regardless of who says it.

The “67-votes required to change the Senate rules” meme is a crock. It would never stand up in court because it has no basis in the constitution. The fact that the Senate hasn’t passed rules in decades is based on a tradition, not law, that the Senate rules don’t change unless the Senate changes them according to the rules last passed by the Senate long before most of the current Senators were even elected. You won’t find this anywhere in the constitution–quite the opposite. The constitution explicitly says otherwise.

So Harry Reid can kiss my ass. The Democrats deserve what they are going to get in November for pissing away a once in a long time opportunity to change America from the corporatist plutocracy it’s become.

And the politician currently in the lead to fill the power vacuum created by the country’s anger and frustration: Sarah Fucking Retarded Palin. Gets more fucking unbelievable every day.

Sorry. I’ve had a bad day.

I would say that the rules have already been set for this Congress, and the Constitution says each body can set their own rules, and the Senate rules say it takes 67 votes to change a rule mid-session. At the beginning of the next session, your argument is solid, and that’s why Tom Udall is going that route, as have those who have forced Senate rules changes before him.

are the democrats afraid to let the republicans filibuster? maybe for unpopular bills. or maybe the democrats are just too lazy? or maybe they know they have nothing to campaign on and so need a handy excuse for their own failures?

i’d love to see the democrats have to come up with some popular legislation and then call the republican’s bluff and let them filibuster.

But, selise, what you propose would be unseemly and nothing would be accomplished.

It would be entertaining, however.

As things stand, the Senate behaves in unseemly fashion and nothing is accomplished … and it is boring.

On balance, let’s go with your plan.

DW

After all, when was the last time you ever heard some one read the Manhattan phone book outloud. I’m a big audio book fan. Listen to 30-50/year. Haven’t heard the phone book yet.

i know that political debate about the country’s future is supposed to occur only behind closed doors in the privacy of of smoke-filled rooms. to do otherwise would, you’re quite right, be unseemly.

but i’m curious. what can i say? i like to watch? *g

… because we’re frustrated right now over an abusive use of a historic vehicle that led to the essence of what the Senate is, we’re about to abandon the essence of the Senate.

It sure as hell couldn’t hurt to make them filibuster. Let’s see what happens. Let Republicans actually stop government and have to defend their actions. Perhaps they abandoned the essence of the Senate when they decided to let one side stop legislation without a filibuster.

You still like to watch? My partner in hearings? How much punishment it too much?

Only Senators from New York could legitimately do that; in all honestly, they know which side their butts are breaded on, eCAHN.

(I have heard rumors that you have called yourself a curmudgeaon, if so, then. welcome to the club!!! … at this time only Raven and I are members, so, if ya care to join, you would be swelling our … um … ranks magnificently)

;~DW

lol. it’s the republicans, i bet they read the bible or something. but, if i understand correctly (thanks powwow!), the people filibustering only get two speeches each and then they are done. after which only a simple majority is required to pass the bill.

unfortunately the senate parliamentarian’s office has been closed all week (snow) and i haven’t gotten an official check on this yet, but i’ve yet to see any argument that it can’t be done if the dems in the senate really did want to pass something without having to go through cloture (and the 60 votes that takes).

I’d like to see them stay on topic — without repeating themselves. That could yield some good quotes.

How utterly stupid and incompetent (if the blindness wasn’t actually intentional) of the D’s to pass the rules as they are now.

There was absolutely no good reason to approach this sessions rules to begin with under the presumption this batch of GOPers would be sane or reasonable in any manner.

You better ask Raven first. Not sure he’d like me as a member of his club. And I’m not sure I am able, anymore, to swell … um … anything.

And being from NY, I resent your restricting reading of our universal phone book to NY senators. *g*

maybe it’s the novelty of a real filibuster. *g*

(there have been some excellent hearings, and i’ve learned a lot from them. i just od’ed on the hearings with uncooperative witnesses).

Ah but “this” promises to be “different”.

These are not mere underlings, these are superior upperlings, and one imagines that for sheer spectacle and noble gravitas, there is little in the known universe, excepting black holes, that can swallow up so much and regurgitate so little, quantum-ly speaking.

At the very least the circus will be a whole lot of earth-shaking going on, one imagines.

:~I

I know nothing about real filibusters, except for a vague memory of some that occurred in my youth, when I was sensible enough to think they were really stupid. I’ll be interested in how the parliamentarian opines on your Q.

Well, and I’d like a pony. Or a castle. A really big one. And the money to gild it.

unless the Ds wanted an excuse not to pass the policies they ran on?

i know that’s very cynical, but i’ve yet to find any contradictory evidence. :(

I don’t think the democrats ever really wanted to change the course of the country. They just use the Republicans as convenient cover for their cowardly and corrupt practices.

Yes, Ds willingly complicit, using Rs as an excuse. Which is the real party of NO? (Rhetorical Q.)

even if the filibusters were boring, at the end the dems could vote for whatever it is they want to (not sure i really like that idea, but that’s another story). the thing is, i don’t see how the dems can be demanding to change the senate rules to let them pass a bill with a simple majority if they aren’t even trying the method that is currently available to them.

something doesn’t seem to add up.

Agreed.

something doesn’t seem to add up

Bwahahahaha. Mildest way I’ve seen it expressed in quite a long time.

Ah, eCAHN you are always swell …

And Raven is a somewhat pessimistic curmudgeon, so he’ll just shrug and allow as how human nature is always unpredictably whatever it is, accompanied by all requisite bitching and whining …

Raven is, well Raven.

But you do get to him, ya know?

However, curmudgeonhood is ultimately, individualistic, so be any damned way ya wanna be, but I welcome you to the fold, nonetheless.

;~DW

LOL! must not have had enough coffee today.

ES, if that is true, what can we do with the info?

I took it as delicious understatement.

I accept with the caveat of no blowback allowed. *g*

On topic: Rachel doing a segment on filibusters.

Caveat; acceptable.

(And very curmudgeonly, I might add)

DW

Then “fairness” requires that she do a segment on empti-busters.

The R’s deserve no less.

for cable tv watchers: anything worth sharing re rachel on filibusters?

How come I try so hard to be polite and fail so often? (Another rhetorical Q. Or rather a Q that I don’t want to hear the answer to.)

Nothing you don’t already know. Howard Dean’s the guest, who sez filibuster is useful to stop ideologue appointees to SCOTUS who think corps are peeps who get dollar speech. But that horse is out of the barn, so he should just STFU.

you create two chambers and a unicameral system.

This makes no sense to me. Two chambers equals a bicameral system. One chamber equals a unicameral system. Nor would removing the filibuster make the chambers alike. The Senate is not based on population but on states, and, of course, the terms are different. Both Biden and Dodd had decades to push for reform of the Senate. Now with one out and the other leaving, they suddenly see a problem. But as others have noted, even if there were no filibuster, how would the substance of Democratic legislation be different? We need only look at the corporate sellout of Obamacare for the answer.

Why, I regard you as the very soul of politeness.

I’ve never seen you “lose it” or abuse anyone here.

Yet you are forceful and never back down.

A certain Siglitz comes to mind … eCAHN.

DW

OT I just got a call asking for money for Grayson. I told them that I would be giving through FDL (which I’m not sure they knew about). I found it odd that they are calling so early – or maybe not. If they are calling people from FDL they may defeat the purpose of the contest.

BTW the NewsHour had Paul Solman doing a segment on how Goldman makes its money and one of their experts was Nomi Prins.

Quit treating D’s as if they are reasonable or on our side.

thanks for watching, so i don’t have to.

Senate Democrats need to have a care tinkering with the filibuster. They may need it, say about 2012.

Oh yeah, they didn’t use it to stop Alito or Roberts. Or the Patriot Act. Or a dozen other plunders of the common good.

Nevermind!

i agree. please note, no snark tag.

The “67-votes required to change the Senate rules” meme is a crock.

Yes, it is a crock, bobash, but for a different reason than the one you state. There is in fact no such rule requiring 67 votes “to change the Senate rules.”

But apparently “saying something over and over” can make it true, if you have the power and the platform to do so without meaningful challenge (see, in particular, our national media):

“…and the Senate rules say it takes 67 votes to change a rule mid-session.”
- David Dayen

No, they don’t.

What they do say, instead, is that – if and when Rule 22 is invoked by the majority to bring to an end a filibuster – a 67-vote (as opposed to 60-vote for other matters) supermajority margin for passage of a cloture motion is necessary. But how do you “bring to an end” something that is never allowed to begin, as selise notes @ 3?

Thus, any old time – day or night, night or day, mid-session, end-of-session, beginning-of-session – that a simple majority of Senators wants to amend the Senate rules, they can, by forcing a minority filibuster, and waiting it out for simple-majority passage of their cherished rule change. No need to first violate the Senate rules, to “change” them. So guess which route the Senate Democrats – or those closest to the leadership, at least – are pretending to advocate?

But no doubt the heavy promotion of the Democratic Party’s self-serving talking points to the contrary, which distort and mislead about the non-filibuster obstruction in the Senate, will continue apace by dday and others on the FDL front page. [Showing of late, among other things, no mercy for patient, relatively-powerless selise, who's been trying, as has been obvious, for four straight business days, without success, to reach someone at the snowed-in Senate Parliamentarian's office in order to complete her planned CW-challenging diary on this subject.]

Once again I find myself in agreement with Dodd, by and large, as reported by Mike Stark (who, I’m afraid, wasted a golden opportunity by failing to ask Dodd about a return to the real filibuster – although he apparently had only a short, chance meeting with him):

I had previously spoken with [Dodd] about Republican obstruction and, without prompt, the Senator launched a full-throated defense of the filibuster, eventually saying that it was part of what made the Senate the Senate and should not be abandoned.

Remembering those words, when I ran into him yesterday, I asked what he thought of reconciliation and recess appointments. He never answered that question, but he had some pretty strong words for the conduct of certain Senators (that remained unnamed), saying they needed to “start acting like Senators”.

The point, really, of returning to the real filibuster, as Russ Feingold, for one, has recently advocated, is to try to force a return to “the essence of the Senate,” the loss of which Dodd laments. I think a weakening of the Party-imposed segregation of the Senate will also be necessary, though, for that to happen [which the Massachusetts Coakley loss has provided some impetus for].

But on a related note, Dodd has been a prime enabler, at least on health care reform, of the endrun of the balance of Democratic-majority power in the Congress, by avoiding the use of formal, public committees and democratic process for the drafting and deliberation of legislation, from the bottom-up, not the top-down (including the false-front, where all the real drafting is first finished behind closed doors). Dodd has instead preferred, or tolerated, the closed-door, either White House-dictated or 50% Democrat/50% Republican, “negotiation” process, to open public debate within the committee structure itself – where both of the following requirements for the “essence of the Senate” remain intact and available:

Respect, and a fair platform for the voice and input of the minority Party members.

The ability of the simple-majority will of the committee, and Senate, as the voters established it by Party and otherwise, to hold sway in the end.

kinda already there. you know how i voted recently in the MA senate race? (hint: not for coakley). if that doesn’t motivate some house cpc members to do better (and i don’t think it is), then i’m not sure what i can do electoral politics wise.

Hell of a comment, a full post unto itself, thanks for sharing.

Too deep for me, but intrigues me to no end . . . wow.

Stellar. Again, thanks.

powwow, do you know how many days out of the year is the senate in session?

Wow! I will definitely scout out the Innertoobz to find that clip!

Meanwhile, I’m with selise: let the GOP filibuster, let their fraudulent poses be exposed to wide public display, and let the chips fall where they may.

a couple of recent reports of feingold’s position (duplicates from an earlier comment), here:

I recently attended one of Sen. Russ Feingold’s listening sessions at Washington High School in Milwaukee. While most of the discussion focused on the health care legislation pending in Congress, one questioner asked if Feingold would support repealing U.S. Senate Rule 22, which requires a supermajority of 60 senators to pass most legislation.

This is the arcane rule that has caused a political tsunami with the Senate election of Republican Scott Brown from Massachusetts. With that election, the Democrats lost their already tenuous hold on the 60 votes they need to pass almost anything.

I was surprised that Feingold said that he opposes such a change. He told a story from his early days in the Senate when he was asked to keep filibustering by Sen. Ted Kennedy to prevent the Reagan administration from gutting the labor laws that were then on the books. Feingold went on to say that the founders of the nation understood the need to have a governing body, like the Senate, that could take its time deliberating.

and here:

Feingold agreed with a speaker’s frustration about filibusters and other tactics used to block legislation and presidential appointments. However, Feingold doesn’t want to eliminate the filibuster, which requires 60 votes to end debate.

“You do want things slowed down — trust me,” he said.

Feingold favors a return to a more traditional filibuster that requires senators using the tactic to remain on the Senate floor

Thank you, powwow.

I appreciate everything in that comment.

I agree with Larue, “a post unto itself”.

Damned fine, and no punches pulled.

DW

Right now it’s the second one down the list at the NewsHour video page.

Back to my broken record.

If you continue to treat this all as a political construct with two competing parties GOP and DEM then you’ll never resolve your lack of choices, nor find traction for progressive minded progress.

If one treats it all as a class war, acknowledges that both parties are equally bought off and equally serve their corporate feudalist masters, then the actions to take become rapidly apparent.

And those actions don’t involve the ballot box or your right to vote.

Having said that, we STILL need (as Mz. Hamsher pointed out yesterday) to attend to the ’10 elections, and try somehow to prevent a GOP sweep and slaughter, as they ARE worse than the DEM corporate feudalists, albeit only incrementally different.

But the big picture? Class war, not a political war.

The rest is kabuki, and even the most experienced and wizened souls will spin their wheels forever on the kabuki instead of the problem at hand.

How to change the system that’s gamed top to bottom, in favor of the rich, the 1% and the corporate structure that owns our government (facism, that’s called) is the issue at hand. You don’t change the system by waging the political war. You wage a class war.

Changes the whole construct. And provides hope and potential FOR change.

There is little if any change possible within the entrenched political construct and system. What little we CAN do is try and prevent GOP gains, and reduce DEM losses . . . which ain’t really gonna HELP change the system that’s killing us, that’s owned and operated by a facist construct that serves only its masters and not the masses.

/brokenrecord

that’s why i’m back to social movement politics.

The basic premise for the Senate’s being is flawed. It assumes that it is informed by people that are both coherent and thoughtful at least more so than the House. Otherwise there is no reason for it to exist.

But there is absolutely no historical evidence that the Senate as a result of its superior intellect, thoughtfulness and more deliberate pase has improved upon legislation eminating from the House. The very opposite seems to be the case.

What you have in the Senate are self agrandizing deluded would be mandarins that add nothing of value to the public discourse. They are an extra easier target for collusion and graft. This pernicious impact of the Senate on the body politic should be sharply curtailed. And limiting its deliberations by abolishing the filibuster is one very important step in such curtailment.

And it makes absolutely no difference whether the Senate has a Democratic or Republican majority. In either case the Senate as a whole adds nothing of value to the end product of the legislative branch of government. Imposing a simple majority for all of the Senate’s work would show it for what it is, a superfluous collection of dead weight.

Well and truly said, Larue.

There are times when it would be most helpful in developing broad understanding if certain posts and comments at FDL could magically appear before the eyes of the nation’s citizens.

Your comment is such.

DW

Not off-hand, selise. Should I look it up?

[The days they aren't in session, off the top of my head: They take all of August off. And all of October in election years (plus part of November), usually at least half of December (unless they haven't gotten their work done) and part of January. Plus week-long breaks for Presidents' Day, and most other major federal holidays (July 4th, Memorial Day, Labor Day, etc.), and Easter (and Christmas). Also, Mondays are usually travel days, with one or two votes sometimes scheduled in the early evening. Fridays are also usually travel days, even if the Senate is nominally open, with no votes held. And generally no committee meetings or hearings are held on Mondays or Fridays.]

Excellent comment, gonalb.

Another comment, like Larue’s, that could well help to broaden understanding and dis-empower destructive myth.

DW

oh no. powwow, don’t worry about it. i just was curious in case you knew off the top of your head because of the argument that filibusters take too long. i thought knowing the number of days the senate was not in session would give an idea of how much time could be devoted to filibustering without impacting the amount of time available for all the other important (/s) work that is done on the senate floor.

catch you all tomorrow. hopefully sleep calls……

Good evening, selise.

The Senate was in session 193 days in 2009 for legislation and several other non-legislative days.

http://thomas.loc.gov/home/ds/index.html#senate

Thanks, Hugh.

[And those 193 days included a lot of Mondays and Fridays when next to nothing got done. Never mind a lot of Tuesdays-Thursdays when the Senate floor was completely idle, and endless fake quorum calls to an empty Senate were all the public saw, while the backroom deals were being struck.]

Just in general, with regard to selise’s proposed comparison of filibuster-wasted time to filibuster-free Senate time:

We obviously won’t know until it’s tried how long a real filibuster would last in today’s Senate. What we do already know is how much time the cloture process can waste before a vote on final passage of the legislation can be held, once the majority invokes it, without even requiring debate on the legislation at issue (while letting other Senate business continue):

1. A minimum of two calendar days whether or not the supermajority cloture motion passes.

2. If the cloture motion passes, up to two weeks total, if every possible delay is exploited by only one opposing Senator making objections (often in private).

It seems unlikely that there would be very many two-week-long real filibusters conducted against the average run of Senate legislation in today’s professional fundraiser-filled Senate. Even if all-night sessions were avoided by the majority for their own convenience.

[dick c @ 7 - I didn't mean to swipe your insightful comment - "Perhaps they abandoned the essence of the Senate when they decided to let one side stop legislation without a filibuster" - when I posted my own similar take @ 42, unknowingly agreeing with yours. That's an important point, I think.]

Why can’t the nuclear option destroy the filibuster immediately, if the Democrats want to do that? Do you see anything wrong with the procedure outlined here? Bill Frist didn’t.

Feingold is just as wrong about this as he is about deficit neutrality. His reputation for progressivism could have arisen only in a neo-liberal age.

Also, if you allow the minority to begin filibustering, you can then exercise the ‘nuclear option” and get rid of it for good.

there’s plenty of evidence he’s wrong about the fed deficit. i know of none that he is wrong about the filibuster – others may have different opinions, but that’s not a matter of being wrong, just different priorities, values and opinions.

thanks!

well that’s swell; however, it is harry reid who is saying, “no changes in the filibuster rules.” 60 is the new majority and to hell with the constitution!

powwow, thanks for the reply. As usual, your contribution to the dialogue on this subject elevates the discussion immeasurably. Didn’t really think my post would add anything constructive and was just venting. Was pleasantly surprised to see that it at least warranted a mention in your much more constructive contribution.

Am still hoping (blind faith, no evidence) that Obama has something planned as a follow-on to his bipartisanship summit on the 25th. I’d like to see them pursue a scorched earth policy on the 26th: Senate rules changes, all appointments approved, and then a real piece of legislation on a daily basis for 30 days. The Democrats would win big in November if they did this, despite all of the MSM CW that says otherwise, I’m convinced. Americans of all stripes want to see a Washington that does something, particularly something that doesn’t reek of corporate socialism.

But we both know I’m in fantasy land–they don’t have the smarts or the intestinal fortitude, and they’ll be wiped out in November along with Republican incumbents as well.

I have to apologize for not responding to your post last week. I do not have internet access at home.

The only way to force a vote is by cloture or by unanimous consent (the latter of which was the only way before 1917). But you seemed to say that it required unanimous consent to introduce an amendment – I was under the impression that any Senator could introduce an amendment at any time.

The amendment could be tabled by a simple majority without a debate, so there would have to be a quorum – but there is no limit to how many can be introduced.

The cloture process was invented to get around unanimous consent. In light of that, it is amazing that anything ever got done in the Senate in the 1800s. But it used to be the case the even if people were against a bill they would let it come up – because it deserved an up or down vote. There is a book that deals with this that I have not had a chance to read. Filibuster: Obstruction and Lawmaking in the U.S. Senate

I wrote a diary regarding abolishing the filibuster in December of 2008 because I knew we would be in this mess.

Very Serious People disagreed.

Very serious people almost always disagree, and they are almost always wrong too. In this as we can see from the results of their failure to get rid of the filibuster at the start of the 2009 Session. Had they done so, all of Obama’s appointments would be working now, The stimulus package would have been much larger and more successful in creating jobs, and a better hcr bill would long since have passed.

selise just pointed me back to this thread and your comment, bayofarizona (though I note that you’re probably out of internet range for the weekend by now), after coincidentally posting a comment in the working filibuster thread here, that I think clarifies this:

The only way to force a vote is by cloture or by unanimous consent (the latter of which was the only way before 1917).

I’d say your definition of “force” there needs qualification, because, as selise rightly notes, there is another way (by letting a real filibuster unfold and waiting it out, instead of immediately resorting to cloture):

i see the following ways a filibuster may be brought to an end:

1. political cost: the minority or majority concedes (and/or compromises) due to the political cost of an engaged public. a couple of examples are a minority that filibusters a bill that has both wide and deep support, or a majority attempts to push a bill hated by the public, may with time find the political costs too high to continue.

2. physical cost: the minority or majority concedes (and/or compromises) due to exhaustion.

3. procedural mistakes by the minority: if the majority is prepared to take a advantage of any procedural misstep or bad luck, the majority may be able to pass the filibustered bill (or amendment, etc) while the minority still wishes to filibuster.

4. the cloture process: even if 60 votes for cloture are not present when a filibuster begins, one or a few of the dissenting minority may be persuaded to vote for cloture as the filibuster proceeds.

of course these are not independent processes. as just one example, if some of the minority are persuaded by the mounting political cost to refrain from active support of a filibuster (even if unwilling to vote for cloture), that would add to the physical demands on the members of the minority continuing to actively filibuster via debate. – selise

When debate doesn’t naturally come to a conclusion of its own accord in the Senate, your approach gives us only two supermajority choices for reaching a simple-majority vote on final passage of legislation or nominations: unanimous consent, or 60-vote (67-vote for rule changes) supermajority consent to pass a cloture motion. Whereas waiting out real filibusters would return plain old simple-majority passage of legislation, no intervening supermajority hurdles needed, to the Senate.

But back to the amendment issue you raised, as it impacts the two-speech rule during a real filibuster.

I’m not sure whether you saw the rest of the comments in that thread, which was this one, after my first response to your comment, but I went on to elaborate on this at some length (see especially comment 50), because you’re right that my saying that unanimous consent is required before every amendment can be called up, is too broad a statement, in the normal course of events.

But as I elaborated, in the contested environment of a real filibuster, I think that would in fact almost certainly be the case, because the Majority Leader would arrange to “fill the tree” (call up all amendments that could be called up without unanimous consent) or there would already be a pending first-degree amendment, so that only second-degree amendments germane to the pending amendment, or motions to recommit, etc., would be in order (absent unanimous consent). Thus anything ‘not in order’ would require unanimous consent in that situation (as in any normal Senate situation – amendments have to be called up in proper sequence and form to be in order). So it seems clear that there are ways for the majority to keep the minority from abusing the amendment process during a real filibuster that would prevent them from extending their opportunities to speak by that route.

The cloture process was invented to get around unanimous consent.

I think it’s more accurate to say that “the cloture process was invented to get around real filibusters.” [It seems to have been propounded by Senators, prompted and pressured by President Wilson, who wanted strict majority rule in the Senate, akin to the House, and despised the minority's ability to delay in any way.]

Unless you have some evidence that cloture motions were regularly, or at all, filed in the absence of (real) filibusters in the five decades or so after 1917, before the modern abuse of the supermajority cloture process began.

I think there’s still hope for getting back to a Senate that, in general, doesn’t threaten or deploy filibusters, and works together regardless of Party. But the Party segregation of the Congress right now is so severe, and is working at such cross-purposes to the self-respect of the institution of Congress itself, that such a prospect certainly seems rather dim at the moment.