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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Democracy Comes to the U.S. Senate (sort of)
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
The U.S. government is (deliberately) constructed with a number of bottlenecks and veto points where a determined minority can thwart action by the majority. Lately the Republicans have started using those veto points for en masse obstruction of just about everything. As of today the Senate has one less bottleneck:
quote:
After years of threats and warnings, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and his Democratic majority on Thursday executed the "nuclear option" to eliminate the filibuster for executive branch and judicial nominees, except for the Supreme Court.
Fifty-two Democrats voted against upholding the filibuster rules after Republicans again blocked cloture on the nomination of Patricia Millett to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Democratic Sens. Carl Levin (D-MI), Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Mark Pryor (D-AR) voted with Republicans to sustain the filibuster rules.
"Republicans have routinely used the filibuster to prevent President Obama from appointing his executive team or confirming judges," Reid said on the Senate floor. "We're burning wasted hours and wasted days between filibusters. I could say instead we're burning wasted days and wasted weeks between filibusters. ... It's time to change. It's time to change the Senate before this institution becomes obsolete."
So, overdue reform, regrettable mistake, or shortsighted power grab?
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Mere Nick
Shipmate
# 11827
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Posted
Power grab.
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"Well that's it, boys. I've been redeemed. The preacher's done warshed away all my sins and transgressions. It's the straight and narrow from here on out, and heaven everlasting's my reward."
Delmar O'Donnell
Posts: 2797 | From: West Carolina | Registered: Sep 2006
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Bostonman
Shipmate
# 17108
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Posted
Defense of the Constitution. The president has the authority to appoint judges. The Senate has the authority to vote on them. A single Senator shouldn't have the authority to prevent that vote. That's all a filibuster is -- a way of preventing a vote you know you'll lose.
Posts: 424 | From: USA | Registered: May 2012
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jbohn
Shipmate
# 8753
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Posted
Regrettable, to my mind. The filibuster does have a place and a role; it has been horribly abused of late.
I'd have preferred a return to the old rules - a Senator who wishes to filibuster may do so, but he has to stand (no chairs) and speak continuously to keep the floor; the old requirements ensured that the filibuster was only used as a last resort by making it a physically demanding task.
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We are punished by our sins, not for them.
--Elbert Hubbard
Posts: 989 | From: East of Eden, west of St. Paul | Registered: Nov 2004
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by jbohn:
Regrettable, to my mind. The filibuster does have a place and a role; it has been horribly abused of late.
It still has a place. Just not for executive or (non-Supreme Court) judicial appointments. I'm not sure what it says about U.S. governance that the president can, in practical terms, assassinate people without accountability to anyone and yet cannot (until now) get the Senate to vote on his appointment for Undersecretary of Agriculture for Rural Development. (That's something I picked at random. I have no direct knowledge of the current status of such a post.)
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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the giant cheeseburger
Shipmate
# 10942
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Posted
It means nothing in the long run, Senate rules being up to the incumbent membership to alter at any point in time. To do something real about it would require the practice to be outlawed by a bill passed through both houses and signed by the President.
If at some point down the track the Democrats lost their Senate majority in an election, you can bet your bottom Yuan that they would swiftly bring back the rules between the election and the new Senators taking office the following January. What's more, were the new Republican-dominated Senate to subsequently do the same thing that the current Democrats have just done, there would be much hypocritical bleating from the Democrats about an anti-democratic power grab.
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If I give a homeopathy advocate a really huge punch in the face, can the injury be cured by giving them another really small punch in the face?
Posts: 4834 | From: Adelaide, South Australia. | Registered: Jan 2006
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PaulBC
Shipmate
# 13712
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Posted
The way the filibuster has been used lately, Sen. Cruz reading a Dr.Suess story and then pounding on for hours a couple of months back . It looks bad. Maybe it has a place but believe me it's silly. The point of getting up to speak in, Congress or the House of Commons (UK/Canada) is to get on with governing a nation not political silliness.
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"He has told you O mortal,what is good;and what does the Lord require of youbut to do justice and to love kindness ,and to walk humbly with your God."Micah 6:8
Posts: 873 | From: Victoria B.C. Canada | Registered: May 2008
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the giant cheeseburger
Shipmate
# 10942
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PaulBC:
The point of getting up to speak in, Congress or the House of Commons (UK/Canada) is to get on with governing a nation not political silliness.
Maybe in a Parliamentary system, but not in the US Congress. The US system is explicitly designed to not work, see for example the shutdown incident which would have been impossible in a Parliament.
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If I give a homeopathy advocate a really huge punch in the face, can the injury be cured by giving them another really small punch in the face?
Posts: 4834 | From: Adelaide, South Australia. | Registered: Jan 2006
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
US Senate filibusters historically have frequently involved reading from cookbooks, etc. There is no requirement that the topic be germane to the bill like there is in some states. Even when a filibuster required actually standing up and talking g forever, it and other procedural blocks made passing civil rights legislation and other aspects of President Johnson's legislative program in the 60's very difficult and time consuming and they probably would not have passed had he not been a political genius.
Posts: 1537 | Registered: Mar 2010
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
quote:
Originally posted by PaulBC:
The point of getting up to speak in, Congress or the House of Commons (UK/Canada) is to get on with governing a nation not political silliness.
Maybe in a Parliamentary system, but not in the US Congress. The US system is explicitly designed to not work, see for example the shutdown incident which would have been impossible in a Parliament.
It's designed to demand a lot of deliberation and negotiation before anything happens, that's not the same as "designed to not work."
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
It means nothing in the long run, Senate rules being up to the incumbent membership to alter at any point in time.
By this reasoning, no Senate rule change could ever possibly mean anything in the long run.
And yet, the Democratic majority has, in fact, eliminated the filibuster for executive branch and judicial nominees, except for the Supreme Court. And, as you seem to recognize, there is now no rule or tradition to stay future Republican majorities from maintaining the same limitation on future Democratic minorities.
So it does seem quite likely to be a lasting change after all.
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
A long overdue reform. A tradition which defers to a minority not specified in the constitution has been abused to the point of creating significant holes in the Judiciary. The alternative is to only allow Republican administrations to appoint Judges.
It's also clear that if the Republicans gain the majority they would do exactly the same thing. The current refusal to allow the President to appoint justices is in fact gamesmanship so they can do the same if they gain the majority while blaming the Democrats for doing so first.
I only wish that the filibuster was completely stricken and not still apply to Supreme Court nominees or legislation. Holds on nominees is another "courtesy" that has been abused to the point where it should no longer allowed.
Those who argue for filibuster either cite a few decades of "tradition" or say it is better because it slows deliberation of change. Given how the Senate has been deadlocked, it would be better to have changes that are reversed when the majority reverses than nothing being done.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Republicans can't say they didn't bring this on themselves.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Republicans can't say they didn't bring this on themselves.
Sure they can. They will. It's just another lie, after all.
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Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Republicans can't say they didn't bring this on themselves.
Sure they can. They will. It's just another lie, after all.
You are of course right. I should have said they can't honestly say it. But they don't seem to give much of a shit about honesty these days. If they remember what it means, even.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
When the president has been stalled from appointing four new justices to the Washington DC Federal Appeals Court, something is not right. When he cannot get important administrative posts filled something is not right.
Filibusters have an interesting history.
Filibuster comes from a Dutch term which meant to seize something. Usually Dutch pirates seizing Spanish ships for their gold. In a sense that, is what a filibuster in the U. S, Senate is, seizing the floor of the senate to get some point across.
Filibusters also referred to attempts by American citizens to seize a country or territory so slavery could be extended. This was what happened with the Kansas Compromise. Pro slave citizens tried to force out anti slave citizens so Kansas would become a slave state. There was also a group who tried to seize Nicaragua so it would became a slave state of the United States.
More than half of all US Senate filibusters have been in the last 12 years. The Senate has become dysfunctional because of its overuse.
Would that it be completely done away with.
Posts: 2193 | From: Pullman WA | Registered: Apr 2011
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the giant cheeseburger
Shipmate
# 10942
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Posted
If this is so wonderful it does make you wonder why it took the Democrats this long to do it - maybe the fact that some of them found their own Great Man Of Hope's pro-drone strike policy offensive enough to assist in filibustering a key CIA appointment earlier this year might have something to do with it.
If they find it convenient they'll bring it back again.
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If I give a homeopathy advocate a really huge punch in the face, can the injury be cured by giving them another really small punch in the face?
Posts: 4834 | From: Adelaide, South Australia. | Registered: Jan 2006
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
If this is so wonderful it does make you wonder why it took the Democrats this long to do it - maybe the fact that some of them found their own Great Man Of Hope's pro-drone strike policy offensive enough to assist in filibustering a key CIA appointment earlier this year might have something to do with it.
If they find it convenient they'll bring it back again.
Why would the Dems have to filibuster an appointment? They can just vote it down.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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the giant cheeseburger
Shipmate
# 10942
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Posted
My understanding of that case was that it wasn't a party whip's instruction to block it, but that a few senators stood on their own hind feet anyway and supported the filibuster started by a Republican senator.
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If I give a homeopathy advocate a really huge punch in the face, can the injury be cured by giving them another really small punch in the face?
Posts: 4834 | From: Adelaide, South Australia. | Registered: Jan 2006
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Hawk
Semi-social raptor
# 14289
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by jbohn:
Regrettable, to my mind. The filibuster does have a place and a role; it has been horribly abused of late.
I'd have preferred a return to the old rules - a Senator who wishes to filibuster may do so, but he has to stand (no chairs) and speak continuously to keep the floor; the old requirements ensured that the filibuster was only used as a last resort by making it a physically demanding task.
I first heard of filibusters in The West Wing and thems were the rules at the time. How has it changed since then?
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“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts
Posts: 1739 | From: Oxford, UK | Registered: Nov 2008
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by jbohn:
The filibuster does have a place and a role; it has been horribly abused of late.
and
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
There are uses to the filibuster, but the way it's been working just isn't it.
If I understand it correctly (from a UK perspective) a filibuster is an attempt to deliberately frustrate a debate/vote by talking out the time allowed without any pretence that this is anything other than a spoiling exercise. I'd be interested to know what you think are the legitimate uses of such a tactic. It seems to me that if the legislative assembly in question is the one that has lawful authority and a democratic mandate to decide the issue under debate, then frustrating the process so that the proper authority is prevented from making any decision, not because of the merits of any particular position, but solely due to a deliberate sabotage of proper procedure, is abusive pretty much by definition.
It seems to me that it could only really be justified if the legislature were contemplating passing a measure that was itself an abuse of the democratic process, and it was my understanding that the US has a constitution which is supposed to prevent that sort of thing. When do you think filibusters are properly used?
I also don't understand why, if all that's necessary for a motion to fail in the Senate is some gobshite reading from a cookery book for hours on end, and this is regarded as fair play, this doesn't happen in every single debate. I can't believe that the US Senate is any less well supplied with gobshites than any other legislative body in the world, and at least one of them is likely to oppose any motion that is even slightly controversial. Is there some unwritten code of honour about which measures it is OK to scuttle in this way? Is the problem that the Republicans have started ignoring this unwritten code?
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
Ted Cruz wasn't filibustering. He was poncing around with no intent to delay the vote - indeed when Reid offered him an extra hour to continue faffing around with the cloture vote already scheduled he turned it down.
The history of the Filibuster is actually in multiple steps and it is not a part of the constitution. In fact it's a mistake that was created by accident.
Step 1: In 1789 there was no potential for a Filibuster - moving that the question be put was a point of order.
Step 2: In 1806 the Senate realised that no one ever did this so struck the rule from the books in a (mistaken) attempt to simplify their codes. There was now no way to prevent someone talking forever.
Step 3: In 1837 (i.e. 30 years later) the first filibuster happened.
Step 4: They became much more common after the American Civil War.
Step 5: Whoever was in power at any given time was getting annoyed by filibusters - but any attempt to rein them in was, of course, filibustered until the cloture rule was created in 1917.
Step 6: Even with the Cloture rule, fillibusters were still very annoying because not only did they prevent you voting on the filibustered rule, they prevent you from doing anything else. So they put a two track rule in in the early 1970s where people didn't have to stand up and filibuster, but could just declare that something was important enough to filibuster about - and the Senate would get on with other things.
Step 7: The Republicans abuse the hell out of filibusters under Obama to the point that it is impossible to appoint the people needed to keep the government working. So there is an exception made to filibuster rules to appoint people to positions while still allowing it for blocking laws.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Filibusters are fundamentally about frustrating the democratic process. If the purpose of legislative chambers is to vote on and decide questions, then having a mechanism that prevents a vote from occurring is basically a denial of the proposition that a majority vote is the way questions are decided.
There are of course protections built into constitutions that prevent a majority from doing whatever the heck it wants, but a filibuster isn't about having some part of the system of government provide a check on the legislature. It's about a member of the legislature being able to undermine that very legislature.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Gwai
Shipmate
# 11076
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Posted
What others have said. Also, to put it another way, when done correctly, it's a protest vote or a way of protecting the minority. Let's say you and two other friends of mine all want to go for Chinese while K and I would prefer quesadillas. We probably won't put up a fight. We'll just eat Chinese, but if you want to ask us to vote on something much more offensive to our principles, we might not want to cooperate with the process even far enough to participate in it by voting against it. We would filibuster. It's when you can't even get dinner, because people are filibustering about what cuisine you get that there's a problem.
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A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea.
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.
Posts: 11914 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Let's say you and two other friends of mine all want to go for Chinese while K and I would prefer quesadillas. We probably won't put up a fight. We'll just eat Chinese, but if you want to ask us to vote on something much more offensive to our principles, we might not want to cooperate with the process even far enough to participate in it by voting against it. We would filibuster. It's when you can't even get dinner, because people are filibustering about what cuisine you get that there's a problem.
Ummm, that is a filibuster. If you're successfully filibustering dinner, no one's eating.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
I agree with Orfeo on this one. It is a frustration of the democratic process to allow anyone to prevent decisions being taken - even if one doesn't agree with them - by droning on and on, wasting everyone's time and not getting on with the job. It should be simple for members to demand that something now be put to the vote. There should also be a non-partisan Speaker who can and does tell deliberate time-wasters to shut up and sit down.
We suffer from various procedural rules that people can manipulate to stick things through the spokes in the wheels of government, and they also should be sat on firmly.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
One of the things that remains constant is that you can usually count on a few members of the majority party crossing the line to vote against this rule change. When it was the Republicans threatening the change in 2005, several were ready to jump and vote no. Yesterday, three Democrats voted against the rule change. So at least we know that bipartisanship actually is possible from time to time in contemporary Washington.
There was apparently a group of senators working on a compromise as late as Monday, before the rule change took place. If that is true, it is a shame that they weren't allowed to get something done.
I get why the Democrats are frustrated, but I can only see this increasing partisanship in Washington.
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Og, King of Bashan:
One of the things that remains constant is that you can usually count on a few members of the majority party crossing the line to vote against this rule change. When it was the Republicans threatening the change in 2005, several were ready to jump and vote no. Yesterday, three Democrats voted against the rule change. So at least we know that bipartisanship actually is possible from time to time in contemporary Washington.
There was apparently a group of senators working on a compromise as late as Monday, before the rule change took place. If that is true, it is a shame that they weren't allowed to get something done.
I get why the Democrats are frustrated, but I can only see this increasing partisanship in Washington.
The Democratic Leadership has been trying to negotiate around the Republican refusal to allow the president to appoint judges and agency heads for several years. The alternative was to cede all appointments to the Republicans and allow them to nullify government agencies.
The elimination of the filibuster is not the cause of increased partisanship, it's symptom of it. The standard retort of "just wait till we have a majority" moves no one. The Republicans already used the threat of removing the filibuster to negotiate what they wanted in the last Republican administration. There's no doubt they will remove the filibuster in future Republican administrations to get what they want.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
And for why this is being done, in the entire history of the United States up to 2008 the filibuster had been used at total of 86 times to block Presidential nominees. Since 2008 the Republicans have filibustered 82 nominees. That's increased partisanship and abuse of a tool that wasn't intended to exist in the first place.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
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Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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