Posted on 12/05/2012 10:37:25 AM PST by pabianice
WASHINGTON -- Keeping with his post-election pledge to reform the filibuster, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday proffered that changes to the rules of the upper chamber will be made, leaving it up to Republicans if they would like to participate.
"There are discussions going on now [over filibuster reform], but I want to tell everybody here. I'm happy I've had a number of Republicans come to me, a few Democrats,” Reid told reporters Tuesday at his weekly press availability. “We're going to change the rules. We cannot continue in this way. I hope we can get something that the Republicans will work with us on.”
“But it won't be a handshake,” he added. “We tried that last time. It didn't work.”
Harry Reid was against the filibuster rule change before coming out for it. In 2005, when Republicans threatened to change the rules to weaken Senate Democrats, Reid was a vocal opponent.
“For people to suggest that you can break the rules to change the rules is un-American,” said Reid in 2005, in response to Republicans wanting to change the rules. “The only way you can change the rule in this body is through a rule that now says, to change a rule in the Senate rules to break a filibuster still requires 67 votes. You can’t do it with 60. You certainly cannot do it with 51. But now we are told the majority is going to do the so-called nuclear option. We will come in here, having the Vice President seated where my friend and colleague from Nevada is seated. The Parliamentarian would acknowledge it is illegal, it is wrong, you can’t do it, and they would overrule it. It would simply be: We are going to do it because we have more votes than you. You would be breaking the rules to change the rules. That is very un-American.”
The Nuclear Option. No Gang of 16 this time
I don't know about Conservatives; there have never seemed to be many in the Senate. The GOP tends to push them out and weaken them the best it can. As for the GOP, they build their own no win scenarios and lock themselves into them.
Until I see Reps. and Senators start showing some spine, start arguing with passion, getting argumentative, being rude, and etc... they’re doing nothing in my eyes.
NOTHING.
If the argument is that an attacking style of leadership by the Right will draw voters away... I’d say it will do the exact opposite.
They still need 67 votes to change the fillibuster rules, right?
THAT is precisely why they are going to do it and get away with it. The MSM will look the other way. At some point in time, the Republicans will be in the majority and then the Dems will squeal like the stuck pigs that they are........................
This will happen, the rules will change so that the dems will be able to break a fillibuster with a partisan vote...and the gop will help them do it.
HOORAY for leadership!
No.
We have fought for nothing.
Welcome to tyranny.
The damocrats will ignore the Constitution, any law and any rule that gets in the way of turning this country into a socialist nation of takers.
Nope. I do not think that they do.
We are screwed. If the pubs can’t filibuster Obama’s judges it’s game over.
Is there a peaceful way a civil war could happen? Communism is rapidly closing in and we will be a complete dictatorship in a few years. Remember those like Reid that is part of the conversion and when we get back charge those communists with treason.
Wake up. We have been in a cold civil war for years. What else can you call what the democrats have been doing?
I am afraid someone just lit the stove though.
If the rules were changed permanently I wouldn’t mind. But what gets me is I KNOW when Republicans regain the majority in the Senate Reid will demand the filibuster be restored and he will get his way.
Democrats NEVER have to play by the rules Republicans are forced into.
The GOP can shut the Senate down and Sen Sessions has already said the GOP was prepared to do so.
When the democrats are in charge they use smash-mouth thug tactics.
When we are in power it's a draw. When they are in power it's a rout.
I suspect this time they are going for the final victory. They are emboldened by the fact that every encroachment has only been met with whining and wringing of hands.
Now with a new term and the wind at their backs is the time to stop inching along and go for the full socialist paradise. They have the president and the senate, the house is bickering internally, and the supreme court is in play.
No, that's the point.The Senate is Constitutionally authorized to make parliamentary rules for it's self. Filibuster is a parliamentary rule that governs how proposed legislation (Bills) will be debated in the Senate.
Changing the rule is not proposed legislation, it is a rule subject to a majority vote to change or eliminate it.
They pay the organizers off to declare their side the winner then throw as few punches as possible because the fix is in anyway.
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