There is no requirement for 60 votes. Therefore, must a filibuster be pre-announced as a requirement on a confirmatiin vote? If it is not announced, then the majority vote will win without resort to the nuclear option.
Devos, for example, was not filibustered was she? She won on a straight majority vote.
Oh, come on, now!You do understand that Democrats make the rules to suit themselves, and expect that the Republicans will abide by them.
Reid didn’t have any SCOTUS nominees to confirm while he was in the majority and making the rules - so he “retained" the filibuster for SCOTUS nominees.
Now the shoe is on the other foot; the Republicans have the majority and the filibuster is a problem for Republicans. But as you well know, sauce for the Democrat goose is never to be sauce for the Republican gander; the one immutable rule is that it would be wrong for a Republican to change the rules.
Even tho Hillary’s running mate, arrogantly assuming that the Democrat would win the election both of the Senate and of the WH, warned that after the Democrats won they would not leave the filibuster in place for SCOTUS nominees to their own disadvantage.
Devos, for example, was not filibustered was she? She won on a straight majority vote.
She was not filibustered, because several years ago, the Democrats and Harry Reid did the “nuclear option” for lower court judges and other presidential nominees who need Senate confirmation. So filibustering was a moot point for Trump’s cabinet nominees.
When the Democrats did the nuclear option to do away with filibustering presidential nominees, it was left intact for only Supreme Court nominees.
The 60 vote requirement is needed to end a filibuster. The Senate, in, IIRC the mid 70's, cooked up this "procedural filibuster" bullchit. All this is is a group of Senators expressing their intent to filibuster, and whatever they are doing gets shelved so they can go on with other stuff.
It's hokey, and entirely consistent with the way the Senate has fallen apart since the 17A negated the whole purpose of the body.