Posted on 03/31/2017 7:54:20 AM PDT by reaganaut1
House Republicans immolated themselves over health care last week, and now Democrats are hoping the Senate GOP will perform its own kamikaze turn over Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch. If Republicans blink and tolerate Democratic filibusters of High Court nominees, they should hand over their majority to the Democrats now.
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s strategy is transparent: Stage-manage an unprecedented filibuster against Judge Gorsuch, and then portray Republicans as radicals if they change Senate rules to break it. The gambit is to coax at least three of the 52 GOP Senators to cut a deal with Democrats that hands the minority political leverage over President Trump’s judicial nominees.
Mr. Schumer and other Democrats are trying to lure those Republicans into a deal by preaching a false institutionalism that claims to be acting for the good of the Senate. They want to scare the GOP into believing that breaking a filibuster would somehow break the Senate as a deliberative body that requires 60 votes and bipartisan consensus to act.
But the real radical act is a Supreme Court filibuster. Mr. Schumer wants to use the filibuster to defeat Judge Gorsuch outright, or negotiate a deal that gives the judge a confirmation pass of 60 votes in return for a guarantee that GOP Senators won’t break a filibuster on future nominees during the Trump Presidency.
Either result would do great harm to the Senate’s advice and consent role under the Constitution, tilt the Supreme Court to the left, reward the most partisan voices in the Senate on the left and right, further inflame grassroots conservative outrage against political elites, and deal a grievous wound to the Republican Party. Other than that, a great day at the office.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Can Pence vote in the motion to change the Filibuster?
Even when the Repulsicans win, they lose.
Does anyone think for a MINUTE, that if the situation were reversed, and Chuck Schumer had a bare majority in the Senate, with Herself occupying the White Shack, he would hesitate to exercise the Nuclear Option, abandoning the filibuster tradition for once and for all, covering legislative as well as confirmation votes?
Apparently, the tradition of the filibuster is a vestige of another time, and no longer applicable since about the time the direct election of Senators was authorized under the 17th Amendment, over a hundred years ago.
It used to be incumbent upon anyone trying to mount a filibuster, that the participants had to get up and TALK, for hours or days on end, declaiming all the reasons for the objections, in an attempt to persuade the fellow Senators to switch their vote. The tradition of cloture was merely to terminate this hold on the floor, and THAT is what required the 60% or two-thirds of the quorum, or whatever the number was designated to be.
Lindsey Graham has been surprisingly strong in his criticism of the Democratic obstruction on this nomination in recent days.
Any spineless Pube should be immediately primaried.
The title is a lie. A complete and total lie. Nowhere in the excerpt does it say the GOP has quit on Gorsuch, just that arch communist piece of s#!T Vladimir Schumer HOPES they quit.
Where does it say the GOP Quit.
Why is their so much useless tripe posted on FR these days?
That is very good news to me! He’s is usually flakey.
They have none. The ballot box no longer works.
First of all, don’t trust ANY politician to do what he says. Manchin and Heidkamp could turn 180 degrees without blinking an eye. And make it your fault.
Second, Schumer may be a blowhard and a despicable excuse for a human being, this is not for show.
Third, if Gorsuch manages to be confirmed, what happens when he turns out to be another little Johnny Roberts?
Last, if I could I’d bet the ranch that the GOP will cave.
Exactly!
Article is pure BS
Totally expecting complete Republican fail.
They are incapable of anything else.
This is BS. McConnell said Gorsuch would be confirmed on April 7th.
Go after all of the Senate “D’s” in red states, on all of the issues! The D’s SHOULD BE in trouble, in ‘18 and beyond, anyways! Ditto, RINO Republicans and Establishment Republicans!
If the GOP drops their drawers and bends over for Chucky on this, I will never vote again and dedicate the rest of my life discouraging everyone I talk to from voting for GOP candidates. Screw them. They are cowards.
Beats me. I would guess so in the event of a tie but that is no more than an ill educated guess.
Two Democrats have come out for Gorsuch.
I am happy to say I was wrong in thinking Lindsey Graham would not go nuclear. He has expressed strong support for the nuke option.
Harry Reid teed this ball up for the democRATS back in late October 2016, by saying that he had laid the groundwork for democRATS to nuke the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees if they won the Senate back in the November election.
Well, they didn't win but the ball is still teed up for the nuclear option, McConnell. Pull the trigger because the democRATS wouldn't have hesitated in doing so to the Republicans.
Republicans have a loser mentality. They look at all the reasons why they can’t do what they want, whereas the Rats look for all the ways to get what they want.
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