Free Republic

Well. . . Harry Reid has gone nuclear. Yesterday the Senate, with cheerleading from Democrats in the House of Representatives and our honesty-deprived White House, passed a rule that would strip the minority party of its right to filibuster most Presidential nominees. The move itself (known as the “nuclear option”) usurps the Senate’s traditional eye toward minority rights, and dismantles the republican form of deliberation for which the Senate is known. The truly audacious part of the Senate Democrat’s power grab, however, was their blatant hypocrisy. After all, in 2005 they voted against this very rule change. Now don’t...

I realize there is not a whole lot we can do about the vote yesterday in the Senate regarding the rule change. However, I did call both of my senators from TN (Alexander and Corker) expressing my displeasure. Basically, I told them that this is what the appeasement from them (my two senators) has gotten us. The Dems want total control and inch by inch the GOP is giving it to them. I told both offices I would like to see some fight from them (I know, good luck!). I urge you to call your Senators and express your displeasure...

Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) ripped Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) on the floor Thursday for his hypocritical role in bringing about the “nuclear option,” quoting directly from a Washington Free Beacon article during his impassioned speech. Reid said in a 2008 interview that, so long as he was the party leader, there would not be a nuclear option effectively stripping the Republicans of their ability to block President Obama’s judicial and executive branch nominees. However, on a near party-line vote Thursday, the Senate voted to approve the measure, 52-48. Reid previously called such attempts at a nuclear...

....Reid clinched support for changing the rules at the weekly Tuesday Senate Democratic caucus lunch. .....Reid, without mentioning the colleague’s name, told his caucus that one of its senior members who had long opposed filibuster reform, recently had a change of mind and privately urged him to trigger the controversial tactic. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) then rose before the room full of Democrats and identified herself as the recent convert. “She got up right afterward and said, ‘He was talking about me,’” said a Democratic senator..... Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) did not know if he had the votes...

"...As Majority Leader Harry Reid orchestrated the change in the rules governing executive nominations and lower-court appointments, his opponents cried tyranny, though they also promised that when they took power they would go further, applying the new standard to Supreme Court nominations. In other words, tyranny—but we promise we'll give you more of it. The new rules fit with that kind of Senate. ...Whoever is ultimately at fault for the rule change—the Democrats who forced it or the Republicans who blocked the nominations requiring the new rules—the result is that the minority will have less power. That means elections will...

......Sen. Carl Levin (Mich.), one of just three Democrats who opposed his colleagues’ naked power grab, read those words on the Senate floor Thursday after Reid invoked the nuclear option. The rumpled Levin is not known for his oratory. But he is retiring next year and free to speak his mind — and his words were potent. “We need to change the rules, but to change it in the way we changed it today means there are no rules except as the majority wants them,” Levin said. “This precedent is going to be used, I fear, to change the rules...

The rule of law has been replaced in Washington by "yes we can." The events we witnessed Thursday in the Senate, that is Majority Leader Harry Reid's success at invoking the so-called 'nuclear option,' stripping the minority party of its primary power to block nominations, have become a stunning capstone to what has been already a steady erosion of a government of laws down to a sort of semi-political banana republic. We are now living in a republic in which politicians do what they want without regard to tradition or the best interests of our country. The rule of more...

For five years, Senate Republicans have refused to allow confirmation votes on dozens of perfectly qualified candidates nominated by President Obama for government positions. They tried to nullify entire federal agencies by denying them leaders. They abused Senate rules past the point of tolerance or responsibility. And so they were left enraged and threatening revenge on Thursday when a majority did the only logical thing and stripped away their power to block the president’s nominees. Democrats made the filibuster change with a simple-majority vote, which Republicans insisted was a violation of the rules. There is ample precedent for this kind...

The filibuster is far from a “procedural gimmick.” It is part of the fabric of this institution. It was well known in colonial legislatures, and it is an integral part of our country’s 217 years of history. (snip) And it is very much in keeping with the spirit of the government established by the Framers of our Constitution: Limited Government…Separation of Powers…Checks and Balances.

In April 2005, when Democrats were blocking a list of Bush nominees and Republicans were threatening to invoke the “nuclear option,” the newly elected junior senator from Illinois, Sen. Barack Obama, took to the floor and sanctimoniously proclaimed that the nuclear option would not only be a violation of democratic principles, but that it would worsen partisanship. Here are few excerpts from his remarks: Everyone in this chamber knows that if the majority chooses to end the filibuster – if they choose to change the rules and put an end to democratic debate, then the fighting and the bitterness and...

Senate Democrats eased the way for swift approval of President Barack Obama’s current and future nominees on Thursday, voting unilaterally to overturn decades of Senate precedent and undermine Republicans’ ability to block final vote. The 52-48 vote to undercut venerable filibuster rules on presidential appointees capped more than a decade of struggle in which presidents of both parties complained about delays in confirming appointees, particularly to the federal courts. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who launched the move, accused Republicans of “unbelievable, unprecedented obstruction” of Obama’s selections to fill court vacancies and other offices. “It’s time to change the Senate,...

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that President Obama has come out in support of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-Nev.) plan to reform the filibuster. This goes counter to Obama's view of this parliamentary procedure when he was a part of the Senate minority in 2005. As a little background, the Republicans in the Senate at the time were angered by Democrat filibusters that were preventing President Bush's judicial appointments from getting an up or down vote. The GOP threatened what was called the "nuclear option" of circumventing the filibuster by using reconciliation to get these jurists to be voted...

The Senate is on the verge of striking down the long-standing filibuster rules for most presidential nominations, potentially doing so on a party-line vote that would alter nearly 225 years of precedent. Democrats, infuriated by what they see as a pattern of obstruction and delay over President Obama’s nominees, expect to trigger the showdown by bringing up one of the recent judicial nominees whom Republicans blocked by a filibuster. According to senior Democratic aides, Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) will set in motion a complicated parliamentary process that ends with a simple-majority vote setting a new rule that will...

Democratic leaders are again taking the temperature of their caucus on whether to finally go “nuclear” and change the Senate rules after Republicans blocked another judge Monday night, aides said. Conversation about the “nuclear option” between leaders and the rank and file began as members trickled back into town before a failed 53-38 cloture vote on the nomination of Robert L. Wilkins to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Though Democrats have threatened to change Senate rules on multiple occasions this Congress—and have yet to blow up procedure to remove the 60-vote hurdle for nominees—talking about rules change again would...

Senate Republicans on Monday blocked a third nominee of President Obama’s to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. In a 53-38 vote, the Senate failed to get the 60 votes necessary to break a Republican filibuster and move to a final confirmation vote on nominee Robert Leon Wilkins. Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) were the only Republicans to vote to end the filibuster. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) also switched his vote to no to preserve his ability to bring the nomination to the floor again. The GOP argues confirming Wilkins to the court would tilt...

Senator Elizabeth Warren got on the Senate floor on Wednesday to charge that her Republican colleagues are still so bitter about the election results last year, they are doing everything within their power to “nullify” the results of that election by fighting President Obama at every turn, including filibustering Cabinet and judicial nominees. Warren reminded Republican senators that they may hate the policies Obama’s pushed for, but he ran for reelection on them and won handily. Warren called them out in particular for blocking Obama’s nominees to fill the vacancies on the D.C. Circuit Court, explaining that this is a...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans blocked another of President Barack Obama's picks for one of the nation's top courts on Tuesday, the latest skirmish in a nominations battle that has intensified partisan tensions in the chamber. The vote derailed Obama's selection of Georgetown University law professor Cornelia Pillard to fill one of three vacancies on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The roll call was 56-41 in favor of ending GOP procedural delays that have blocked Pillard from winning confirmation — four short of the 60 votes Democrats needed.

Senate Republicans on Thursday filibustered one of President Obama’s nominees to sit on the federal appeals court in Washington, arguing that while the woman is well-qualified, confirming her would allow Democrats to shift the political balance to the left on the country's second-most important court. The vote was the latest skirmish in the fierce, though usually hidden, battle over federal judgeships, which are increasingly becoming a part of the political spoils system. Republicans accused Democrats of trying to pack the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals by adding Patricia Millett to the bench, saying Mr. Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry...