[101st-Eagle]

For any Constitutional/Congressional scholars out there, could someone please give me a nutshell version of what a rules change entails? Can it simply be done in comittee, without Dems being able to circumvent with a Daschle like maneuver, or does it take full legislature introduction subject to a fillibuster itself. Thanks for any info from the lazy guy.

[Pfesser]

I believe a rule change requires a simple up or down vote of the full Senate and rule changes are not subject to a filibuster. However, most Senators, even Republicans, like the filibuster. Republicans fear that they may need it one day.

[Pharlap]

This is the way it can be done. The Senate's Republican leadership must determine that it has 50 votes. (The new Senate will be 55-45. But, there may be up to 5 Republican's who will not vote to change the Rules. They are the two from Maine; Chafee from Rhode Island; Specter from Pennsylvania; and McCain from Arizona. On the other hand, there are several "red" state Democrat senators up for reelection in 2006 who might be willing to vote for a Rule change.) Assuming 50 votes, the Vice President as the President of the Senate would then cast the tie breaking vote (see, the Constitution, Article I, Section 3, Clause 4). The Chairman of the Rules Committee (currently, Trent Lott) would propose a change to Senate Rule XXII, which provides for a filibuster, and requires a 60 vote super majority to effect cloture. The change could exempt all presidential nominations, or just judicial nominations from Rule XXII, thereby mandating an up or down vote on the exempted nominations; or, the change could effect a sliding scale cloture vote so that by a certain point in time, say 3 months, only 50 votes would be required for cloture.

The Rules Committee then votes out the Rule change (probably along party lines). Once on the floor (before the full Senate) for debate, should a senator move to filibuster the Rule change, the presiding officer (most likely the Vice President) would rule the filibuster out of order because (1) the Rules of a prior Senate cannot bind or limit the rule making authority of the incoming Senate, and (2) because the Constitution does not require a super majority for the enactment of Rules. As to this last point, when the Constitution mandates a super majority it does so expressly as with treaty ratification. In all other instances, only a simple majority is required. That is the intent of the combination of specific super majority provisions and the operation of Article I, Section 3, Clause 4, which envisions tie votes (there being an even number of senators),and, therefore, expressly empowers the Vice President to cast the tie breaking vote.