Posted on 04/27/2005 5:16:17 PM PDT by OXENinFLA
Yehaaaaa
Already Powerline!
Thanks
Please contact these Key Swing Vote Senators whether you live in their state, or not.
Here are key senators whose votes may well
decide the fate of the filibuster rules change. Contact these individual senators,
urging each to FULLY SUPPORT THE FILIBUSTERING RULES CHANGE.
Even if none of these "swing" senators is your own senator, please
call them and tell them to vote for the nuclear option, aka Constitutional option.
Here are their names and contact information:
Sen. Lincoln Chafee (RI) 202-224-2921
Sen. Susan Collins (ME) 202-224-2523
Sen. Mike DeWine (OH) 202-224-2315
Sen. John McCain (AZ) 202-224-2235
Sen. Olympia Snowe (ME) 202-224-5344
Sen. John Sununu (NH) 202-224-2841
Sen. John Warner (VA) 202-224-2023
Sen. Hagel 202-224-4224
Sen. Murkowski 202-224-2523
Sen. Voinovich 202-224-3353
Sen. Smith 202-224-3753
If you would rather e-mail these senators, or can't get through because of busy signals, the following link is a great resource; look to the left to access contact e-mail info for ANY U.S. senator, where you will see "Action Center, then under that click E-mail your senator."
COALITION FOR A FAIR JUDICIARY
http://fairjudiciary.com/
Also, call Bill Frist at 202-224-3344 and ask him to expedite the Constitutional option vote.
You can call all those Senators FREE using this number to the US Capitol:
1-877-762-8763
Whatever happens I just hope that the Republicans come out of this with strength. Right now it seems there are a lot of rifts in the party about best strategy, and who the leadership can count on to be strong.
Thanks for the toll-free number. I'll try it tomorrow morning for the senators I could not reach, because of busy signals.
Maybe I will e-mail them tonight AND try to call tomorrow again, just to make sure.
Senators of both parties acknowledge that the current use of filibusters to require a 60-vote standard to confirm judicial nominees is UNPRECEDENTED, including the following Democrats:
Sen. Corzine
(D-N.J.): In a November 3, 2003, fundraising e-mail to potential donors, the then-chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee acknowledged – indeed, boasted – that the current blockade of judicial nominees is “unprecedented.”
Sen. Leahy (D-Vt.): On October 14, 1998, Senator Leahy stated on the Senate floor that “I cannot recall a judicial nomination being successfully filibustered.”
This sounds oddly familiar...
1-877-762-8762
"the filibuster has become the tool of the sore loser"
I can't stop laughing at the NYT. They are so over.
Thanks. I'll be calling some more tomorrow.
BRAVO.......BUMP
"the filibuster has become the tool of the sore loser"
[Page S36]
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, thank you.
I am very proud to join with my colleague from Iowa in cosponsoring and supporting this amendment. A new day has dawned here on Capitol Hill today. A new majority has come to power; but, hopefully, more than a new majority--a new sense of responsiveness to the public, a new understanding of what it means to do the public's business here in Congress, and a new openness to looking at some parts of the operation in Congress which we have previously either not questioned or felt it was inappropriate to question.
I must say that over the last couple of years, as I watched the filibuster being used and, I think, in my respectful opinion, ultimately misused and overused, it seems to me that what had originally appeared to be a reasonable idea was being put to very unreasonable use.
Therefore, I promised myself that if I was fortunate enough to be reelected by the people of Connecticut to return for the 104th Congress, I would do what I could to try to change this filibuster rule, which I am afraid has come to be a means of frustrating the will of a majority to do the public's business and respond to the public's needs. And so when I heard that Senator Harkin had put this program and plan together, I called him and I said, `My distinguished colleague and friend, I admire you for what you are doing.' There are those who undoubtedly will think this is a quixotic effort, that it is a kind of romantic but unfeasible effort.
It is important now to make this effort to show that we have heard the message and that we are prepared to not only shake up the Federal Government but shake up the Congress. And not just for the sake of shaking it up, but because of a fundamental principle that is basic to our democracy, that is deep into the deliberations of the Framers of our Constitution and appears throughout the Federalist Papers, which is rule of the majority in the legislative body. It is this majority rule has been frustrated by the existing filibuster rule. So I am privileged to join as a cosponsor with my colleague from Iowa in this effort.
Mr. President, whenever I explain to my constituents at home in Connecticut that a minority of Senators can by a mere threat of a filibuster--not even by the continuous debate, but by a mere threat of a filibuster--kill a bill on the Senate floor, they are incredulous. When I tell them that now as a matter of course a Senator needs to obtain 60 votes in order to pass a bill to which there is opposition, frankly, the folks back home are suspicious.
When I explain how often the threat of a filibuster has been used to tie the Senate in knots and kill legislation that is actually favored by a majority of Senators--and the filibuster was used more times last year than in the first 108 years of the Senate combined--well, the folks back home honestly think I am exaggerating. Unfortunately, I am not. Those are the facts.
Mr. President, when I entered the Senate 6 years ago, I asked to be briefed by a staff person at the Congressional Research Service on the Senate rules. I wanted to figure out how the place worked.
I must say, after that briefing, I, like my constituents, was incredulous. I had been the majority leader of the Connecticut State Senate, so I had some familiarity with parliamentary procedures, but I must say I did not understand how the Senate's debate and amendment rules were being used to keep the Senate, presumably the greatest deliberative body in the world, from getting things done.
Like many Americans of my generation, I remembered the dramatic filibuster battles of the 1950's and 1960's and assumed that filibusters were relatively uncommon and were employed only in the great issues of the time which divided a country. I assumed--like most Americans, I would guess, drawing from probably the broadest experience America has had with filibusters, which is mainly `Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,' when James Stewart stood in that magnificent portrayal and carried out a principled filibuster --that filibusters were to be reserved for only the most significant of legislative battles.
While I quickly learned that while real filibusters are uncommon, current Senate rules allow the mere threat of a filibuster to rule the way we do or do not do business.
The gentleman from the Congressional Research Service used a powerful analogy here. He said to me, `Senator, you have to think of the Senate as if it were composed of 100 nations, each Senator representing a nation, and each nation has an atomic bomb and can blow up the place any time it wants. And that bomb is a filibuster.'
That may make us feel good about our power and our authority, but it is not the way to run the greatest deliberative body in the world. In fact, I state this with some humility because I do not remember the exact quote, I asked the gentleman from the Congressional Research Service, `Is there any precedent for this kind of procedure in the history of legislative bodies?'
He said he thought the closest modern precedent was a Senate that sat in Poland in the 18th century which, because of unique historical circumstances that are not to the point, with approximately 700 members, the rule was that nothing could be done without unanimous consent. That, I hope, is not the model that we aspire to copy here.
What was once an extraordinary remedy, used only in the rarest of instances, has unfortunately become a commonplace tactic to thwart the will of the majority. Just as insidiously, allowing legislation to be killed on procedural votes, as we so often have here in the Senate, protects us from having to confront the hard choices that we were sent here to make and, in that sense, makes us a less accountable body.
Mr. President, this has to end and it will not end unless an effort begins to end it as we are attempting to do here today. As I believe Senator Harkin has indicated, the Senate filibuster rule has actually been changed five times in this century. In most cases, particularly when the changes were substantial, they did not occur the first time the proponents charged the fortress. Perhaps they will not occur on this occasion. But I know Senator Harkin and I are prepared to keep fighting until this change occurs because of what is on the line, which is the credibility and the productivity of the U.S. Senate.
The change that we are proposing, as Senator Harkin has indicated, will make it more difficult for a minority of Senators to absolutely stop, to block, to kill Senate action on legislation favored by a majority of the Senate, but it will still protect the ability of that minority to be heard before up or down majority votes on legislation are taken. It will give the minority opposed to what the majority wants to do the opportunity to educate and arouse the public as to what may be happening here to give the public the opportunity perhaps to change the inclination of the majority.
The procedure of succeeding votes with 2-day intervals, 60 being required, first 57, 54 and finally a simple majority of Senators being able to work its will--our intent here is to give the minority a chance to make their case and to persuade others but not to continue to grant them an effective veto power which they now enjoy.
We recognize that the opposition to this proposal is bipartisan, just as the use of the filibuster rule has been bipartisan. We also understand that as Members of the new minority, Senator Harkin and I perhaps are not the likeliest people to be proposing to limit the powers of the new Democratic minority, but we both firmly believe that regardless of how our resolution may limit our personal options as Members of the minority party in the Senate in the short-term, it is essential that this reform be undertaken now when the problem of filibuster-created gridlock is so fresh in all of our minds.
For too long, we have accepted the premise that the filibuster rule is immune. Yet, Mr. President, there is no constitutional basis for it. We impose it on ourselves. And if I may say so respectfully, it is, in its way, inconsistent with the Constitution, one might almost say an amendment of the Constitution by rule of the U.S. Senate.
The Framers of the Constitution, this great fundamental, organic American document considered on which kinds of votes, on which issues the will of the majority would not be enough, that a vote of more than a majority would be required, and the Constitution has spelled those instances out quite clearly. Only five areas: Ratification of a treaty requires more than a majority of the Senate; override by the Senate of a Presidential veto requires more than a majority; a vote of impeachment requires more than a majority; passage of a constitutional amendment requires more than a majority; and the expulsion of a Member of Congress requires more than a majority.
The Framers actually considered the wisdom of requiring supermajorities for other matters and rejected them.
So it seems to me to be inconsistent with the Constitution that this body, by its rules, has essentially amended the Constitution to require 60 votes to pass any issue on which Members choose to filibuster or threaten to filibuster.
The Framers, I think, understood--more than understood--expressed through the Constitution and their deliberations and their writings, that the Congress was to be a body in which the majority would rule.
I know that some of our colleagues will oppose the alteration, the amendment, that Senator Harkin and I are proposing on the grounds the filibuster is a very special prerogative that is necessary to protect the rights of a minority. But in doing so, and I say this respectfully, I believe they are not being true to the intention of the Framers of the Constitution, which is that the Congress was the institution in which the majority was to rule, not to be effectively tyrannized by a minority. And the Framers, Madison and the others, who thought so deeply and created this extraordinary instrument that has guided our country for more than 200 years now, developed the system in which the rights of the minority were to be protected by the republican form of government, by the checks and balances inherent in our Government and ultimately by the courts applying the great principles of the Constitution, particularly the Bill of Rights, to protect the rights of a minority that might be infringed by a wayward majority.
So this procedure that has grown up over the years has turned the intention of the Framers, in my opinion, on its head, and in doing so has not only created gridlock but has given power to a minority as against the will of the majority. The majority in the Senate, as reflecting the majority of the people of the United States, has allowed that minority to frustrate the will of the majority improperly.
So I think this is at the heart of the change for which the people have cried out. It is right, and it is fair. It is our belief in that most fundamental of democratic principles, majority rule, that motivates our introduction of this amendment. I am confident that if we ever put this issue, or could put this issue, before the American people for a vote, they would direct us to end the current filibuster practice. Majority rule is not and should not be a controversial proposition. Minority rights are protected by the checks and balances in our system.
Mr. President, it is my pleasure as a Senator from Connecticut to welcome the occupant of the chair as a new Member of the Senate. Perhaps you have observed from your viewing of the Senate before you arrived here that our problem seems not to have been that things move through this institution too quickly, that we hastily trample upon the rights of the minority. The problem, if anything--and it is not a bad problem and it does carry out the intention and will of the Framers--is that there are a lot of checks and balances here, and it is often hard to do the people's business and respond to the people's needs, and the filibuster has made it even harder to do so.
So I thank the Chair and the Senate for their indulgence. I congratulate again my colleague from Iowa for initiating this forthright and, in its way, courageous attempt to change the status quo, and I urge my colleagues to support the amendment.
[Page: S37] GPO's PDF
Mr. HARKIN. Before the Senator yields the floor, will the Senator yield?
Mr. LIEBERMAN. I would certainly yield the floor to my friend from Iowa.
Mr. HARKIN. I thank my colleague and good friend from Connecticut for his support, his involvement, and his help in the drafting of this amendment and putting it together. The Senator from Connecticut is one of those who stood in the well today and took his oath of office for the second time. The Senator from Connecticut, I think I can say without any fear of being in error, in his entire first term in the Senate was recognized for his constant effort to provide for reform, for change in the way this place operates to make it more open, to make us more accountable, and to ensure that the people of Connecticut, indeed the people of the United States, have the right to insist that Senators vote on the merits of legislation. So the Senator is not a newcomer to congressional reform and to making this body operate more effectively and efficiently. I congratulate the people of Connecticut for their wisdom in returning him to this body.
I thank the Senator very much for his support of this measure. As the Senator so wisely said, any time that the rules have been changed on the filibuster in the past, it has sometimes taken a great deal of time and effort. We will persevere in this effort because we believe it is the right course for the American people. But I believe by the changes that were made in November, the big changes that were made, the American people were sending us a very powerful message, and I believe, if we do not do something about this dinosaur, we are going to be involved in another couple of years of frustration.
So I just wanted to thank the Senator for his support, for his involvement, for his help in the drafting of this amendment, and I thank him for his 6 years of efforts to make the Senate a more responsive and responsible body.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I thank my friend and colleague from Iowa for his kind words. I would just say to him that it is really an honor to begin this session by being his partner in this effort that I think is really at the heart of making the Senate a more responsive body.
I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
Marked
ping
Bump - great read ! LOL !!! It took ten years, but now the Republicans agree !
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