Posted on 04/29/2005 6:52:49 AM PDT by SJackson
Bring back the catheters and the 2:30am readings of the Sears Catalog.
brilliant solution!
I'm a little suprised that Robert Byrd isn't calling for a return of the old filibuster rules. He would be a natural.
I totally agree with Dick Morris.
I have said this before... If they want to filibuster, make them do it.
Do it, do it, DO IT!!
I'm just heading out for some shopping - if I pick up some sleeping bags & send them to my Senators, do you think they'll get the hint?
Russell's gang included Sheets Byrd, BTW. And I totally agree. Don't end the filibuster. End the pretend "virtual" filibuster. Make these bozos stand in public and deliver and watch how fast they cave.
How do they get away with this virtual crap anyway?
All those clowns should take a real trip out of the country for good.
It will be interesting to see if Frist and
Cheney have the nuts to demand a return to the
traditional filibuster.
When-Who was virtual filibuster invented?
Gore had a good idea, that Congress should vote
that the 9th circuit doesn't exist.
Now how to we get the Republicans to develop the spines capable of doing this?
The dims need only 2 or 3 people on the floor, while the rest of them are at home. We need 50 all the time or the dim suggests the absence of a quorum. Just how do we keep 50 there while they work in shifts of three?
Breaking a filibuster works against one or a handful, not against 45. Thinking this tactic will break the dims is wrong.
Time to end the thing period. Do away with it and if the dims put it back when they are next in charge and we are the minority GREAT. If not we can then ask why they don't since they like it so much!
Make them all work for their bloated paycheck. The reason the GOP doesn't want to do this is because they will have to stick around close in case there is a call for a vote. Make both parties work for a living instead of every 6 years.
The burden then shifts to the party that wants to take the vote. Since the Senate disposed of the "move the last question" rule in 1806, it takes more than a majority of Senators to get to the vote.
A formal method of getting to the vote was put in place in 1917 ... cloture.
Even Gold & Gupta's article doesn't explain the difference between "one track" to "two track" procedures in the Senate, or how that difference might force a party opposed to taking the vote to take the podium and talk. The only think I can think of is that the "one track" system requires all business brought to the floor to be disposed of, before moving on. Even then, if one Senator objects, there is no vote (until cloture is satisfied). Nobody has to talk. They can sit there like bumps on a log. The can stall process with incessant calls for filibuster, reading of bills, and any number of parliamentary procedures.
Sorry for rambling there. I'm still looking for an explanation of how to force a DEM to take the floor.
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Gold_Gupta_JLPP_article.pdf
2 or 3 minority on the floor, would be a good
time for a cloture vote.
Thanks for the explanations.
Three-fifths of those present and voting is not
necessrily 60.
It will be interesting to see if greesepaint and other posters have the smarts to see that a traditional filibuster would hurt the Republicans.
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