Posted on 11/22/2013 3:08:19 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
....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 to trigger the nuclear option at the start of last week.
A Democratic leadership aide said he had not yet conducted a whip count and an outside liberal group that worked closely with him to advocate for filibuster reform said he was short of the 50 votes needed.
Reid never told his colleagues when he surpassed the mark. He simply called for a vote on the floor. That’s when Democrats knew they were about to enact one of the biggest Senate rules changes in decades.
“I just assumed he would never take it to the floor unless he had the votes. He’s too shrewd a vote counter. He really knows the Senate,” said a Democrat senator.
Several Republican senators tried to patch together a deal in the final hours to avoid the nuclear option.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), a well-respected centrist, said Republicans could agree to confirm one of President Obama’s nominees to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals if Democrats agreed to let the other two languish and dropped the threat of the nuclear option, according to a source familiar with the talks.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the Senate GOP’s principal dealmaker this Congress, urged Reid to consider it and other proposals instead of a rules change.
In the end, Reid said he would accept nothing less than confirmation of all three of Obama’s nominees to the D.C. Circuit, the second most powerful court in the nation, which has primary jurisdiction over the Affordable Care Act.
Outside groups had worked for months to persuade Reid to curb the minority party’s power to filibuster nominees. But in the end, Reid worked largely alone. His decision to trigger the nuclear option — so dubbed because it’s viewed as a dramatic escalation of partisan tactics — caught them by surprise.
Two members of the Fix the Senate Now coalition predicted earlier this week that Reid would not try to eliminate the power to filibuster executive and sub-Supreme Court judicial nominees before the end of the year.
Reid clinched support for changing the rules at the weekly Tuesday Senate Democratic caucus lunch.
He opened the meeting with a passionate speech announcing his decision to move ahead with a unilateral change of the filibuster rule. His plan was to overturn a ruling of the presiding chair with a simple majority vote, an aggressive tactic that several senior members of his caucus had long opposed.
After months of Republican obstruction, which culminated in the shutdown of the federal government in October, even longtime skeptics of a sudden rules change were finally ready to curb the minority party’s power to delay.
“Harry made an impassioned plea,” said a Democratic lawmaker, who described Reid’s remarks as similar to what he delivered on the Senate floor Thursday. “He said this is where we’re headed.”
Speaking on the floor shortly before the momentous vote, Reid declared Thursday: “The American people believe Congress is broken. The American people believe the Senate is broken. And I believe the American people are right.”
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.
Feinstein said she was dismayed that the informal agreement Senate Republicans and Democrats struck on nominees during a rare joint meeting in the Old Senate Chamber in July had quickly disintegrated.
“I spent three hours in the Old Senate Chamber with both parties. And I listened to the discourse, which was amiable,” she told reporters that day. “And we left, and I think we all felt good. And it lasted maybe one week or two weeks.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) also delivered a pivotal speech at the meeting, urging colleagues in his gravely baritone to set aside their concerns and follow Reid.
“Patrick just said, ‘I think it’s time we do this, I’m going to follow the leader,’” said a lawmaker who attended the meeting.
The lawmaker said Reid galvanized support when he made it clear to his colleagues that he had made a decision and was going to move forward.
“I don’t think we did [have the votes],” said the source. “Until he really pushes and he says, ‘I’m going to do this,’ and goes to individual senators, people are on the fence.”
Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, made a last-ditch effort to divert Reid by proposing that Democrats hold another meeting with Republicans in the Old Senate Chamber, said two sources familiar with the meeting.
Too many Democrats had lost their patience with repeated Republican filibusters and roundly dismissed Levin’s proposal.
“That would have just been more window dressing,” said a Democratic source.
Levin told The Hill Thursday he dies not remember making such a suggestion at the private meeting.
“But I think it would have been a good idea,” he said.
“In the end, Reid said he would accept nothing less than confirmation of all three of Obama’s nominees to the D.C. Circuit, the second most powerful court in the nation, which has primary jurisdiction over the Affordable Care Act.’
In the spirit of compromise, of course.
The dhimmicraps, under the leadership of Reid the Feckless, have positioned themselves as the petulant toddlers in FedGov. Of course, they only have to intimidate the pubbies in order to get their own way...again.
Time to flush the commode that is DC.
Whatever. How about declare that 30% of the vote is good enough and go along with it.
This is a dictatorship they want obviously.
Reid and their demands. These people are crazy. They walk and vote blindfolded without a care, litteraly defecating the country down the toilet.
Recess appointments don’t last a lifetime.
This is big.
And the media is whooping and cheering Reid it on, and in a disgusting display of hypocrisy, simultaneously warning Republicans that they should put the supermajority rule back in if they take the senate in 2014.
She's neither
In the end, Reid said he would accept nothing less than confirmation of all three of Obama’s nominees to the D.C. Circuit, the second most powerful court in the nation, which has primary jurisdiction over the Affordable Care Act.
And here's the real end game. Somebody on this board said it yesterday. Here's to you, unidentified FReeper. It really was about making sure that all of 0bama's illegal and unpopular decrees stand.
This is really gonna tick-off the precious Moderates.
Pathetic inside the Beltway drivel. I am not intrigued, I am only disgusted. The level of hypocricy is off the charts
"...Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, said he didn’t fear retaliation. He said he reached a tipping point after Republicans filibustered three of Mr. Obama’s nominees to serve on the federal appeals court in Washington, which is considered the second most important court in the country because it hears cases involving key federal agencies." ..... -- Democrats end Senate tradition, trigger ‘nuclear option’ to ram through Obama’s judicial nominees
All the more reason EVERY conservative needs to work to defeat and remove the demodummies from the senate and congress as each one of them are evil parisite control freaks. There has to be a way to resolve their pathetic ways of destroying this nation short of an all out civil war.
If the GOP manages to gain control of House, Senate and White House, they need to pass legislation that permits them to remove/replace activist federal judges who are ‘overboard’ to either the right or left.
Should be some attention given to SCOTUS judges’ terms, too, if they consistantly demonstrate by decisions that they are not abiding by the Constitution, but are biased.
What goes round comes around. If the pubbies get their acts together and get a spine they may be able to turn the tables on the RATS next November. They have to drive hard re. Obamcare and let the red state constituents with RAT senators know the kind of left wing judges that are being approved.
-——comes around-—
The goal is no comes around.
If there is a comes around, with the destruction now being rendered, the comes around will be ineffective
Well, I have an even larger concern than left-wing liberal judges being appointed. What happens if he appoints Muslims into enough judicial roles that they can “declare” Sharia law is the new law of the land?
“........ For now, with legislative progress in the House all but doomed by Republican opposition, officials said the president could at least get a full team in place so that he can move forward with executive action, when possible, when Republicans block his agenda in Congress.
That’s what Republicans fear.
“This is nothing more than a power grab in order to try to advance the Obama administration’s regulatory agenda,” Mr. McConnell said.”
You’d think that I’d be able to spell “Nuclear,” but that darn Public Edumication still haunts me.
Will packing the DC court also shield Holder from crimes (lying to Congress, Fast and Furious) and shield 0bama for his many crimes and forgeries?
Elections always mattered. The GOP has squandered too many, starting with that Minnesota Clown.
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