Save the Filibuster and Save the Senate From Partisanship

The Daily Signal ^ | September 1, 2016 | Brian Darling

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

The filibuster is under attack again, this time by Senate Democrats who are hoping to win back that chamber as well as the White House in November.

Carl Hulse, chief Washington correspondent for The New York Times, reported Wednesday that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid wants Democrats to “move to curtail the filibuster” if they win both the White House and the Senate “only to run up against persistent use of the tactic by Republicans.”

Hulse wrote:

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Without the filibuster, the Senate simply becomes another House of Representatives.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

PING!

[xzins]

The Senate without being appointed by state legislatures is a joke. Therefore, the filibuster is a joke. Always has been and always will be, but the Senate is more of a joke.

It is the legislative equivalent of Joe Biden with constipations. They talk a lot of shit but can’t squeeze out one single result.

[867V309]

Without the , the Senate simply becomes another House of Representatives.

Filibuster is the ruse that allows GOPe skunks to look like they're voting one way when they're actually voting the other. That is: vote FOR CLOTURE, then vote against the bill after it's too late. Bill passes, and the skunk can say he voted against it.

[cpdiii]

Harry Reid broke the filibuster forever when he used the nuclear option to pass Obama Care. The Filibuster is a “dead letter,” it is not pinning for the fjords, it is nailed to its perch, it is a dead f-—ing parrot. The filibuster is no more.

The real problem is the Republicans do not have the balls to use the nuclear option as did Harry Reid. I loath the Republican leadership on slightly less than Harry Reid.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Actually, Reid used budget reconciliation to pass 0care. The filibuster started to die when, as stated in the article, in 2013 Reid nuked it to allow confirmation of 0bama department nominees and judicial nominees to lower courts.

[Migraine]

I’ve been hearing that term since I was a little kid in the 40s-50s. First time I heard it I asked my Mom: “What’s a Pillow Buster?”

[cpdiii]

Thanks for the clarification.

[Grimmy]

Imo, any whines about “partisanship” in either the House or Senate is simply a call to surrender, fully and completely to the destructionist left.

[Alberta's Child]

Maybe. But there is no Constitutional basis for the filibuster. It's nothing more than a Senate rule that was put in place a long time ago.

The Senate effectively became another "House of Representatives" once all U.S. Senators were elected directly by the citizens rather than appointed through whatever means a state wanted.

[HarleyD]

The Republicans should have given Reid a taste of his own medicine and kept the Reid rules in place when they took over. They could have past any legislation they wanted without interference from the Democrats forcing Obama to issue veto after veto. Had they done that the Democrats would not be proposing this again.

I suspect the Republicans simply didn’t want that to be the case.

[VRW Conspirator]

Prediction: Dems will try to steal senate elections to get majority in the senate.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Without the filibuster, the Senate simply becomes another House of Representatives.

. . . with grossly unequal-sized “districts.” But the filibuster is not originally the only distinguishing feature of the Senate - the Senate’s original purpose was to represent the States, not directly the people of the states. The Seventeenth Amendment bastardized the system in that sense.

Ironically, the redistricting power of the state legislature makes the House of Representatives delegation more influenced by the state’s government than the state’s Senate delegation is. Repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment is much to be desired, in that sense.

. . . but then, be careful what you wish for; corruption is not unheard of in State capitols, either. And it is difficult to see how you could sell repeal. I would rather suggest that an amendment be passed making senators be elected as running mates of gubernatorial candidates. That would retain direct election, but would simultaneously link the authority of the senator to the responsibility of the governor. Senators could not impose mandates on the state governments without repercussions on the governors who were their running mates. I would change the term of the Senator to four - or, at the option of the governor, eight years. The governor would have the option of filling the senator’s seat instead of running for reelection. Thus, a governor would be as big a deal in Washington as a senator is, for he would be in reality a senator-elect.

This system would make gubernatorial elections very high-stakes affairs, but Senatorial elections would go away.

The system of having the Senate sit on impeachment of the president should be improved, in the sense that many of the Senators would be former governors, and the rest would all have their vote reflect on their gubernatorial sponsor. Thus, if you as a senator vote that a certain behavior by the POTUS in Washington is OK, by implication your running-mate governor has to stand for reelection based on the idea that he approves of - theoretically might engage in - the same behavior.

If that system is not adopted, Governors should sit en blanc on any impeachment of the POTUS - senators are legislators, and not in any sense “peers” of the president. Or, perhaps, governors should not try the facts of impeachment, but should rule on the “impeachability” of the allegations, if found true, of the impeachment.