Coincidentally, Hillsdale College sends out a montly newsletter, "Imprimis" in which January 2017 edition features US House of Representative Tom McClintock's essay on the same issue.
Posted on 02/08/2017 10:59:16 AM PST by bigbob
Reid killed the filibuster (and the senate). Trying to pretend the senate is still a slow, deliberative body is ridiculous after the games the Ds played to pass the ACA then Reid’s killing of the filibuster “in limited situations”.
The Ds have no intention of the senate ever being a functional part of the US government again. It is a tool for their party to use/abuse to whatever extent they can based on the number of seats they occupy.
If only the GOP had the balls to behave this way when the “wise latina” or the fat bull-dyke were proposed.
I’ve argued that the Senate needs to return to the 1960’s era of filibuster practice, where a filibustering Senator was required to continue making a speech on the Senate floor in order for his filibuster to continue. In recent decades they did away with the actual filibuster, and just “as a courtesy” accepted the threat/promise of a filibuster based on vote counts and did not vote on issues.
Enforcing/invoking Rule 19 as discussed in this article seems to provide for the same result where a Senator must go through the actual speech-making to hold the floor, and still can not prevent a vote indefinitely, as physical limitations of sleep and other bodily needs and functions will eventually win out.
I like it.
I’m no expert but what I understand is that the Senate makes its own rules and can re-make or un-make them in a future session.
“The argument that using the nuclear option ensures that the dims will do likewise...”
Exactly. Typical moderate R thinkology. After the shellacking the dims are enduring, only a fool would believe their ethics would prohibit them from going nuclear at every opportunity.
It’s a good backup in case the Republicans fall short of the number of senators needed to go nuclear.
But I’m against the filibuster altogether. It brought us forth a Senate that carves its will into stone on the rare occasions that a filibuster-proof majority exists. And that’s bad governance.
Ban the filibuster. Return the drafting of laws back to the legislature, and away from the imperial presidency.
The Senate should be what the Founders intended: a representative body promoting the interest of the several States, answerable to the governments of the several States. The 17th Amendment needs to be repealed.
And this would be different how?
The principle basis for the filibuster was weakened decades ago and since Reid, it has cracked and widened.
It cannot be repaired if there is no unity to provide the glue in cementing it together.
It’s a lost cause.
The moral deterioration in the arena of elected offices, the debased culture, the prevalent normalized greed of wealth concentration centers, the cheapening of human life, the breakdown in standards across the board, have followed a process of what Kyle Bass calls “Social Entropy”.
The only means to reestablish respect for principles of governance is to suffer the process end which is social upheaval if not war itself.
The suited democrat US Senators with their seemingly civilized parliamentary procedures and calm manners may seem a far cry from the masked rogue cowardly criminal gangs on the streets of Berkeley ...
but open their skulls and likely one will find the same maggot induced rot of megalomania that rules them all.
Because the Constitution does not allow any congress to bind a future congress. The Supremes have ruled however that the Senate can set their own rules.
The Repubs should invoke the nuke on general principles.
The Dems would do it without thinking twice.
The Dems never play fair; it’s time their got a spoon of their own medicine.
If not for the precedent of the 1964 CRA I would be ambivalent, but this is genius.
Thanks for posting it.
Those who oppose this want voter fraud.
This is what the Trump Revolution is about: law, truth, justice, liberty--revolutionary concepts in the decadent phase of Western Civilization.
We live either under law or under the law of the jungle. The radical left advocates the law of the jungle. War is the law of the jungle.
As for truth and liberty, the radical left has only contempt for them, as they interfere with the perverse version of justice that the left embraces.
Whether or not truth, liberty, justice, and law will prevail, or whether the law of the jungle will prevail, remains to be seen. Half the USA and most of the world seem to prefer the law of the jungle.
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