No, no, NO!!!
Is everybody here new at this? Judge Gorsuch, or any judge, needs FIFTY-ONE VOTES to be confirmed.
What needs SIXTY VOTES is a motion to stop debate, which can continue until a) there are sixty votes to stop it, or, b) the anti-faction becomes exhausted and cannot hold the floor.
NO FILIBUSTER HAS EVER GONE ON FOREVER.
What's new is that, since the 1970s, the Senate (by majority consent) will accept a "declaration of a filibuster" and move on to other business, in effect tabling the business before the Senate (a nomination, in this case) and leaving it undone as long as the "declarers" remain unchanged. This grants the minority a veto which requires zero effort to excercise. This is not a tradition, it has no historical validity, and...
This is stupid and can be changed with no change in the underlying rule that a supermajority is required to end debate.
All that the majority need do is require the minority to hold the floor until they cannot. The longest filibuster in history was 57 days long, in 1957.
If the Democrats stop the business of the Senate for 57 days over this matter, it will cost them big time in 2018, and I'm sure they know it.
It is completely unnecessary to exercise the so-called "nuclear option". All the Majority Leader needs to do is to open debate on the nomination, then sit back, and wait. Move cloture every day.
True, but that is IF McConnell will require the ‘rats to perform a genuine filibuster. Who knows if McConnell has any balls?
Bingo. I like the designation “Constitutional option” mentioned in a previous post. It is more appropriate
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