Posted on 05/03/2017 11:55:57 AM PDT by ColdOne
As a gridlocked Congress threatens to stall the legislative promises that catapulted him to office, President Trump has raised hackles on the Hill by suggesting longstanding Senate rules simply be scrapped to cripple Democratic opposition.
Trump has twice in the past week railed against “archaic” Senate procedures – first in an interview with Fox News and then again on Twitter – seeming to suggest the legislative filibuster be ended to take advantage of Republicans’ control of Congress.
“And maybe at some point we're going to have to take those rules on, because, for the good of the nation, things are going to have to be different,” Trump said on “The First 100 Days” on Friday. “You can't go through a process like this. It's not fair. It forces you to make bad decisions. I mean, you're really forced into doing things that you would normally not do except for these archaic rules.”
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Good!!
Hopefully it's a start to change or drain the GOP Congress.
If you want a change to small government, you will NEVER get it with the 60 vote rule.
About thirty states voted for Trump. That's 60 senators who if they don't support the Trump agenda, then they aren't supporting their constituents.
It's time for Trump to play hardball with any recalcitrant Senators.
“Trump should just warn them that starting Sept 1 he will veto anything related to keeping the government open until the rules are changed.”
And if that doesn’t bring them around, setup individual PACs to defeat each and every GOPe Senator up for re-election next year. Pick places where the Conservatives can pick up the seat.
If the Senate wasn’t a constitutional requirement I’d be for disbanding it all together. With the advent of the 17th Amendment ( I think that’s the right number) the Senate has ceased to be what the Framers envisioned.
So bills need 51 votes, but we need 60 for a spending bill? Am I getting that right? And why do we need 60? If we don’t get 60 then its filibuster? I thought the longest filibuster was 24 hours? So wait 24 hours and pass with 51? Or am I missing something?
You said,
“...There aren’t even 51 votes in the U.S. Senate to get 10% of Trump’s agenda passed...”
Perhaps you’re right — in which case, IMHO, the 51+ majority SHOULD rule.
What’s often “forgotten” is that Constitution adopted by America’s Founders does NOT require a super-majority for the Senate to do its legislative work.
So I think that, if the Senate’s Soros-funded (Soros-bribed?) goose-stepping, block-voting Democrats continue to use the non-Constitutional “filibuster rule” as a weapon to block the REAL Senate majority from passing laws that help America thrive, then the “filibuster rule” must go! Let’s MAGA!
I hope the 2020 election will vigorously question sitting Senators and their challengers about whether they honor the Constitution as written — or as “modified” by “rules” written by lazy Ivy-educated weasels. Then, those voters that want “change” will know how to vote...
Most of the senators ran ahead of Trump in 2020. And Trump has not shown himself to be capable of focusing on the type of project that would defeat numerous senators in a primary season.
No one is going to afraid of that threat.
Yes but only if the GOP resistance is more than marginal, since otherwise Trump could focus on the one or two that made the rule change out of reach.
I read here yesterday that it is called “The Robert Byrd rule”. Is that incorrect?
Cloture is one name for the mechanism where a supermajority can call for ending debate and taking the vote. Without cloture, debate is supposed to continue, not end. A properly function deliberative body disposes of an issue after taking it up. Disposal is either passing or rejecting, or a vote to formally set it aside, "table" it.
The Senate used to have, and most deliberative bodies have "I move we vote." The Senate got rid of that in 1808 or thereabout. The Senate still ran reasonably well, disposing of what it took up, with a vote.
Around 1917, Treaty of Versailles, IIRC, a minority in the Senate refused to vote, and nothing could move the body closer to voting. That is when the cloture rule was introduced to the US Senate. It's a synonym for "I move we take the vote." FWIW, Roberts Rules of Order has a cloture mechanism too.
What Byrd did was change the rules so that the body could have more than one subject up for discussion at the same time. So, whatever it is that the senate want so debate without talking about, could be set aside, and a new subject could be brought up so the Senators could look like they were deliberating something. The item awaiting a vote on a cloture motion is still the business of the Senate, and so is the new subject.
As a deliberative body, the US Senate is by far the most dysfunctional one the world has ever seen. They can take comfort in the fact that the public is nearly totally ignorant and easily fooled.
Secondarily, as a person that has chaired many meetings under Roberts Rules of Order, I have come to realize that the U.S. Senate has taken those rules and bastardized them to the point of being unrecognizable.
With the number of State Legislatures that are controlled by Republicans, there is no doubt in my mind that without the 17th Amendment our Senate would be comprised of a entirely different body.
The U.S. Senate being so closely divided is strictly an outcome of said amendment.
Once again, thank you so much for such a concise reply to my post Cboldt!
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