Posted on 10/27/2021 11:07:54 AM PDT by RandFan
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) called the filibuster “unconstitutional” in a new op-ed published on Time on Wednesday.
Hoyer claimed that there were only a few times in which the writers of the Constitution could see the need for “extraordinary majorities” - a reference to the 60 votes needed in the Senate to end debate on the majority of legislative pieces: Constitutional amendments, impeachment, approving treaties “negotiated by the executive” and overriding the president’s veto.
“However, the drafters of the Constitution discussed but did not include a provision for the passage of legislation to need more than a majority vote. Therefore, I believe the filibuster to be an unconstitutional requirement for more than a majority to pass legislation,” Hoyer claimed in his op-ed.
Hoyer called for the upper chamber to end Senate Rule 22, which was adopted in the late 1910s and referred to as the “cloture rule” which requires a filibuster to be broken with 60 votes.
“The premise that such a rule is necessary as some kind of check and balance fails to understand that good principle. It is the legislature that checks the executive, who checks the legislature by the veto, and Supreme Court who checks both on behalf of the Constitution and the minority,” Hoyer wrote.
“If the Senate Minority has veto power over the Senate Majority, our democracy is upside down, and there is real danger that Americans will conclude their democracy is broken,” the House Majority leader continued. “That has happened too often around the world. We must not let it happen here.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
In Time, eh? So, what, 30 people read it?
Steny didn’t object to the Filibuster when his party was able to use it...
After the 2024 election, when there is a Republican President and a Republican controlled Senate, suddenly the filibuster will be Constitutional again!
The democrats and the lamestream media will all be singing praises to the Senate filibuster as the only thing protecting democracy from mob rule!
What an idiot.
Odd how the left’s definition of democracy is so
different from the founders.
I guess it’s because the founders definition of freedom
is different from the left.
Lets see Steny. How many times did the Democrats use the filibuster every year while Trump was President? ... over 3 hundred times. Now that the shoe is on the other foot and those nasty Republicans are using it to prevent a Democratic dictatorship it’s is unconstitutional. He is just another traitor to the Constitution.
We don't like it when tools we use to stop legislation are used against us!!!
First rule of politics: NEVER arrogate a rule you do not want to be used AGAINST you.
You would think Kavanaugh would have taught them something.
If they remove the filibuster then next year the GOP will ride roughshod over EVERYTHING. That is almost as scary as the dems doing so now.
shows that he has not read the constitution
The Constitution gives each house the power to make its own rules. The Senate has chosen make the filibuster a part of its rules. The House could do the same if it chose to.
Not liking something doesn’t make it unconstitutional.
Disinformation. The rules of the U.S. Senate are not subject to the U.S. Constitution.
peaceful protestors being held in solitary confinement and denied bail because they won’t renounce Donald Trump is unconstitutional- but apparently hoyer doesn’t care-
It doesn’t matter what Hoyer says. Angus King just joined Manchin and Sinema in opposing scrapping the Filibuster.
Now they have to flip 3, not just 2.
The 600 pound gorilla in the room that also needs to be dealt with is the ill-conceived 17th Amendment. That amendment needs to be repealed imo, along with 16th Amendment.
“Unconstitutional,” huh?
From Article 1, Section 5:
“Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.”
So, the Senate has the power to enact, as part of its determining its own Rules of Proceedings, to institute a filibuster if it wants to do so.
Translation:
They don’t have the votes in the Senate to pass Biden’s crap bills.
Another 82 year old moron who should be in a nursing home not the Senate.
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