Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: mrsmith
I know the Senate rules are mind-numbingly complicated, but come on!

All that I can do is report, you can decide.

The Senate, in 1975, changed the rules on the number of votes needed for cloture and they did it, after a number of parliamentary maneuvers, on a simple majority vote.

This was mentioned in a column in the Washington Times on May 14, 2003 by Charles Hurt.

Check it out at:

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/post?id=934702%2C134

291 posted on 06/24/2003 5:13:41 PM PDT by jackbill
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 134 | View Replies ]


To: jackbill
Well, there are three circumstances to keep in mind:

Vote to change the rules: majority.
Vote to end debate about changing a rule: 2/3 of those voting.
Vote on a point of order: majority.

That link you gave didn't work. Would you try again? I missed that thread and I'm curious what method they used.

296 posted on 06/24/2003 6:01:45 PM PDT by mrsmith
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 291 | View Replies ]

To: jackbill
Well, I found what the Senate history page has on that 1975 vote.http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/nelson_rockefeller.pdf.

"Vice President Rockefeller found the Senate equally impervious to his desire to exert leadership. In January 1975, when the post-Watergate Congress met, the expanded liberal ranks in the Senate moved to amend Rule 22 to reduce from two-thirds to three-fifths of the senators the number of votes needed to invoke cloture and end a filibuster. Minnesota Democratic Senator Walter Mondale introduced the amendment, and Kansas Republican James Pearson moved that the chair place before the Senate a motion to change the cloture rule by a majority vote.
When the Senate took up the matter in February, Senate Democratic Majority Leader Mike Mansfield raised a point of order that the motion violated Senate rules by permitting a simple majority vote to end debate. Instead of ruling on the point of order, Vice President Rockefeller submitted it to the Senate for a vote, stating that, if the body tabled the point of order, he "would be compelled to interpret that action as an expression by the Senate of its judgment that the motion offered by the Senator from Kansas to end debate is a proper motion."
The Senate voted 51 to 42 to table Mansfield's motion, in effect agreeing that Senate rules could be changed by a simple majority vote at the beginning of a Congress. The Senate, however, adjourned for the day without actually voting on the resolution to take up the cloture rule change.
The leaders of both parties then met and determined that they disagreed with this procedure, which they felt had set a dangerous precedent. The leadership therefore devised a plan to void the rulings of the chair and revise the cloture rule in a more traditional manner.
More than a week later, in early March, the Senate voted to reconsider the vote by which the Mansfield point of order had been tabled and then agreed to Mansfield's point of order by a majority vote.
A cloture motion was then filed and agreed to, 73 to 21, after which the Senate adopted a substitute amendment introduced by Senator Robert C. Byrd, which specified that cloture could be invoked by a three-fifths vote on all issues except changes in the rules, which would still require a two-thirds vote.
In making his controversial ruling, Rockefeller had notified the Senate parliamentarian that he was making the decision on his own, contrary to the parliamentarian's advice. As parliamentarian emeritus Floyd Riddick observed, "Certainly it was contrary to the practices and precedents of the Senate, and I think that is why the leadership, under Mr. Mansfield as majority leader, wanted to vitiate in effect all of the statements made by the vice president and come back and do it under the rules, practices, and precedents of the Senate."

That rule actually ended up being changed by a regular 2/3 vote.
But that is not to say that Rockefeller was wrong.
If the Majority Leader had backed him he would have prevailed.

Maybe Frist is going to have Cheney rule, then offer his amendment as a compromise.

303 posted on 06/24/2003 6:52:09 PM PDT by mrsmith
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 291 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson