"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.
This Senate is not Mike Mansfield and Nelson Rockefeller. This is the most partison senate in the history of history.
Daschle will take it to the Supreme Court and win.
The strict constructionists on the court will go with the Democrats based on the rule of law that governs all Senate bills and resolutions. They will rule on the literal words of the constitution. That Democrats on the Supreme court will vote for the Democrats should not surprise anyone.
Frist will lose in the Supreme court 9 to zip and it will go down like Roosevelts attempt to pack the court.
This is one dumb move and Lott knows it. Lott wants Frist canned as a payback... He may just get it done.
I am beginning to believe that Frist is one dumb sucker. I fear Lott is leading him to the chopping block.