Do Democrats really need 60 votes to prevent a Republican filibuster from starting? No!

[Better Believe It]

Is that the only way a healthcare bill can pass the Senate and defeat a Republican filibuster .... just don't allow one to start? Not at all.

That's the grand deception and excuse being used to further weaken any bill that is brought to the Senate floor for a vote. We've all heard it repeated over and over and over again. "We have to get 60 votes to stop a filibuster before we can bring a bill to the Senate for a vote". So what kind of bill might achieve 60 votes without facing a potential Republican filibuster? One that has been greatly weakened and is acceptable to Democratic "conservatives" and so-called Republican "moderates" in the Senate!

That's the game that is being played.

The truth is, Democrats don't have to and shouldn't wait around for 60 votes to materialize before a healthcare bill is introduced in the full Senate.

They can force the Republicans to engage in an authentic filibuster on the Senate floor and keep that legislation on the floor until they achieve the 60 votes needed to end a filibuster. That might be a matter or hours or perhaps a few days. And that bill will certainly be stronger than one that is introduced without a genuine Republican filibuster threat.

[rucky]

1. I really hope we can get those 70 votes...

I don't know what we'd do without those 80 votes we need. Reid really has a battle ahead of him to get those 90 votes.

[Armstead]

3. No it's 90 votes to get an agreement to maybe talk about it on the floor

[bertman]

31. Waaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!! You guys are killing me. Too close to the truth.

[ProSense]

2. "keep that legislation on the floor until they achieve the 60 votes needed to end a filibuster"

Summary: They need 60 votes

Or am I missing something?

[Armstead]

6. Calling their bluff

We almost never have real fillabusters, in which the entire senate is hijacked and prevented from other business. Instead, bills are set aside.

If the GOP had to actually come onto the floor and prevent the Senate from doing any other business,that would eventually get embarrassing and politically nonviable for them. Eventually at least a couple would have to cry "uncle" and v ote to stop it.

[ProSense]

9. Bills aren't always set aside. There are countless cloture votes that fail. n/t

[mkultra]

27. im guessing you are just making shit up?

procedural filibuster stops all business just like a real filibuster.

[Better Believe It]

4. Poster #2 is on ignore .... probably because of numerous personal attacks on DU progressives.

So their views are irrelevant to me.

[rucky]

5. you didn't miss a thing. n/t

[Flabbergasted]

8. Funny. One of my favorite posters. Each to their own I suppose. nt

[phleshdef]

13. He pointed out that you saying let them filibuster until we get 60 is admitting we need 60.

And he is right.

By the way, ignore is for cowards that can't deal with being proven wrong by the people that are most likely to do it. And if you ARE going to keep him on ignore, don't be a pussy about it, actually ignore him instead of making posts to point out that he is on ignore.

[vaberella]

36. +10....I didn't understand the broadcasting either....lame-o.

In any event, you are right on both ends.

[mkultra]

28. let me help then

they said your wrong. as usual. it takes 60 to end a procedural filibuster which has already been threatened.

[vaberella]

38. +1. n/t

[VMI Dem]

7. "keep that legislation on the floor until they achieve the 60 votes needed to end a filibuster"

Summary: They need 60 votes

Or am I missing something?

[Better Believe It]

11. Democratic Senators shouldn't claim that health care legislation must have 60 votes

BEFORE it is introduced on the floor of the Senate in order to prevent a Republican filibuster from starting.

And that is more likely to be accomplished if a healthcare bill is sufficiently weakened before it is brought to the Senate floor.

See the distinction?

[Clio the Leo]

12. No..........

.... and trust me, I'm REALLY trying to understand your point.

All I know is that yesterday morning, Ben Nelson said he wasn't willing to commit to a cloture vote without seeing a bill yet. Now, I'm hoping that was his effort to get Reid to go for the opt-in that HE wanted and that, ultimately, he wont allow the GOP to filibuster. But until that actually happens, he still worries me.

Am I missing something?

[Better Believe It]

16. Yes, you are missing something.

The question is .... should the Democrats wait until they have 60 votes to avoid a filibuster before they bring their healthcare bill to the Senate for a vote (that could be weeks, months or never) .... or should the Democrats bring their bill to the Senate bill floor soon, keep it on the Senate floor and challenge the Republicans to engage in a real obstructionist filibuster.

Such a filibuster might or might not materialize and if it does might last a few hours or perhaps a few days or even a few weeks until 60 votes are achieved to end debate.

[tritsofme]

20. What makes you think Republicans would be the ones to blink?

Eventually Leadership would have to move on to spending bills or face a government shutdown, it's an eventual time constraint on Democrats, not the minority.

[Better Believe It]

23. Do you think the Republicans will shutdown the government to oppose healthcare?

They will marginalize themselves even more. But, let's test that theory rather than surrender to the threat of a filibuster, a threat the Republicans have not yet made.

Didn't the Democrats blink enough when the Republicans controlled Congress and the White House?

It's time to stop blinking unless the Republicans are still in charge.

And if the Republican minority controls the agenda no matter who wins an election, what is the purpose behind electing Democrats?

Letting the Republicans dictate legislation just reinforces the idea that Democrats are wimps and can't actually run the country.

And if that's what transpires over the next three years the Republicans will win control of the White House and both chambers of Congress in the 2012 election. In addition, you'll see a new third party movement and true populist party that will be much bigger and far more significant than Ralph Nader's 2000 election campaign.

[tritsofme]

24. I'm just pointing out the endgame of your scenario.

If reconciliation was not an option, as it is in the case of HCR.

[Better Believe It]

26. If Democrats are incapable of playing hardball with Republicans they should leave the field.

[Aramchek]

10. here to rain on the Parade as we bring it all back home??

[SpartanDem]

14. The Myth Of The Filibuster: Dems Can't Make Republicans Talk All Night

To get an idea of what the scene would look like on the Senate floor if Democrats tried to force Republicans to talk out a filibuster, turn on C-SPAN on any given Saturday. Hear the classical music? See the blue carpet behind the "Quorum Call" logo? That would be the resulting scene if Democrats forced a filibuster and the GOP chose not to play along.

As both Reid's memo and Dove explain, only one Republican would need to monitor the Senate floor. If the majority party tried to move to a vote, he could simply say, "I suggest the absence of a quorum."

(snip)
But if Thurmond's speech wasn't necessary to stall Senate business, why'd he talk all night?

"He just wanted to make a point," says Dove. "He chose to keep talking."







Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/23/the-myth-of-the-filibuste_n_169117.html

[Better Believe It]

15. A Real Filibuster Myth: Democrats can't require Republicans to engage in a traditional filibuster

The Democrats can prevent any new legislation from being considered on the Senate floor so long as Republicans are required to engage in a genuine and traditional filibuster. And the Democrats can require Senate Republicans to engage in a real filibuster, on the floor of the Senate, and not the "phone it in" phantom variety. The Democrats make the Senate rules, not the Republicans.

Senator Reid's alleged "study" is pure deception and is not based on the real historical record. Reid could just as easily release a "new and improved" study that indicates he has the power to require a traditional filibuster. Senator Reid creates the impression that the Democratic majority is held hostage by the Republican minority in the Senate.

"In current practice, Senate Rule 22 permits filibusters in which actual continuous floor speeches are not required, although the Senate Majority Leader may require an actual traditional filibuster if he or she so chooses."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster

Once again here are the facts regarding filibusters which more conservative elements in the Democratic Party and Republicans don't want you to know:


Senator Reid's Phantom Republican Filibusters: The phantom filibuster is clearly unconstitutional
Op-Ed Contributor
Make My Filibuster
By DAVID E. RePASS
David E. RePass is an emeritus professor of political science at the University of Connecticut.
New York Times
March 1, 2009

PRESIDENT OBAMA has decided to spend his political capital now, pushing through an ambitious agenda of health care, education and energy reform. If the Democrats in the Senate want to help him accomplish his goals, they should work to eliminate one of the greatest threats facing effective governance — the phantom filibuster.

Most Americans think of the filibuster (if they think of it at all) through the lens of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” — a minority in the Senate deeply disagrees with a measure, takes to the floor and argues passionately round the clock to prevent it from passing. These filibusters are relatively rare because they take so much time and effort.

In recent years, however, the Senate has become so averse to the filibuster that if fewer than 60 senators support a controversial measure, it usually won’t come up for discussion at all. The mere threat of a filibuster has become a filibuster, a phantom filibuster. Instead of needing a sufficient number of dedicated senators to hold the floor for many days and nights, all it takes to block movement on a bill is for 41 senators to raise their little fingers in opposition.

The phantom filibuster is clearly unconstitutional. The founders required a supermajority in only five situations: veto overrides and votes on treaties, constitutional amendments, convictions of impeached officials and expulsions of members of the House or Senate. The Constitution certainly does not call for a supermajority before debate on any controversial measure can begin.

And fixing the problem would not require any change in Senate rules. The phantom filibuster could be done away with overnight by the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid. All he needs to do is call the minority’s bluff by bringing a challenged measure to the floor and letting the debate begin.

Some argue that this procedure would mire the Senate in one filibuster after another. But avoiding delay by not bringing measures to the floor makes no sense. For fear of not getting much done, almost nothing is done at all. And what does get done is so compromised and toothless to make it filibuster-proof that it fails to solve problems.

It also happens to make a great deal of political sense for the Democrats to force the Republicans to take the Senate floor and show voters that they oppose Mr. Obama’s initiatives. If the Republicans want to publicly block a popular president who is trying to resolve major problems, let them do it. And if the Republicans feel that the basic principles they believe in are worth standing up for, let them exercise their minority rights with an actual filibuster.

Please read the complete article at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/opinion/02RePass.html?_r=2&ref=opinion

-----------------------------------------------

Time to End the Filibuster By Making It Real
By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
U.S. News and World Report
March 2, 2009

Is it time to eliminate the filibuster? Definitely not. But David RePass, an emeritus professor of political science at the University of Connecticut, has an interesting suggestion in today's New York Times along those lines but distinctly short of it.

RePass bemoans the fact that the filibuster has given the senate's minority party a functional veto over legislation in that chamber by requiring at least 60 votes to pass something. But, he points out, real filibusters never actually happen these days: the modern "filibuster" is more threat than action.

Which is where RePass' solution comes in:

... fixing the problem would not require any change in Senate rules. The phantom filibuster could be done away with overnight by the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid. All he needs to do is call the minority's bluff by bringing a challenged measure to the floor and letting the debate begin.

In other words, don't get rid of the filibuster. Instead make it real: Force Republicans to actually get up and tie up Senate business and explain why they're doing it. If the GOP (or the Democrats, in time, when they are back in the minority), want to filibuster they should be able to—but they should have to actually do it.

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/robert-schlesinger/2009/03/02/-time-to-end-the-filibuster-by-making-it-real.html

-------------------------------------------

The tyranny of the minority
By PETER FENN
March 19, 2009
Peter Fenn is founder of Fenn & King Communications, a Democratic political consulting firm. He worked on the Senate Intelligence Committee and was a top aide to then-Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho).


President Barack Obama has it right — there is a lot to change about Washington. The problem is, not much will get changed unless we confront the runaway filibuster in the U.S. Senate.

I remember, as a Senate page in the 1960s, the great debates on civil rights that would go on night after night. The rows of uncomfortable beds rolled in made Army barracks look luxurious. As a new Senate staffer in 1975, I also remember the heated debate over the effort to change the vote on cloture from two-thirds to three-fifths, or 60 votes, to shut off debate. Most of us thought that was a good thing, changing the Senate’s Rule 22, which was adopted in 1917. We believed it would be easier to stop obstructionists from paralyzing the Senate.

Thirty years later, boy, were we wrong. I joke that you need 60 votes to rename a post office. The “phantom filibuster,” as University of Connecticut professor emeritus David RePass calls the mere threat of a filibuster, has tied the Senate in knots.

There are really three alternatives. The first is to confront the filibuster as it was intended: to demand continuous debate on an issue, causing a major confrontation with the minority. This would tie up the Senate and provoke a political standoff. The second is to invoke the so-called nuclear option and end the filibuster altogether. The third is to further lower the number of votes needed — say, to 55 instead of 60. This option still leaves the Senate with the problem of a continuous supermajority to pass legislation.

As long as one party or faction feels compelled to constantly require 60 votes to pass anything, the short-term option may be to call its bluff and bring in those lovely cots to sleep in just off the Senate floor. The lawmakers can all look like Jimmy Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” Or they can look like obstructionists who are impeding real change for the nation.

Please read the complete article at:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/20178.html#

[mkultra]

29. the previous statement pretty much debunked your interpretation of the rules

If the Dems required an actual filibuster, they could just stick one member to watch the podium and call a point of order regarding a quorum. The dems don't make senate rules, the senate before them did.

[Dr Robert]

17. you know all about Grand Deception, don't you?

[Better Believe It]

21. I don't understand your comment.

[mkultra]

18. they can call an administrative fillibuster

which doesn't require anyone to actually stand up and speak.


On edit: its called a procedural filibuster. They can just indicate that they are filibustering and its no new work or progress can occur until the bill is taken down or 60 votes for cloture.

Im sure your just brimming with good ideas but i would imagine they have a food reason to wait.

[vaberella]

37. +1 for making things clear. n/t

[johnhkennedy]

19. I agree, make them actually Do a Filibuster- or do away with it completely.

The filibuster is an archaic un-democratic device that gives a few senators from small states big power over the rest. Not democratic.
Get rid of it and then

Prosecute the torturers in the Bush Administration. Watch our international reputation soar if we do.

SIGN the PETITION
calling for Prosecution

http://ANGRYVOTERS.org


.

[onenote]

22. you don't need 60 votes to prevent a filibuster from starting, you need them to end it

A couple of assumptions in the OP that don't have historical support.

First, its not that easy to end a filibuster. If you don't have 60 votes to go to cloture immediately, its not all that likely you'll have them in a few days. The unfortunate historical truth is that most "true" filibusters succeed -- the bill gets withdrawn or is watered down in order to gain the defection needed for cloture.

Which brings me to my second point: if there is a filibuster and it is broken, the deals that are cut to break the filibuseter will weaken the bill not strengthen it.

[Better Believe It]

25. Your explanation for progressive legislation that was not watered down to break filibusters is ....?

Do you think Democratic legislation should be watered down in advance of a real or "phantom" Republican filibuster?

How about just waving the flag of surrender which has happened before when Republicans threatened a filibuster on progressive legislation?

"Senator Strom Thurmond (D/R-SC) set a record in 1957 by filibustering the Civil Rights Act of 1957 for 24 hours and 18 minutes, although the bill ultimately passed. Thurmond broke the previous record of 22 hours and 26 minutes which Wayne Morse (I-OR) had established in 1953 protesting the Tidelands Oil legislation.

The filibuster has tremendously increased in frequency of use since the 1960s. In the 1960s, no Senate term had more than seven filibusters. One of the most notable filibusters of the 1960s was when southern Democratic Senators attempted, unsuccessfully, to block the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by making a filibuster that lasted for 75 hours."

A filibuster can be defeated by the governing party if they leave the debated issue on the agenda indefinitely, without adding anything else. Indeed, James Strom Thurmond's own attempt to filibuster the Civil Rights Act was defeated when Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield refused to refer any further business to the Senate, which required the filibuster to be kept up indefinitely. Instead, the opponents were all given a chance to speak, and the matter eventually was forced to a vote."

Tell us how the 1964 Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act were weakened and watered down in order to pass. Both of these Acts had a lot of teeth in them which played an enormous role in ending legal Jim Crow in the south. Black people won the right to vote. Not just in a few hamlets. Everywhere.

[mkultra]

30. "and the matter eventually was forced to a vote"

when you figure out what the word "forced" means in your own post, you will understand why you are wrong.

[onenote]

32. a history lesson

Point: old fashioned filibusters historically have been successful more often than not. From 1927 to 1962 there were 16 filibusters and only one was broken.

Point: Overcoming a filibuster often results in a bill being weakened. That is what happened with the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The original bill was filibustered for over 50 days. FInally, a bi-partisan group of senators including minority leader Dirksen and Hubert Humphrey introduced a weaker substitute that was more limited in terms of government regulation of private business than the original version (and the version passed by the House). It was only after this version was introduced, and only with the support of the minority leader and a sizable number of repubs, that the filibuster was broken.

Point: comparing the breaking of filibusters of the civil rights bills ignores the fact that there was bi-partisan support for those bills and you had Dirksen (the repub leader) speaking out against the filibuster which served to give sufficient cover to repubs to support moving forward. That simply is not the case now and comparing the situations in like comparing oranges and pick up trucks.

To clarify -- I don't have a problem with the idea of forcing a filibuster on health care reform. But if that happens, people had better be prepared for compromises to be made in order to get the votes needed to end the filibuster.

[andym]

33. Very informative post

This explains why the white house was apparently so cautious. 1/16 success rate is terrible.
But what's the success rate since 1962?

[Better Believe It]

43. And I'd like to see the details on those 15 filibusters that were allegedly successful!

[vaberella]

40. Facts is a scary thing for some people. Thanks for the bit of knowledge. n/t

[Better Believe It]

44. Links please

[onenote]

46. links

A chart showing number of times cloture voted on and number of times debate was cut off. The number of cloture votes jumped in the early 70s, but most were still unsuccessful. It was only after the 3/5 rule replaced the 2/3 rule that the number of successful cloture motions increased. Even this chart is a bit misleading since it doesn't reflect the number of times bills were withdrawn or not brought to the floor because it would not be able to move forward in the face of a threatened filibuster.

http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/reference/cloture_motions/clotureCounts.htm

A discussion of the history of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the efforts to forge a bi-partisan compromise that could attract enough votes for cloture without causing a revolt in the House. WHile historians disagree over how significant the changes to the bill were, they certainly did not strengthen it.

http://www.congresslink.org/civilrights/1964.htm

On the cloture vote, 44 (out of 67) Democrats and 27 (out of 33)Republicans voted aye (23 Democrats and 6 Republicans opposed voted no).

[Better Believe It]

50. Most of the cloture votes you list were not intended to end any real filibusters.

The only problem is those "cloture" votes were not intended to end any authentic filibusters!

These so-called cloture votes to end non-existent Senate floor debates, have become an easy and convenient excuse for inaction and/or failure.

If Republicans are never forced to engage in a real filibuster and are allowed to "phone in" their so-called filibusters until 60 votes are achieved to "end debate", progressive legislation will never be passed in the Senate!

So what do Democratic Senate leaders do when they fail to achieve 60 votes to end a phantom Republican filibuster? They withdraw the legislation without actually forcing a real Republican filibuster .... or they stall and let legislation die by whining "we don't have 60 cloture votes"!

No more lame excuses.

Force the Republicans to filibuster or even move to direct up and down votes on legislation prohibiting filibusters by using the so-called "nuclear option". The Republicans threatened to use the nuclear option in 2005 to get Bush's Supreme Court nominations approve. It worked. Most Democrats surrendered to Bush. What goes around should come around.

[Better Believe It]

47. The factual history indicates your history is misleading and inaccurate

Your claim that the 1964 Civil Rights Act was significantly weakened in the Senate in order to defeat a Democratic filibuster is just plain wrong.

That's according to your link! Do you read your links before you post them?

------------------------------

May 13.
Years later, Humphrey evaluated Dirksen's work on the bill this way:
The meetings in Dirksen's office were, as we know, successful. Actually, Dirksen gave a great deal of ground. The bill which he finally supported - the substitute - in my mind is as good or better a bill than the House bill. Dirksen supported with his own amendments an effective enforcement of Title II, integration of public accommodations, but he mainly insisted on some time for conciliation and more involvement of local and state government, both of which were very good ideas, and I vigorously supported them.

May 26. Senator Dirksen introduced the revised version of H.R. 7152 to the Senate. The ever-gracious Hubert Humphrey gave Dirksen the honor of introducing the revised version of H.R. 7152, the "Dirksen substitute," to the Senate. "We have now reached the point where there must be action; and I trust that there will be action. I believe this is a salable piece of work; one that is infinitely better than what came to us from the House," Dirksen explained. "I doubt very much whether in my whole legislative lifetime any measure has received so much meticulous attention." Mansfield, Humphrey, and Kuchel then praised Dirksen for his work on the bill. Richard Russell, who had led and organized the filibuster, immediately attacked the minority leader. "As one who lives in the South, as one who has never been ashamed of being a Southerner, and as one who believes that the people of the South are as good citizens as people anywhere else in the country, I resent this political foray."

June 12. Martin Luther King praised Dirksen's "able and courageous leadership." Clarence Mitchell sent a telegram to Dirksen after the cloture vote offering his appreciation and proclaiming, "This is a great day for the country and for the future of human rights." Writer and poet Archibald MacLeish, a native of Illinois, admitted that that "I was not among your admirers when you first came to the Senate," before writing that "my present very great admiration for you is, therefore a true monument to the impressiveness of your achievements in Washington." President Johnson called the minority leader on June 23rd to say, "You are the hero of the nation. They have forgotten that anyone else is around. Every time I pick up a paper it is 'Dirksen' in the magazines. The NAACP is flying Dirksen banners and picketing the White House tomorrow." Writing in his memoirs years later, Johnson recalled, "In this critical hour Senator Dirksen came through, as I had hoped he would. He knew his country's future was at stake. He knew what he could do to help. He knew what he had to do as a leader."


Following House passage, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The legislation contained new provisions to help guarantee blacks the right to vote; guaranteed access to public accommodations such as hotels, motels, restaurants, and places of amusement; authorized the federal government to sue to desegregate public facilities and schools; extended the life of the Civil Right Commission for four years and gave it new powers; provided that federal funds could be cut off where programs were administered discriminatorily; required most companies and labor unions to grant equal employment opportunity; established a new Community Relations Service to help work out civil rights problems; required the Census Bureau to gather voting statistics by race; and authorized the Justice Department to enter into a pending civil rights case.

-------------------------

Now tell us "onenote" what big concessions were made to racist southern Democrats in order to break their filibuster and pass this powerful legislation, a bill which you seem to think was greatly weakened, was merely incremental and perhaps even trivial.

Most civil rights supporters from that period believed the allegedly "weak" Senate bill was at least as good and even better than the House passed civil rights act!

[onenote]

48. as i clarified in another post, historians are divided

as to the signficance of the revisions. Most acknowledge that it gave up certain protections that the House bill contained, but did not go so far as to jeopardize the support of the House.

Your claim was that a bill that is introduced and then filibustered will "certainly be stronger than one that is introduced without a genuine Republican filibuster threat."

My point is that you can't possibly know that to be true, since typically (and even in the 1964 Civil Rights Act situation), to overcome a filibuster, you typically have to peel off some of those who started out supporting the filibuster and to do that you have to make concessions.

Plus, as noted, but not addressed by you, the situation today makes it even harder to overcome a filibuster without concessions since the filibuster this time will be largely along partisan lines, unlike the 1964 filibuster where repubs and Democrats worked together to overcome the filibuster with a compromise.

[Better Believe It]

49. So what big concessions were made to southern Democrats to pass the bill?

I'm listening!

[onenote]

51. concessions were made to repubs -- the southern democrats never yielded

The concessions largely involved the fair employment and public accomodations provisions and were designed to placate repubs who opposed federal oversight of private businesses and wanted more state involvement and more time for attempted resolution of discrimination claims before they were dealt with at the federal level. As one of the links I supplied earlier states:

The major change was to provide, in both the fair employment and public accommodations sections, that the government could sue only against a "pattern or practice" of discrimination. In other cases, the problem would be turned over for solution to local agencies set up to handle the problem; if this failed, the newly established Community Relations Service or the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission would attempt to work out a solution; if this failed, the individual could bring suit in court. The Justice Department could, at the discretion of the court, enter the case on the plaintiff's side.

And once again, let me state that I actually wouldn't mind seeing Reid force a filibuster, but if he does so, we all should be prepared for the fact that concessions will end up being made to get the votes needed for cloture. Hopefully, they won't be "big" concessions and we if we only need one or two votes, we can get them without blowing up support for the bill.

[wiggs]

34. They do need 60. But there's a difference in framing...if everyone just talks

like 60 votes is needed to pass anything that's a different frame than saying it only takes 51 votes to pass a bill unless it is filibustered.

Dems have set the goal at 60 as though that were typical and acceptable. They should be framing the fiibuster issue by pointing out that the republicans have set filibuster records over the last 3 years and how many appointments have been stalled and how many requests for delays there has been. It is not a hard case to make that the republicans don't want there to be health care reform or a vote. Reid should be saying he's got a majority of votes for the bill but due to obstructionism, we can't get to a vote.

Those wanting to filibuster should pay a political price, but by setting the goal at 60 the republicans don't look all that bad.

[BzaDem]

35. You have posted this at least 50 times, and you have been wrong ALL 50 times.

It would be very easy for Republicans to filibuster right up until election 2010. They have 40 members. They could all alternate. Honestly, it would fire up their base and help them.

If the 60 vote threshold were just a conspiracy to water down bills as you state, then Republicans would have privitized social security and opened up ANWR for drilling. They didn't. They couldn't.

Have you ever wondered why everyone who is actually qualified to answer this question disagrees with you, regardless of how many times you repeat the same wrong information? If I were you, and literally every single person qualified to talk about Senate rules told me I were wrong, I would take the information to heart. Not continue as if there were some sort of conspiracy. The more you post this BS, the more it looks like you are deliberately misleading people.

[vaberella]

39. + Infinity! Hah! n/t

[Better Believe It]

42. Your comment indicates you're not at all familiar with Washington politics ....

and how Congress works. You need to do some serious reading on Senate rules and filibusters, a subject you appear to be totally unfamiliar with.

Do you really believe you're at all qualified to refute the articles regarding fake filibusters I have posted and has anyone been able to challenge the views of those writers? Not you. Not anyone. When you find a serious challenge to their views please post it.

The following comment you posted is just downright silly: "It would be very easy for Republicans to filibuster right up until election 2010."

That was something that a raw political novice just out of high school might write.

But, you gave the rest of us a good laugh!

Thanks!

:)

[dionysus]

45. you don't even realize you got thoroughly pwned? really? my god you're the king of FAIL.

:rofl:

[quaker bill]

41. Apparently, they need 60 votes

to even get one started. The motion to bring the bill to the floor for consideration can also be fillibustered. If you get that 60 then another fillibuster can be used to prevent "calling the question" - voting on the bill itself. I would expect both. I do expect that they will get the question to the floor, but passing it will still be difficult.

Moving forward, I expect the senate to either heavily water down or strip the PO for passage. The house/senate conference bill will reinstall a PO at some level, with at least opt-out, then the reconcilliation bill will come forward for a simple majority vote. This process will allow the blue dogs to vote against the PO twice, but still put a bill with PO on the President's desk.

[Better Believe It]

52. Former Democratic Senator Mike Gravel: "Let the Republicans Filibuster"

Former Democratic Senator Mike Gravel: "Let the Republicans Filibuster"
News Release
March 19, 2009
MIKE GRAVEL

In the D.C. area this week, Gravel is a former two-term senator from Alaska who ran for president last year. He is author of the book A Political Odyssey.

He said today: "Whenever something comes up that Mitch McConnell is adamantly opposed to, he just threatens a filibuster. Then Harry Reid backs down and pundit after pundit says you need 60 votes to pass it. Baloney. You need 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, but a filibuster is a really costly thing to do.

"I used the filibuster for five months to end the draft in 1971. I succeeded. I'm proud of what I did. I helped end the war in Vietnam. But I paid a price politically and among my colleagues for using the filibuster.

"The filibuster is a tool you can use, for good or for ill. The Dixiecrats used it for bad reasons -- to delay civil rights legislation. I used it for good -- to end the Vietnam War.

"Right now, Obama has public opinion on his side on many issues with regard to the Republicans. So let the Republicans filibuster and bring the cots out and make the Senate be in session 24 hours a day. The public will rightly view them as regressive and obstructionist.

"If Obama continues down his current road, his popularity will evaporate and he will be at the mercy of the Republicans."

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