While it was necessary to change the rules of the Senate to allow the administration to appoint its staff and put judges on the courts, it still required the Democrats to change the rules with a mere majority. And that precedent is dangerous. It’s that precedent that can be used to eliminate the filibuster on legislation (e.g., to ban abortion or privatize Social Security) or on a Supreme Court nominee like Robert Bork. Just because the Democrats preserved the filibuster for legislation and Supreme Court judges today, that doesn’t mean anything because the precedent they set will allow a future Senate to change the rules in any way that they might want.
Under the circumstances, the Democrats really had no choice and I applaud them for their courage, but this really does change the whole dynamics of American politics. The stability we’ve grown accustomed to is now a thing of the past. The danger of a Republican majority is now much greater than at any time in our lives.
So, remember that when you’re celebrating the Democrats’ demonstration of backbone. More than anything, today’s vote was a symptom of a chronic disease that has been growing and dividing our nation.
The stability we’ve grown accustomed to is now a thing of the past. The danger of a Republican majority is now much greater than at any time in our lives.
Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Roberts, Janice Rogers Brown and Steven Bradbury say hello!!
Calvin, you realize that Boo is in support of this change, right? He is just (correctly, in my view) stating that it is now even more urgent that we prevent a Republican takeover of the government until their fever breaks. The rule change was necessary to have a semi-functional government and it favors the Democrats for the foreseeable future. But anytime you wield raw power like Harry Reid just did, you risk the possibility that it will be wielded against you in turn. Luckily (“luckily”), the Senate GOP has already scorched its turf so badly that it’s hard to see what they could do to retaliate until they win back control of the Senate.
But make no mistake: the reason Senate Dems were so reluctant to make this change is because it is a very risky, dangerous move. And it heightens, even further, one of our political generation’s great tasks: to defend the country against Republican nihilism until they find sanity once again.
(shrug) the status quo of black presidents having fewer powers than white presidents was anathema to the best ideals of this country, and hence absolutely unacceptable.
we’ll deal with the confederacy striking back as it comes.
Most every other nullification crisis has come with its share of violence, so I’d be less sanguine about that if I were you, but yes, this was a victory for equal protection under the law. Which even presidents need.
If someone keeps hitting you with a stick, at some point you just have to pick up a stick and hit back.
That’s sort of what finally happened with the shutdown. And it was popular and the GOP took a beating.
The Republicans have totally gone off the edge, we need to keep pushing them. We have another shutdown fight coming and there’s going to be a even bigger push to defund Obamacare, so get ready everyone.
If Obama or the Democrats have a polling problem at this point, it probably says as much about the Dem base being unhappy as it does about anything. Standing and fighting is the only way forward.
Which is why this is a great move because it will help motivate the base.
I totally agree!
This will be very popular with the democratic wing of the democratic party.
When you look at Obama’s winning majority and the acting majority today in the senate, we are literally talking about the “tyranny” of majorities of only 51-52%. Broad and fluid factions have given way to pitched bloodsport.
A danger different in degree only, not in kind, from the danger posed by a Democratic majority, because there’s no real difference between the parties, they’re both equally culpable, and capable, of equally terrible things.
If you don’t believe me, ask our troops in Syria, and Libya, and the ones getting ready to attack Iran. Or the elderly who prepare for this Thanksgiving on smaller Social Security checks than those they received last year. Or all of us dealing with the consequences of the recent appointment of Larry Summers to head the Fed.
Oh please. There are vast and glaring differences on immigration, abortion rights, gay rights, voting rights, and so on and so on and so forth. And we aren’t going to attack Iran, and Larry Summers isn’t going to be appointed to the Fed. You don’t even have to like the Democrats to recognize that the Republicans are incomparably more awful than they are.
It concerns me that you don’t recognize Davis’ schtick, despite it being the only thing he ever does.
He’s gotten me before, so I can’t talk.
Really? Oh well…
As he said, a difference of degree. 120 degrees is dangerous, 90 degrees less so but isn’t benign.
It’s amazing the folks who can’t parse what they read. Especially the last paragraph.
Oh, I think state Republicans have amply illustrated with their quasi-illegal antics that rules only apply when they want them. Only the naif would expect them to draw in their horns on the national scene when they have been so successful in the states. Unpopular, but they’ve done their damage.
Well, I’m not the only one who’s been pointing out that the Republicans don’t give a rat’s ass about precedent anymore. But yes, when the Democrats are forced to take a step that’s maybe one tenth as radical as everything the Republicans have been doing for the past five years, it’s still a radical step. You don’t want to help normalize radicalism.
The stability we’ve grown accustomed to
Stability is one word for it. I call it gridlock, and I’m glad it’s over, at least with regard to nominations.
The Senate just became a little but more functional. This is a good thing.
With a Republican party that is effectively parliamentarized and votes as a block, you can’t have a system where the minority can block legislation. There’s no way to run the country with the current parties and supermajorities needed for even routine business like appellate judges and undersecretaries.
The next crisis will occur the next time we have a new Democratic president and a Republican Senate. Historically, balance-of-powers governments collapse when they have split powers and one of the groups refuses to compromise. Usually, long-term stability requires parliamentary systems. We’ve managed over 200 years because we’ve had internally divided parties but our run looks to be nearly over. The next intractable split will probably force a major change in government.
There is nothing except the voting rules of the states and 150 years of tradition that dictate two parties in the Congress. Indeed, the number of independent members of Congress has increased over a generation ago. The call it the Democratic caucus and the Republican caucus, but in practice it functions as the majority caucus and the minority caucus. Independents have allied with Democrats while, Libertarians and Tea Party candidates have been forced to run as Republicans.
Money is less tied to party; that means that parties are less significant to a candidate’s success and candidates are more significant in elections. We might come to a time in which the affiliation of members to a particular caucus is not a lifetime commitment but a negotiation of a particular Congress.
That would echo the operation of many parliamentary systems that have many parties.
To the extent that Republicans demand party loyalty and ideological purity they become a minority caucus. And that is the way that they have been trending, although more slowly than I would like. And they have only held the House for the past two sessions because of patent dishonesty in campaigning.
The Republicans were going to do this regardless, the next time they got into power. Anyone who believes that they weren’t believes in the Centrism Unicorn, too.
All you have to do is look at how the bombthrowers in the House and the various state legislatures taken over by the R’s, and realize that they have the same bombthrowers in the Senate.
Comity my shiny metal ass.
Yup. There’s no doubt in my mind that the theme of the next Republican majority, on the very sad day when it takes up the gavel, is going to be “IT’S PAYBACK TIME!”
And it was always going to be that, no matter what happened with the Democrats on top.
Right, but here’s my point. You’re not going to win a senate majority against the Dems with a campaign based on the theme of “It’s Payback Time”.
I don’t think it’d be a campaign theme, it’d be the theme of the “governing” once they got in. The campaigns are bound to be the same horseshit they’ve always been, which sometimes works.
Except to the extent that a radical minority of the minority party will no longer dictate every bill, vote, and procedure in the Senate.
We also ought not to pretend that if the Republicans regain ascendancy in the Senate, they wouldn’t hesitate to take this same tactic, regardless of whether the Democrats “obstructed”* them or not. And they’ll include votes on Supreme Court nominees, currently excluded by the new Democratic rules.
As it is, over the last five years, elections haven’t meant a thing. If President Cruz or President McCain or President Graham or President Coburn or President Inhofe didn’t like some nominee or other, it didn’t go anywhere. They didn’t need a reason, they just had to say, “Uh uh,” and the post remained vacant. When a nominee finally got to a floor vote, it was pretty rare to see confirmation with less than 90 votes. Call it what you will, but don’t call it democracy, and don’t call it the system contemplated by the Constitution. The fact that we came to this pass is solely due to unreasonable and unreasoning Republican obstruction.
*The definition of “obstruct” would be expanded to include speaking out against a Republican proposal or even going so far as to vote against on the record.
BFD.
Anyone who didn’t think the fillibuster rules weren’t going to be the first thing jetisoned upon a Republican majority is playing with only 49 cards in their deck.
This should have happened Wednesday, Jan 22, 2012.
So now the Republicans are saying they’ll just dump the filibuster for everything when they’re in power and will go after every law.
Tell me again how this whole thing was a mistake and not something the Republicans also wanted?
Because, for now, they’re up the creek without a paddle.
Some people here seem more worried about this than Harry Reid does.
I want to clarify, I’m not worried about it. Atrocities like Clarence Thomas were confirmed without a filibuster. It will happen anyway. I’ve said over and over again this is better than the alternative.
I just don’t see how they’re in a different position. They could either confirm the nominees voluntarily or get broken and have the shoved down their throats. They didn’t abandon any real power to shape appointments.
I agree with Kos on this:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/21/1257310/-Senate-GOP-blows-itself-up-What-the-hell-where-the
y-thinking?detail=email
Yes, I do too. To answer Kos’ question, “Why?” I think the answer is the R’s (like me) thought that HR would never do it, that he was too steeped in Senate tradition to change it. The dissension in the Senate much be much higher than we realize. Or was this Harry’s Hiroshima? A little nuclear explosion to show what horrors lie ahead for the intransigent?
Me too. They just kept daring the Democrats to take their toy away, and now what are they going to do?
Pout….stick out the bottom lip.
It’s interesting reading the GOTP reactions over there at the Orange place – it strikes me they are completely at a loss. they are angry, as expected, but they also seem very confused, directionless. [I guess if their only project for this Obama term was blocking Obama, now they’re left with nothing to do.]
There’s still carping about Obamacare. That apparently will be their 2014 theme and with enough cash and media they might sell it to everybody who has not had to get health care services.
Or tried and failed.
here’s the link to over there
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/21/1257380/-Nuclear-reaction-roundup-Murdered-by-Harry-Reid-an
d-other-stories
Actually the answer to this is Blue Slips.
Leahy is a fool and Kos is flat wrong.
Because they will do that at any rate when/if they come to power. There are currently 93 vacancies on the federal bench, do you honestly think they are all like cool with giving up the power to shape the nomination process? Because that’s what happened today. They went all in and Reid called their bluff.
“So now the Republicans are saying…”
I think I’ve spotted your problem right there.
In a few years, these will be Obama’s greatest legacies:
Obamacare
The federal judiciary which he will remake with probably more than 100 appointments
The supreme court, which probably has one more retirement to go before he’s out
The total destruction of the toxic right outside the deepsouth
Seems like a pretty damned good foundation on which to build a more progressive America, if you ask me.
Don’t forget stiffing the PNAC Plan for Middle East and Global Hegemony by using diplomacy in Syria and with the Iranian nuclear question. His foreign policy successes could easily be his greatest legacy. Well, at least there will always be the question of ‘Obama’s greatest triumphs, Foreign or Domestic?’ Thanks, Obama, for giving us a perennial question to exercise our minds!
There are three years left before President Obama leaves office. It is still possible for the destruction of the toxic right within the South to be accomplished.
That’s pretty optimistic considering the toxic right in the South has been with us since pre-Declaration days.
In the realm of smaller things, the increase in the Auto CAFE mileage standards was a very big deal. It’s one that will be more affecting as time goes by – the requirements are set to tick up year by year.
This is precisely the kind of policy that cannot be implemented by any republican under any circumstance.
Those are great but so many others too…
how about my favorite song, Viva Obama, and favorite line
“familias unidas y hasta con plan de salud” “families united with even a health plan” and shots of Dad’s holding their kids and entire families – is “familias unidas” next?
here’s the link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iCJY8bFUtU
correction: familias unidas seguras y hasta [families united, secure, and even with …]
https://twitter.com/DSenFloor/status/403588609703706625
cloture on Millett nomination to DC Circuit. 🙂
The GOP taking power was already going to be the end of democracy, civil rights, and any chance of peace. I can’t see how this really makes them any more dangerous. The answer is still the same–crush them now.
The sure way to protect and promote progressive values is to change the political culture through persuasion. The background default culture of the post-war period was progressive. Despite holding to segregation, governors of South Carolina in the 1950s-1980s used the rhetoric of progressive policies to describe their policies, which often were supportive of progressive projects that helped instead of threatened business interests. Road and port infrastructure, good schools, support of health care, expansion of parks and recreation facilities — all those were keystone actions of “progressive Southern governors”. Terry Sanford of North Carolina rolled out some early experiments in dealing with poverty that later were absorbed in the LBJ’s War on Poverty programs.
The problem in North Carolina and other states is the death of that rhetoric and the lionizing of heartlessness by politicians. We will see next year whether that is an aberration for North Carolina or the joining of North Carolina to the mood of its southern neighbors. And we will see whether there will be a reversal wider than North Carolina.
Take care of the legislative and executive elections and the courts tend to take care of themselves.
That is why that stark reminder of BooMan’s is necessary. The Senate is more dependent on the sentiment in the states electing Senators to counteract the barrage of media coming in the post-Citizens United campaign in 2014. In North Carolina, progressives face a Hobson’s choice on the Senate — unless Senator Hagan starts breaking new ground and stops acting like a Blue Dog backbencher. And that only happens when the sentiment that her staff sense makes it hazardous to be remain tacked to the right.
Unlike the right, we have to do it without the big bucks buying opinions.
Just because the Democrats preserved the filibuster for legislation and Supreme Court judges today, that doesn’t mean anything because the precedent they set will allow a future Senate to change the rules in any way that they might want.
The GOP already set the precedent long ago by abusing the rules to the point that ordinary business can’t be done. They also sent the clear message in 2005 that they would never let the filibuster rules get in their way so long as they had the power to change them.
Maybe some could argue that this was one of those “only Nixon could go to China” moments, that the GOP couldn’t politically afford to be the ones to change the rules mid-session, but seriously, how long has it been since they’ve shown any concern about opposition from the public? One of the biggest lessons of the Bush presidency is that when you just don’t give a fuck you can get away with pretty much anything, provided adequate media cooperation.
The Democrats may end up paying a political price for this maneuver, but it won’t be due to any precedents being set or broken; that has long ceased to be any sort of restraint against the modern Republican party. We haven’t lost anything today that wasn’t already lost long ago.
I didn’t think Harry had the stones and I was sure in any case that some Dem would defect. I was wrong and I publicly admit it.
There is a theory out there that Reid takes action if and only if he knows he has the votes to back him up. Moreover, that the only reason he has held off on taking actions like this before was simply the lack of votes from his caucus.
You can’t prove it either way, of course, because Reid doesn’t leak that kind of information. But I’d like to believe it is true. It would mean that he’s not been the barrier, but rather the Democratic Senators from the moron caucus (and you know who they are) who have been.
Three of the Dems DID defect: Levin, Pryor, Manchin.
Manchin I expected. Levin had already said he was going to vote against it. Pryor??? that was a surprise.
Also (somewhat) surprising was McCaskill, Tester and Bachus. These guys are not dyed blue liberals.
The Dems must have been REALLY pissed this time around.
In my opinion, because we’re outside of the legislative process, we mere citizens don’t fully understand the various details of it and how they need to come together to get something done. We don’t get that and tend to go for easier explanations. We ALL do it.
“It’s that precedent that can be used to eliminate the filibuster on legislation (e.g., to ban abortion or privatize Social Security) or on a Supreme Court nominee like Robert Bork.”
Yes, when the majority is against you majoritariaism is scary.
But it’s mostly with us, Boo, because we are the people and the Democrats are the Party of the People.
And the anti-majoritarianism of the senate has historically and to this day empowered them and punished us much more than the other way around.
We will lose a few fights we won’t like losing.
But we will win much more we will be very glad to win, at fucking goddam last.
Medicare for all, maybe?
Well, all right, that’s a pipe-dream until the senate is really reformed and represents people rather than states.
Or abolished altogether as anachronistic idiocy.
But we will gain more than we lose if the filibuster is abandoned.
Unencumbered unicameralism would just scare the pants off you, wouldn’t it, Boo?
Bork was not fillibustered.
Neither was Sessions, Scalia, Thomas, Roberts.
Other nominees NOT fillibustered: Haynesworth, Carswell, Ginsburg (not ruth, the other one), Meirs.
Nominees that WERE fillibustered: Fortas: fillibustered by the Republicans
With this record, who cares about the Supremes fillibuster?