Let the tyranny begin:
Senate Republican leadership is calling the standoff over federal appeals court judges a distraction from the troubled rollout of the health care law, though it seems some Republicans have reached the point where they think Reid should either move forward with the nuclear option or give up on it.
“I can only speak for myself: I’m tired of threats,” said Sen. Richard M. Burr, R-N.C., “If he’s going to do it, then go ahead and do it. If he’s not going to do it, then quit talking about it. I think that this shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody.”
Burr said he did not think Democrats would win a public opinion battle over the Senate’s rules in relation to appeals court judges.
“It’s a pretty weak argument, but if they want to take that one publicly, if that’s something to change 200 years worth of history, I don’t think the American people are going to side with them,” Burr said Wednesday.
I don’t think the American public is even going to notice. If they cared about the obstruction of nominees, then every Republican would have already been voted out of office. If the Republicans make a sincere and sustained effort to raise awareness on this issue, it will only help the Democrats.
All I can say is, “Please proceed, Senator.”
Harry Reid is quoting the Old Testament as he goes nuclear.
is he really quoting the Old Testament?
Book of Numbers.
what passage did he quote?
I’m a little sad, but mainly happy that Harry Reid is detonating a nuclear bomb on the Senate floor.
I’m a little sad too but only because I wish it was a real nuclear bomb, and Harry Reid was shoving it up Mitch McConnell’s asshole with a piledriver.
Mitch McConnell is up now, talking about ObamaCare.
Plus, you know, who are they to talk about upending the way things have been done in Congress for the last 200 years? Or to constantly threaten action they don’t follow through with? Seriously?
Yes, the way things are done in Congress is that Congress passes a bill, the president signs it, and then that bill is law. For example, if Congress decides that the DC circuit court should have eleven judges, then the DC circuit court gets eleven judges. The minority party does not get to nullify laws they don’t like.
They can try, of course, but they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.
Yes, the 2014 elections are going to be all about the Senate rules and a web site. It’s not like there’s anything else worth talking about, is it?
I agree with you. Please proceed.
I think you’re right that the public won’t notice – well, except for the political news junkies. While this is front-and-center on sites like TPM now it’s not even making the top 10 on the general news sites.
A big part of the problem is that the modern political media doesn’t know how to cover it. To them it’s just a minor spat about Senate procedures – statistics comparing GOP filibusters to Democratic filibusters go right over their heads. And one thing you can guarantee is that the political media will not spend a second more on procedures – or any discussion of actual details of a law or how its made – for one nanosecond more than they have to before they can get back to their normal shrieking.
There is a great narrative that everyone here knows about about how the GOP, over the last 20 years, has become extreme both in views and in actions, and this event really highlights that narrative. But at most the “mainstream” media will mention briefly that the Democrats changed the longstanding rules.
There will be no negative response. When the average person hears “DEMOCRATS CHANGE THE RULES SO A MAJORITY CAN CONFIRM A PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE” they’re going to say “You mean it wasn’t that way already? Of course that’s how it should be.” And if the Republicans try to make a stir it will just bring up how outrageous they’ve been for the past 5 years.
If anything there will be a positive response. Democrats act to end gridlock in Congress.
And he is pissed. More stalling tactics (motion to adjourn).
This gets down to a basic principle — a previous Congress cannot tie the hands of a current Congress via rules that are not in the Constitution itself. It’s the basis of what a democracy is. The Constitution names a very few areas where supermajorities are needed — and executive and judicial nominations are not in those categories. The fact that there is 100 or 40 (depending upon what you believe) years of “precedent” (which wasn’t even enforced) is beyond the point — the chickens are finally coming home to roost for extra-constitutional obstruction.
I would of course argue that the same point holds for Supreme Court nominees and legislation, but I guess we’ll cross those bridges whenever. If we win back the House, it would be dumb of Reid (or Schumer) to not also strike the filibuster from total existence to end this obstruction-o-rama.
My wife gets the prize for astute political analysis today.
Harry Reid picked the moment at which it would be most inconvenient for members of the Senate not to vote to expedite issues by nuking the filibuster. Senators want to go home for Thanksgiving. There is another budget crisis that has to be dealt with. There is necessary work to do before Thanksgiving. Ending Republican obstruction and the built-in delay of the filibuster “ripening” is advantageous to Democrats.
So it is the convenience of members of the Democratic Senate caucus and not any great public policy that will drive this vote.
Political astuteness runs strong in your family. Hmmm…
His and Her Commentary From Tarheel Corners
I don’t think the American public is even going to notice.
Exactly.
The day of reckoning has arrived. Good.
were the only Dem “yesses” (that is, voting against changing the rule via majority vote/nuclear option) that I caught the first time around.
At 49 “nos” with Reed and Mikulski and Coons … need one more.
That’s it. Only three defections.
and reid only does it for technical reasons
I meant that Boxer, Donnelly, and Reid (and Reid at the last) were the final ‘no’ votes (which was actually a ‘yes’ to change the rules!) …
On this question, the only Dems voting against the rule change were Levin (retiring), Manchin, and Pryor.
Oddly enough, I’m with Burr. I’m tired of the threats, too, but that’s because this should have happened years ago, when the Republicans went all in for an unprecedented policy (total obstruction).
They calculated, correctly, that there would be no real political price for it (it was some of their other extreme stuff, like the rape fantasists, that did them in last year). And they calculated, correctly, that the elite media, stenographers that they are, would report the whole thing as “he said, he said” and not put it in any context. And they calculated, correctly, that the Democrats would be too chickenshit to fight fire with fire.
It’s about fucking time.
Yeah, just in time for the midterm cycle.
Now, take a cue from ACA website and don’t screw this up. Every last one of those slots should be filled by end of business friday.
Well, the Conservative Noise Machine is certainly going to notice and go into high volume over the bomb. Tyranny!! etc, guns will be brandished, bug-eyed rage produced. That will be about 45% of the population.
This is historic. The corporate press will have to say something, so Harry and Co better have a compelling narrative ready, hopefully one that places the entire blame on Mitch’s Morans.
I like Harry but he’s a modern Democrat that couldn’t construct a “compelling narrative” if his life depended on it.
“I can only speak for myself: I’m tired of threats,” said Sen. Richard M. Burr, R-N.C., “If he’s going to do it, then go ahead and do it. If he’s not going to do it, then quit talking about it”
I never thought I’d agree 100% with with any statement from a Republican these days, but there it is.
It’s just mindblowing how unconscious our “leaders” are about where the wind is blowing among the “simple folk”. Burr seems to think anyone gives a shit about the “rules” a gang of pompous fools and grifters make for themselves. Contempt of congress is probably the most unifying issue in the country. Most people would be quite content with shutting the whole thing down and starting over.
“There Will Be No Price.” Not in public opinion, but that’s not the only arena in which a political price is paid.
How many rightwing constructs have Democrats been maneuvered into appropriating and passing (with or without GOP support) in the past three decades? Has even one of them worked out well?
Recall that it was Senator Bill Frist that initiated the nuclear option as a trigger that he could pull. Care to imagine what a President Christie with a 50/50 Senate could do? If Republicans could make a come back from the Great Depression and WWII and a strong Democratic Party, would be naive to underestimate them now.
If there were a president Christie with a 50/50 senate and we hadn’t already changed the rule the Republicans would change it on day one using the VP as a tie-breaker.
Perhaps. But how far would they go absent a precedent for their rules change? Further than this:
Instead of “the turtle,” McConnell may become known as Brer Rabbit. While it’s difficult to imagine that the next GOP POTUS could get more of his/her own way than GWB did, that was with a lot of help from several dastardly Senate DINOs and the existence of the filibuster. A 50/50 Senate split with a GOP in the WH and the filibuster will be gone entirely and hello to the dismantling of Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security.
Absent the precedent for change they would go exactly as far as they would with the precedent. That is the modern GOP. They have no more brakes on their extremism.
If you doubt for a second that they would erase precedent to get their way, you are deeply underestimating how radical they have become.
Holding onto the filibuster did nothing for progressive causes and much to harm them. It has overwhelmingly been used by reactionaries and conservatives to prevent progress, both recently and historically. It may have saved us a few times, but it has far more often been used as tool by those who would stand athwart history yelling stop.
Have to disagree — and I’m neither stupid nor naive as to what the “modern” GOP has become. Democrats have set the precedent for limiting the use of the filibuster. The GOP will only have to further restrict it if they win back the majority (and the 2014 Senate map favors them).
Democrats have indeed set it, but I believe the point is that the GOP will set it without a pause if they ever have the presidency and the Senate at the same time. The Dems setting the precedent won’t accelerate or retard the GOP’s action by a millisecond.
Because they did it during the 2003-2007 period when they had the WH and Senate? They threatened the “nuclear option in 2005 and it’s not clear to me if that was limited to judicial nominees or was as broad as what was done today to include administration nominees.
It’s rather pointless to argue what the GOP would or wouldn’t do in the future absent Reid pulling the trigger today because that is one condition that won’t exist in the future.
My point was to remind others on the left that when Democrats proceed with GOP constructs they have all come back to bite Democrats and/or the people in the butt. Beginning with the Social Security reform in 1983, the very long list from Clinton’s time in office, …
The difference being that the GOP had no need to do it because Democrats have never really used the filibuster. If they did, they would have pulled it. We gain nothing from the filibuster.
The difference being that Democrats became wimps sometime after Nixon. Whether they hold the majority or minority. Hence, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito are redefining our “democracy” as something closer to the original format — propertied white men rule.
btw – it was the threat of filibustering several of GWB’s dreadful judicial nominees that led to the “nuclear option” construct and threat by Frist. Would have been better to have let him pull that trigger and let the GOP own their dirty work. Instead they made a deal and only one of GWB’s judicial nominees didn’t make it to the bench. Democrats could have more easily and legitimately claimed “payback time” after the 2006 election had Frist pulled that trigger.
Well, yeah…but they didn’t, and they wouldn’t.
They can’t have both barring some seriously strange political happenings between now and 2017.
Even if they flip the Senate in 2014 (which I think is still very much a coin-flip), and even if they win in 2016 (I don’t believe they can; difference of opinion on Christie, I suppose), they will not win the Senate that year.
I learned many moons ago to be cautious in projecting future elections and never count out even the most repulsive Republican’s future chances. Nixon coming back after his 1960 and 1962 losses was far less probable than a GOP WH win in 2016 along with majority control of the Senate.
“If the Republicans make a sincere and sustained effort to raise awareness on this issue, it will only help the Democrats.”
Right. Because the only way they can do this is to whine about the mean Democwats, and that will only remind everybody of how much the Republicans deserved it. Honestly, I think at least half the country was more pissed off with the Democrats for NOT doing anything …
http://www.gallup.com/poll/165317/republican-party-favorability-sinks-record-low.aspx
The Obamacare rollout is a bullshit issue. This is for real.