Harry Reid Goes Nuclear
“Reid triggers nuclear option to change rules, prohibit filibusters,” The Hill reports:
Reid appealed a ruling from the chair that Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) does not need consent to force a vote on a motion to suspend the rules to consider an amendment after cloture has already been approved.
The maneuver is highly arcane but momentous. If a simple majority of the Senate votes to uphold Reid’s appeal, the Senate’s rules will have been changed by the unilateral action of one party.
Republicans had considered using this maneuver, dubbed the “nuclear option” in 2005, to change Senate rules to prohibit the filibuster of judicial nominees. Democrats decried the plan and the crisis was resolved by a bipartisan agreement forged by 14 rank-and-file senators known as the Gang of 14.
Drew M. at Ace of Spades adds:
Just got an email from someone in the Senate. It’s not the filibuster but the ability to change the Senate rules by simple majority vote (instead of 2/3s vote). The rule they are trying to change has to do with the ability to close off the option of offering amendments.
Reid’s maneuver works. The precedent has been set that Senate rules can be changed by majority vote.This means the Senate rules can be changed by majority vote.
So, the GOP wins the Senate in ’12, nukes the filibuster and then repeals ObamaCare?
Wow.
This is pretty crazy and it’s going to take some time to sort out.
Steven J. Duffield, past policy director to Sen. Jon Kyl posits on Twitter, “Reid’s parliamentary power grab was NOT done to advance bills, but to protect weak Dem senators from awkward votes. *Not* abt lawmaking.” Lachlan Markey of the Heritage Foundation adds, “Methinks Reid may regret that move in, oh, about 13 months.”
I’m sure my fellow Tatler contributors will have more as it comes in.
(Cross-posted at Ed Driscoll.com)
who were the r’s that caved?
None did. The only Senator that didn’t vote with his party was Ben Nelson, D-NE.
this is what i’m talking about– this squishes that voted to bring it up in the first place:
http://www.tradereform.org/2011/10/roll-call-vote-2nd-cloture-motion-s-1619-currency-bill-in-senate/
“So, the GOP wins the Senate in ’12, nukes the filibuster and then repeals ObamaCare?”
then, when it looks like the Senate will change hands again, change the rule back to what it was, but with a poison pill that restricts it from even being changed again (i.e., 90% to change the rule).
then laugh for decades
I suspect Reid’s plan is to do something similar just before the next election to make it impossible for the next Senate to reverse the policies recently put in place by the left.
As Bugs Bunny says: Of course, you realize, this means war.
Agreed who were the R’s that caved…I think they were probably reelected in 2010 ie. McCain…..etc. Reid used 51 votes to change Senate rules, a majority, not 2/3s. This is similar to actions by Dems to pass Obama Care and Dodd Frank. It is the US govt waging war on Americans. We are no longer Americans. We are the masses. No longer will amendments to bills in the Senate be allowed. Danger Americans! Danger Americans!
As Senator DeMint said, there are dems running for relection in 2012 but there are no Republicans running against them????? What is the RNC doing? How do you get control of the Senate in 2012 if dems run unopposed? 11 Republicans voted for Reids bill and surprisingly perhaps not McCain.
Sort of reminds of those “suggestions” by some Democrats that elections be postponed (because, of course, they know they’re going to lose bigtime).
When you don’t have a free and fair press, rampant, unchecked leftism becomes totalitarianism
THIS is the reason you have to scream just as loudly when YOUR side is doing it. It’ not THEIR f—-ing rules. They are OURS.
It is not up to one party or the other to make a mockery of the checks and balances against abuse of procedures.
As soon as the media becomes a limp-wristed tool of The Party, as soon as they become sniveling little toadies….abuse is sure to follow.
No clearer sign of war than the traitors abandoning their posts. The palace coup has begun in earnest.