U.S. Senate Passes "Nuclear Option"

[Shurkuris]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...67c_print.html

The partisan battles that have paralyzed Washington in recent years took a historic turn Thursday, as Senate Democrats eliminated filibusters for most presidential nominations, severely curtailing the political leverage of the Republican minority in the Senate and assuring an escalation of partisan warfare.

The rule change means that federal judge nominees and executive-office appointments can be confirmed by a simple majority of senators, rather than the 60-vote supermajority that has been required for more than two centuries.

The change does not apply to Supreme Court nominations. But the vote, mostly along party lines, reverses nearly 225 years of precedent and dramatically alters the landscape for both Democratic and Republican presidents, especially if their own political party holds a majority of, but fewer than 60, Senate seats.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) accused Democrats of a power grab and suggested that they will regret their decision if Republicans regain control of the chamber.

“We’re not interested in having a gun put to our head any longer,” McConnell said. “Some of us have been around here long enough to know that the shoe is sometimes on the other foot.” McConnell then addressed Democrats directly, saying: “You may regret this a lot sooner than you think.”

He added later: “The solution to this problem is at the ballot box. We look forward to having a great election in 2014.”

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, warned Democrats against the rule change on Wednesday, saying that if the GOP reclaimed the Senate majority, Republicans would further alter the rules to include Supreme Court nominees, so that Democrats could not filibuster a Republican pick for the nation’s highest court.

Reacting to Republican criticism after the vote, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) called the move “a huge step in the right direction” and denied that it somehow broke Senate rules.

“The Senate broke no rules,” he said in a floor speech. “We simply used the rules to make sure that the Senate could function and that we could get our nominees through.”

The vote to change the rule passed 52 to 48. Three Democrats — Sens. Carl Levin (Mich.), Joe Manchin III (W.Va.) and Mark Pryor (Ark.) — joined 45 Republicans in opposing the measure. Levin is a longtime senator who remembers well the years when Democratic filibusters blocked nominees of Republican presidents; Manchin and Pryor come from Republican-leaning states.

Infuriated by what he sees as a pattern of obstruction and delay over President Obama’s nominees, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) triggered the so-called “nuclear option” by proposing a motion to reconsider the nomination of Patricia Millett, one of the judicial nominees whom Republicans recently blocked by a filibuster, to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The Senate voted 57 to 40, with three abstentions, to reconsider Millett’s nomination. Several procedural votes followed. The Senate parliamentarian, speaking through Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), the chamber’s president pro tempore, then ruled that 60 votes are needed to cut off a filibuster and move to a final confirmation vote. Reid appealed that ruling, asking senators to decide whether it should stand.

The Democratic victory paved the way for the confirmation of Millett and two other nominees to the D.C. appeals court. All have recently been stymied by GOP filibusters, amid Republican assertions that the critical appellate court simply did not need any more judges.

Under its new rules, the Senate subsequently voted 55 to 43 Thursday afternoon to move ahead with Millett’s nomination. Two senators voted present.

Senate rules still require up to 30 hours of debate on the Millett nomination. So a final confirmation vote on the nomination is expected to be held in mid-December after the two-week Thanksgiving recess.

Many Senate majorities have thought about using this technical maneuver to get around centuries of parliamentary precedent, but none has done so in a unilateral move on a major change of rules or precedents. This simple-majority vote has been executed in the past to change relatively minor precedents involving how to handle amendments; for example, one such change short-circuited the number of filibusters that the minority party could deploy on nominations.

Reid has rattled his saber on the filibuster rules at least three other times in the past three years, yielding each time to a bipartisan compromise brokered by the chamber’s elder statesmen. But this time, no deal emerged.

The main protagonists for the rules change have been junior Democrats elected in the last six or seven years, who have alleged that Republicans have used the arcane filibuster rules to create a procedural logjam that has left the Senate deadlocked. Upon arriving in 2009, Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) said, he found that “the Senate was a graveyard for good ideas.”

As he recounted in a speech this week, Udall said, “I am sorry to say that little has changed. The digging continues.”

Reid’s move is a reversal of his position in 2005, when he was minority leader and fought the GOP majority’s bid to change rules on a party-line vote. A bipartisan, rump caucus led by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) defused that effort.

At the time, McConnell was the No. 2 GOP leader and helped push the effort to eliminate filibusters on the George W. Bush White House’s judicial selections. Eight years later, McConnell, now the minority leader, has grown publicly furious over Reid’s threats to use the same maneuver.

Democrats contend that this GOP minority, with a handful of senators elected as tea party heroes, has overrun McConnell’s institutional inclinations and served as a procedural roadblock on most rudimentary things. According to the Congressional Research Service, from 1967 through 2012, majority leaders had to file motions to try to break a filibuster of a judicial nominee 67 times — and 31 of those, more than 46 percent — occurred in the last five years of an Obama White House and Democratic majority.

Republicans contend that their aggressive posture is merely a natural growth from a decades-long war over the federal judiciary, noting that what prompted the 2005 rules showdown were at least 10 filibusters of GOP judicial nominees. To date, only a handful of Obama’s judicial selections have gone to a vote and been filibustered by the minority.

However, many Republicans, weary from the third rules fight this year, seemed to have adopted a resigned indifference to this latest threat, as opposed to the heated rhetoric in mid-July when the issue last flared up.

You would think the "Nuclear Option" was just to forever be used to bluff and puff at your enemies, but boy did the Democrats pop the cherry.

[Tastyfish]

It might end up biting us in the ass in a few more elections, but currently I am glad they did something.

[Xeones]

This seems like a really bad idea...

I understand it, the childish bickering over appointments was terrible... but this is the kind of shady crap that gets people upset if you can get people to pay attention.

[Tinykong]

Well, if Republicans win the Presidency in 2016, and gain control of Congress (not impossible, but very unlikely) I wonder if there will be bitching and crying as the Republican President seats his cronies in all these positions without protest from the minority party.

[Naxere]

Already a thread on this.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...-pair-of-balls

[Deleted]

The Senate was meant to be the voice of the minority in our Government, now it is not.

Once the Republicans retake the senate, (which is highly likely after the complete failure of Obamacare) the Dems will be the minority. Since there is a Dem in the White House you can expect a lot more gridlock after this! Hell, it's not going to be surprising when Republican campaigns point out that this power grab is nearly "tyrannical" (I'm not saying that it is) and their constituents buy it.

[Masark]

Well, if Republicans win the Presidency in 2014, and gain control of Congress (not impossible, but very unlikely) I wonder if there will be bitching and crying as the Republican President seats his cronies in all these positions without protest from the minority party.

2016.

Only the house and 1/3rd of the senate is up for reelection in 2014.

[Deleted]

One of these days the politicians in the US (or nearly everywhere else really) will stop pissing in each other's faces and start doing something for the country. I'm not sure if it will be before or after I see my first rocket propelled pig zip by though.

[Xisa]

What a greedy, stupid, selfish God damn decision.

[TheFNK]

Seems about right. This isn't a decision that benefits Democrats or Republicans in the long term (in the short it obviously benefits D's though). But it does end the pattern of obstructionism that is so pervasive in Washington these days. It is one thing to try to have a say in government but we are at a point where a minority party is attempting to sacrifice having a working government to get its way which is far more damaging to the country than the so-called "Nuclear Option"

[Raeph]

At best this speeds up the activity of the Senate, so that nominees can be confirmed. What this boils down to is that just about every nominee from now until the 2014 elections will be confirmed 55/45 at best, on principle alone.

Bipartisan discussion and agreement on anything is more than likely soured, if not out-right dead. Any legislative work to be done, that requires more than a simple majority, is more than likely tabled until the 2014 elections. What we will now have is a lot of news conferences from Senators and not much else.

Personally, regardless of political leanings, this is a bad decision on Reeds part. He is sacrificing the future for the present, hoping to gain momentum to push the Republicans around to drop their objections and go with his flow. Long term, even if Democrats keep the Senate after 2014 elections, which I consider unlikely, from a historical perspective, not counting the ACA rollout, he has basically ensured that Republicans will not deal with him on any significant matter unless under a crisis.

Using the Power of a majority against a minority, to silence their opposition, only shows that minority that you do not have enough grace to deal with the minorities opinion as if they are worthy of that respect such consideration will prove.

Doing this the Democrats of the Senate have told the Republicans, "We have no time, energy, respect or grace to deal with you, or your concerns, any longer."

This will blow up in their faces.

[belfpala]

Doing this the Democrats of the Senate have told the Republicans, "We have no time, energy, respect or grace to deal with you, or your concerns, any longer."

The Republicans have been doing that for a quite a while.

(I'm not saying, "They did it too!" is a valid reason).

Discussion is broken in the US. This is a problem.

[Tinykong]

Discussion is broken in the US. This is a problem.

The problem is that somewhere along the line in the last 50-60 years, it went from "Let's figure out how our differing ideologies can best serve the people of the United States a fair and balanced government" to "I'm going attack and destroy anything proposed by anyone who isn't a member of my party, everyone and everything else be damned."

[THE Bigzoman]

2016.

Only the house and 1/3rd of the senate is up for reelection in 2014.

More then enough seats up for grabs for a majority change.

[Wells]

Well, if Republicans win the Presidency in 2016, and gain control of Congress (not impossible, but very unlikely) I wonder if there will be bitching and crying as the Republican President seats his cronies in all these positions without protest from the minority party.

How would that be hypocritical? Unless you think this crop of judicial nominees fit that bill.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

More then enough seats up for grabs for a majority change.

I really doubt they'll win. Unless a giant ass miracle and Republicans somehow prove me horridly wrong and have a change of heart.

[THE Bigzoman]

I really doubt they'll win. Unless a giant ass miracle and Republicans somehow prove me horridly wrong and have a change of heart.

Midterm elections. Not like they have to gain a whole lot of seats to get a majority. It can happen.

[The Riddler]

Both parties have been whining about the stonewalling of their judicial appointments for the past 30 years. The Senate was never supposed to be a place where judicial appointments were "blocked". The Senate was always viewed (at least historically) as an "advise and consent" body that simply provided a polite (but toothless) approval process for appointees. However, it was the Democrats who began using the Senate's role as a club to block nominees that they didn't like. The Republicans followed suit and it has become a rancorous mess with both sides pointing fingers. As long as the process cuts both ways then I don't really have a problem with it. The risk is that there will be judiciary stacking, which the checks & balance aspect of the rule existed to prevent. Judiciary stacking is bad no matter who does it.

[Tinykong]

How would that be hypocritical? Unless you think this crop of judicial nominees fit that bill.

Obama nominating the "driving while black" judge?

Just what DC needs, more divisive people in leadership positions.

[Wells]

Obama nominating the "driving while black" judge?

Just what DC needs, more divisive people in leadership positions.

Do the second one then? That these judicial nominees are lackeys or whatever?

- - - Updated - - -

Both parties have been whining about the stonewalling of their judicial appointments for the past 30 years. The Senate was never supposed to be a place where judicial appointments were "blocked". The Senate was always viewed (at least historically) as an "advise and consent" body that simply provided a polite (but toothless) approval process for appointees. However, it was the Democrats who began using the Senate's role as a club to block nominees that they didn't like. The Republicans followed suit and it has become a rancorous mess with both sides pointing fingers. As long as the process cuts both ways then I don't really have a problem with it. The risk is that there will be judiciary stacking, which the checks & balance aspect of the rule existed to prevent. Judiciary stacking is bad no matter who does it.

The democrats under bush also negotiated and eventually let most of them through. They used their minorities powers as intended. The GOP has been blocking uncontroversial nominations for the sake of getting nothing done. I'm all for a pox on both their houses when it fits but it doesn't here.