Reid Nukes Senate

[DinoDoc]

The Democrats’ naked power grab

By Dana Milbank, Published: November 21

“Congress is broken,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday before holding a party-line vote that disposed of rules that have guided and protected the chamber since 1789.

If Congress wasn’t broken before, it certainly is now. What Reid (Nev.) and his fellow Democrats effectively did was take the chamber of Congress that still functioned at a modest level and turn it into a clone of the other chamber, which functions not at all. They turned the Senate into the House.

Democrats were fully justified in stripping Republicans of their right to filibuster President Obama’s nominees — yet they will come to deeply regret what they have done.

Certainly, Republicans have abused the dilatory tactics that Senate minorities have, for centuries, used with greater responsibility; they seem intent on bringing government to a halt. And the Senate in 2013 is hardly a healthy institution. Yet it has achieved far more than the House — passing bipartisan immigration legislation and a farm bill and working out deals to avoid default and to end the federal government shutdown — largely because, until Thursday, Senate rules required the majority party to win votes from the minority.

Here’s what then-Sen. Joe Biden said in 2005 when a Republican Senate majority threatened to use a similar “nuclear option” to allow a simple majority to carry the day:

“The nuclear option abandons America’s sense of fair play . . . tilting the playing field on the side of those who control and own the field. I say to my friends on the Republican side: You may own the field right now, but you won’t own it forever. I pray God when the Democrats take back control, we don’t make the kind of naked power grab you are doing.”

Sen. Carl Levin (Mich.), one of just three Democrats who opposed his colleagues’ naked power grab, read those words on the Senate floor Thursday after Reid invoked the nuclear option. The rumpled Levin is not known for his oratory. But he is retiring next year and free to speak his mind — and his words were potent.

“We need to change the rules, but to change it in the way we changed it today means there are no rules except as the majority wants them,” Levin said. “This precedent is going to be used, I fear, to change the rules on consideration of legislation, and down the road — we don’t know how far down the road; we never know that in a democracy — but, down the road, the hard-won protections and benefits for our people’s health and welfare will be lost.”

The word “historic” is often tossed around in Washington, but this change ends a tradition dating to the earliest days of the republic. For the nation’s first 118 years, there were no limits on debate in the Senate. After 1917, cutting off debate, or reaching “cloture,” required a two-thirds majority. In 1975, that threshold was reduced to 60 of 100 votes. Even that lower minimum required lawmakers to cooperate with each other.

“Cloture has fostered more bipartisanship in the Senate,” Donald Ritchie, the Senate historian, told me Thursday after Reid detonated his nuclear device. “The majority leader of the Senate is expected to try to work out some kind of a bipartisan deal to get enough votes to get cloture. Because the House is run by majority rule, it is seen as a sign of weakness if the majority leadership of the House has to get votes from the minority side.”

Now the Senate will be just as dysfunctional.

Reid was right that Republican obstruction has been intolerable; half of the 168 filibusters of executive and judicial nominations in the nation’s history, he noted, have come during the Obama presidency.

But Reid’s remedy — calling a simple-majority vote to undo more than two centuries of custom — has created a situation in which the minority leader, Mitch McConnell (Ky.), is expected to use the minority’s remaining powers to gum up the works, and to get revenge when Republicans regain the majority.

“If a Senate majority demonstrates it can make such a change once, there are no rules which binds a majority, and all future majorities will feel free to exercise the same power, not just on judges and executive appointments but on legislation,” Levin said Thursday. Quoting one of the Senate’s giants, Arthur Vandenberg, Levin said his fellow Democrats had sacrificed “vital principle for the sake of momentary convenience.”

If it was possible to make things even worse in Washington, Reid just did it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...ef049a-5306-11e3-9e2c-e1d01116fd98_story.html

 

[Cutlass]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...ef049a-5306-11e3-9e2c-e1d01116fd98_story.html

Maybe the Republicans should have thought about that before they let their whimpering whining childish temper tantrum ruin the country.

 

[Gucumatz]

Frankly I think this is a bad thing in the longterm. In the shortterm, this is completely the Republicans fault for blocking nominations that had no need to be blocked. The Senate is supposed to be more meticulous and cloture for nominations is a logical safeguard for truly bad nominees that may simply be there for partisan issues.

Again, completely the Republicans fault and its logical why Reid did it. Republicans should be disgusted with themselves for what they have become responsible for turning Congress into. Either way I think this is a bad precedent

 

[IglooDame]

Yeah, the wailing and gnashing of teeth by Senate Republicans rings a bit hollow when you look at the Senate Democrats' wailing and gnashing of teeth in 2005. And vice versa, regarding finger-pointing at the blatant obstructionism. This time no Gang of Eight appeared to leap (well, hobble - McCain led it) to the rescue.

 

[BvBPL]

Maybe Ayn Rand should have thought of the consequences of a political party following her views before advocating for limited gov't.

Oh wait, she didn't like gov't.

Nor do the current tea party Republicans.

Like it or not the tea parties are doing exactly what their constituents want them to do: slow down and limit gov't.

 

[IglooDame]

Maybe Ayn Rand should have thought of the consequences of a political party following her views before advocating for limited gov't.

Oh wait, she didn't like gov't.

Nor do the current tea party Republicans.

Like it or not the tea parties are doing exactly what their constituents want them to do: slow down and limit gov't.

But wait, in 2005 were the Democrats doing exactly what THEIR constituents wanted? I'm hoping you have a reasonable response, so I don't have to go spend time digging up Reid's/Schumer's et al quotes from eight years ago...

 

[Gucumatz]

Everyone gnashes their teeth some point or another. Which is exactly why cloture/filibusters for appointments was/is a necessary thing. Unfortunately the threshold for acceptable use of it was crossed and I doubt we will ever get it back now [cloture/filibuster of appointees]

This is just a testament of the lack of long-term vision of Republicans over these last few years. The former visionaries of the Republican Senate like Nixon were replaced by people like McCain... who unfortunately have lost a lot of their power due to other "reforms".

 

[DinoDoc]

Maybe the Republicans should have thought about that before they let their whimpering whining childish temper tantrum ruin the country.

It's the GOP's fault that the Democrats decided to make Washington worse than it was? You sound like an abusive husband blaming the wife for making him hit her.

 

[DinoDoc]

Frankly I think this is a bad thing in the longterm. In the shortterm, this is completely the Republicans fault for blocking nominations that had no need to be blocked.

Link to video.

 

[Kyriakos]

It's the GOP's fault that the Democrats decided to make Washington worse than it was? You sound like an abusive husband blaming the wife for making him hit her.

I agree with that parallelism, although it should be added that both of those keep sceletons in their basement. Human sceletons too.

 

[Formaldehyde]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...ef049a-5306-11e3-9e2c-e1d01116fd98_story.html

It must be refreshing to be able to cite an opinion piece from the Washington Post, instead of the Times, for a change.

It's the GOP's fault that the Democrats decided to make Washington worse than it was? You sound like an abusive husband blaming the wife for making him hit her.

How is it possibly "worse than it was" by merely trying to make executive department appointments of highly qualified and competent people?

And you do realize the issue here is executive appointments, not judicial ones? That merely because there have been more judicial appointments under Obama than Bush is completely meaningless, except from the standpoint of it being a statistical anomaly that more vacancies occurred during that period?

 

[DinoDoc]

It must be refreshing to be able to cite an opinion piece from the Washington Post instead of the Times for a change.

I couldn't find a piece on Pravda for you. I apologize.

How is it possibly "worse than it was" by merely trying to make executive department appointments of highly qualified and competent people?

There's an entire argument written by a liberal (so you have no reason to ignore it as is your usual MO) laying out that position in a post above yours.

 

[DinoDoc]

And you do realize the issue here is executive appointments, not judicial ones?

Then why were the DC Circuit nominees so critical here.

 

[Mise]

If the Republicans care so much about this weird rule they can reinstate it when they win the Senate. When they reclaim the Senate, we'll see how truly principled their objections are.

 

[BvBPL]

But wait, in 2005 were the Democrats doing exactly what THEIR constituents wanted? I'm hoping you have a reasonable response, so I don't have to go spend time digging up Reid's/Schumer's et al quotes from eight years ago...

You mean when they compromised to ensure the government continued to function? Yeah, that's probably representative of their constituents.

 

[DinoDoc]

If the Republicans care so much about this weird rule they can reinstate it when they win the Senate. When they reclaim the Senate, we'll see how truly principled their objections are.

That trigger has already been pulled. It's never coming back unless Reid does it in a lame duck session after the Dems loose in 2014.

 

[Mise]

The Republicans can reinstate the rule when they win a majority/supermajority in the Senate.

 

[DinoDoc]

Why would they? This has given them the precedent to change the rules of the Senate as they see fit to suit them now.

 

[Mise]

Why would they? This has given them the precedent to change the rules of the Senate as they see fit to suit them now.

Right but what I'm saying is, the Republicans are saying that the filibuster rule on judicial appointments is a hugely important safeguard for democracy, and that getting rid of the rule will weaken democracy. So if they really believe in those principles, then they ought to reinstate the rule as soon as they can. If it's such an important safeguard against tyranny of the majority, then they should reinstate the rule as soon as they reclaim the senate.

 

[DinoDoc]

I'm sure the desire for vengeance will get in the way. The Dems had better hope Hillary wins in 2016. Because I can see this being used as precedence to strip them the right to oppose SCOTUS nominees and legislation (ACA repeal) with a Republican in the WH.