Filibuster? Not really.
Since When Does The Senate Need 60 Votes To Pass Legislation
December 13, 2008
The much anticipated auto bailout bill failed today on the Senate, by a vote of 52-35. By the way, that’s 52 IN FAVOR, and 35 opposed. This is also one of several major pieces of legislation over the past two years that has failed to pass the Senate despite having the support of between 51 and 59 Senators.
Now, I’m sure you’re thinking to yourself, “Wait a second, if there are a hundred Senators, and 52 are in favor of something, why can’t it get passed?” Well, that’s because sixty votes are required to block a filibuster.
So I bet you’re now thinking that the Senate Republicans filibustered this legislation. Well, you’d be wrong. The Senate Republicans, as they have done for virtually every major piece of legislation since 2006, have THREATENED to filibuster. They haven’t actually done it. And every time they do, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tries to get 60 votes to stop them, or the legislation dies.
So here’s what I’m wondering. Why doesn’t Harry Reid grow a pair, and actually call the Republicans bluff. If they want to stop health care reform, increased veterans benefits, auto bailouts, etc., why doesn’t Harry Reid actually make them filibuster. Why doesn’t he make them go through the exhausting process of talking for days on end, nonstop. If the Republicans want the whole world to know that they are holding up all processes in the Senate, and completely exhaust themselves, eating and sleeping on the Senate floor of days, let them. Maybe the spectacle will get more people to pay attention and hold our leaders accountable. Maybe the Republicans will crack and we won’t need 60 Senators to pass universal health care or increase veterans benefits or the minimum wage. But at the very least, Harry Reid and every single person who voted Democrat in 2006, myself included, won’t look like a total wuss. When someone threatens to do something over and over again, eventually you have to call them on it. Period.
Written by Andrew Sparrow · Filed Under Politics
Comments
3 Responses to “Since When Does The Senate Need 60 Votes To Pass Legislation”
JamesC on February 6th, 2009 10:41 am I came across your article while doing a web search on the need for 60 senators to get a law passed.
Doing a quick check at wiki on the concept of a “filibuster” I found this:
“In current practice, Senate Rule 22 permits filibusters in which actual continuous floor speeches are not required, although the Senate Majority Leader may require an actual traditional filibuster if he or she so chooses. This threat of a filibuster can therefore be as powerful as an actual filibuster. Previously, the filibustering senator(s) could delay voting only by making an endless speech. Currently, they need only indicate that they are filibustering, thereby preventing the Senate from moving on to other business until the motion is withdrawn or enough votes are gathered for cloture.”
So either A) you are totally ignorant of Senate procedures and should look before you leap - ie.research - for atleast 2 minutes - before you write … or B) wiki is messed up again.
However the senate does publish their rules on-line and seem to agree. Check it out: rules.senate.gov/senaterules/rule22.php
By the way, I prefer to interpret Obama’s message of hope: “Yes, we can!” to mean “Yes, we can work with folks on all sides of important issues to get things done” and NOT “Yes, we can over-ride all opposition and force our will on the people.”
There is no Democratics America, no Republicans American, there is just ONE America, the UNITED States of America.
Andrew Sparrow on February 8th, 2009 11:27 pm I’m glad you put in two minutes of research James. I put in a little more than that before I right a post.
The Senate has a process in place for amending rules; this process requires a two-thirds [67] vote. According to Congressional Quarterly, from 1919-1971, there were nine filibusters relating to Rule 22; in each case, there were insufficient votes to invoke cloture.
The “nuclear option” which Republican leaders used to threaten is actually a series of steps designed to bypass the two-thirds vote requirement to change rules: (cite) The Senate moves to vote:
At least 41 Senators call for filibuster.
Majority Leader Reid raises a point of order, saying debate has gone on long enough and that a vote must be taken within a certain time frame. (Current Senate rules requires a cloture vote at this point.)
Vice President Biden– acting as presiding officer — sustains the point of order.
A minority Senator appeals the decision.
A majority Senator moves to table the motion on the floor (the appeal).
This vote - to table the appeal - is procedural and cannot be subjected to a filibuster; it requires only a majority vote (in case of a tie, the Vice President casts the tie-breaking vote).
With debate ended, the Senate would vote; this vote requires only a majority of those voting. The filibuster has effectively been closed with a majority vote instead of a three-fifths vote.
Andrew Sparrow on February 8th, 2009 11:28 pm Additionally, there is nothing in the constitution about filibusters, they are a part of Senate rules and can be changed by the majority party.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Friday, February 06, 2009
Thursday, February 05, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Man on Wire
Just watched it. A fine film indeed. On Matt Cale's top ten of 2008.
Philippe Petit is one of the more fascinating people you’re ever going to meet, even if he’d likely drive you crazy inside of an hour. Still, it’s a testament to the documentary form that we can spend an entire film with his sheer reckless abandon and not be pushed over the edge. As a typically self-involved artist, Petit thinks only of his next challenge, which, in August of 1974, involved scaling a tightrope fastened between the two towers of the World Trade Center. The audacity is obvious, and the cheek almost beyond compare, but Petit’s charm makes us believe he can accomplish anything. And so he does. The story of how and when he lugged up the equipment, cased the joint, and eventually put one foot in front of the other makes for high drama, and at no point does anyone discuss the current absence of said towers. And though unspoken, we realize that the feat will remain forever unmatched, and likely the crowning achievement of athletic derring-do. One can’t really describe an unnecessary artistic statement as “brave,” but when we see him out there, a solitary figure atop a great, bottomless chasm, we find few other words that could describe something so wonderfully insane. And finally, a documentary not about the trials of war, or abuse, or death, or even the bloody Holocaust, but simply the unadulterated pleasures of risk. For its own sake, at long last.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
Friday, January 09, 2009
The Big Lie
The world's largest prison.
“There is no humanitarian crisis in the [Gaza] Strip.”
- Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, 1 January 2009.
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Gaza Bombed and Invaded
The conflict is constantly portrayed as too complex to understand or on the other hand one that is simple to understand: terrorists vs. democrats.
Here's a look at the root cause of the conflict.
A question to ask: if the conflict cannot be solved militarily, as is admitted by even the most reactionary supporter of Israel, then why the bombings and invasion?
Throughout the last week Israeli government spokesmen and its supporters have said to the effect, Hamas and the Palestinians need to be taught a lesson, they need to learn there is a cost for small rocket fire, etc.. In effect then Israeli policy is collective punishment.
Benjamin Boring
A long film examining a long life. A film packed with promise both conceptually and visually but an impossible feat given its leading actor and its empty character. Could it have been good?
Matt Cale's take.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
A Kettle of Hawks
By JEREMY SCAHILL
Barack Obama has assembled a team of rivals to implement his foreign policy.
But while pundits and journalists speculate endlessly on the potential
for drama with Hillary Clinton at the state department and Bill
Clinton's network of shady funders, the real rivalry that will play out
goes virtually unmentioned. The main battles will not be between
Obama's staff, but rather against those who actually want a change in
US foreign policy, not just a staff change in the war room.
When announcing his foreign policy team on Monday, Obama said: "I didn't go
around checking their voter registration." That is a bit hard to
believe, given the 63-question application to work in his White House.
But Obama clearly did check their credentials, and the disturbing truth
is that he liked what he saw.
The assembly of Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, Susan Rice and Joe Biden is
a kettle of hawks with a proven track record of support for the Iraq
war, militaristic interventionism, neoliberal economic policies and a
worldview consistent with the foreign policy arch that stretches from
George HW Bush's time in office to the present.
Obama has dismissed suggestions that the public records of his appointees
bear much relevance to future policy. "Understand where the vision for
change comes from, first and foremost," Obama said. "It comes from me.
That's my job, to provide a vision in terms of where we are going and
to make sure, then, that my team is implementing." It is a line the
president-elect's defenders echo often. The reality, though, is that
their records do matter.
We were told repeatedly during the campaign that Obama was right on the
premiere foreign policy issue of our day – the Iraq war. "Six years
ago, I stood up and opposed this war at a time when it was politically
risky to do so," Obama said in his September debate against John
McCain. "Senator McCain and President Bush had a very different
judgment." What does it say that, with 130 members of the House and 23
in the Senate who voted against the war, Obama chooses to hire
Democrats who made the same judgement as Bush and McCain?
On Iraq, the issue that the Obama campaign described as "the most critical
foreign policy judgment of our generation", Biden and Clinton not only
supported the invasion, but pushed the Bush administration's propaganda
and lies about Iraqi WMDs and fictitious connections to al-Qaida.
Clinton and Obama's hawkish, pro-Israel chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel,
still refuse to renounce their votes in favour of the war. Rice, who
claims she opposed the Iraq war, didn't hold elected office and was not
confronted with voting for or against it. But she did publicly promote
the myth of Iraq's possession of WMDs, saying in the lead up to the war
that the "major threat" must "be dealt with forcefully". Rice has also
been hawkish on Darfur, calling for "strik[ing] Sudanese airfields,
aircraft and other military assets".
It is also deeply telling that, of his own free will, Obama selected
President Bush's choice for defence secretary, a man with a very
disturbing and lengthy history at the CIA during the cold war, as his
own. While General James Jones, Obama's nominee for national security
adviser, reportedly opposed the Iraq invasion and is said to have stood
up to the neocons in Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon, he did not do so
publicly when it would have carried weight. Time magazine described him
as "the man who led the Marines during the run-up to the war – and
failed to publicly criticise the operation's flawed planning".
Moreover, Jones, who is a friend of McCain's, has said a timetable for
Iraq withdrawal, "would be against our national interest".
But the problem with Obama's appointments is hardly just a matter of bad
vision on Iraq. What ultimately ties Obama's team together is their
unified support for the classic US foreign policy recipe: the hidden
hand of the free market, backed up by the iron fist of US militarism to
defend the America First doctrine.
Obama's starry-eyed defenders have tried to downplay the importance of his
cabinet selections, saying Obama will call the shots, but the ruling
elite in this country see it for what it is. Karl Rove, "Bush's Brain",
called Obama's cabinet selections, "reassuring", which itself is
disconcerting, but neoconservative leader and former McCain campaign
staffer Max Boot summed it up best. "I am gobsmacked by these
appointments, most of which could just as easily have come from a
President McCain," Boot wrote. The appointment of General Jones and the
retention of Gates at defence "all but puts an end to the 16-month
timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, the unconditional summits with
dictators and other foolishness that once emanated from the Obama
campaign."
Boot added that Hillary Clinton will be a "powerful" voice "for
'neoliberalism' which is not so different in many respects from
'neoconservativism.'" Boot's buddy, Michael Goldfarb, wrote in The
Weekly Standard, the official organ of the neoconservative movement,
that he sees "certainly nothing that represents a drastic change in how
Washington does business. The expectation is that Obama is set to
continue the course set by Bush in his second term."
There is not a single, solid anti-war voice in the upper echelons of the
Obama foreign policy apparatus. And this is the point: Obama is not
going to fundamentally change US foreign policy. He is a status quo
Democrat. And that is why the mono-partisan Washington insiders are
gushing over Obama's new team. At the same time, it is also
disingenuous to act as though Obama is engaging in some epic betrayal.
Of course these appointments contradict his campaign rhetoric of
change. But move past the speeches and Obama's selections are very much
in sync with his record and the foreign policy vision he articulated on
the campaign trail, from his pledge to escalate the war in Afghanistan
to his "residual force" plan in Iraq to his vow to use unilateral force
in Pakistan to defend US interests to his posturing on Iran. "I will
always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our
security and our ally Israel," Obama said in his famed speech at the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee last summer. "Sometimes, there
are no alternatives to confrontation."
Jeremy Scahill
pledges to be the same journalist under an Obama administration that he
was during Bill Clinton and George Bush's presidencies. He is the
author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.
Barack Obama has assembled a team of rivals to implement his foreign policy.
But while pundits and journalists speculate endlessly on the potential
for drama with Hillary Clinton at the state department and Bill
Clinton's network of shady funders, the real rivalry that will play out
goes virtually unmentioned. The main battles will not be between
Obama's staff, but rather against those who actually want a change in
US foreign policy, not just a staff change in the war room.
When announcing his foreign policy team on Monday, Obama said: "I didn't go
around checking their voter registration." That is a bit hard to
believe, given the 63-question application to work in his White House.
But Obama clearly did check their credentials, and the disturbing truth
is that he liked what he saw.
The assembly of Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, Susan Rice and Joe Biden is
a kettle of hawks with a proven track record of support for the Iraq
war, militaristic interventionism, neoliberal economic policies and a
worldview consistent with the foreign policy arch that stretches from
George HW Bush's time in office to the present.
Obama has dismissed suggestions that the public records of his appointees
bear much relevance to future policy. "Understand where the vision for
change comes from, first and foremost," Obama said. "It comes from me.
That's my job, to provide a vision in terms of where we are going and
to make sure, then, that my team is implementing." It is a line the
president-elect's defenders echo often. The reality, though, is that
their records do matter.
We were told repeatedly during the campaign that Obama was right on the
premiere foreign policy issue of our day – the Iraq war. "Six years
ago, I stood up and opposed this war at a time when it was politically
risky to do so," Obama said in his September debate against John
McCain. "Senator McCain and President Bush had a very different
judgment." What does it say that, with 130 members of the House and 23
in the Senate who voted against the war, Obama chooses to hire
Democrats who made the same judgement as Bush and McCain?
On Iraq, the issue that the Obama campaign described as "the most critical
foreign policy judgment of our generation", Biden and Clinton not only
supported the invasion, but pushed the Bush administration's propaganda
and lies about Iraqi WMDs and fictitious connections to al-Qaida.
Clinton and Obama's hawkish, pro-Israel chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel,
still refuse to renounce their votes in favour of the war. Rice, who
claims she opposed the Iraq war, didn't hold elected office and was not
confronted with voting for or against it. But she did publicly promote
the myth of Iraq's possession of WMDs, saying in the lead up to the war
that the "major threat" must "be dealt with forcefully". Rice has also
been hawkish on Darfur, calling for "strik[ing] Sudanese airfields,
aircraft and other military assets".
It is also deeply telling that, of his own free will, Obama selected
President Bush's choice for defence secretary, a man with a very
disturbing and lengthy history at the CIA during the cold war, as his
own. While General James Jones, Obama's nominee for national security
adviser, reportedly opposed the Iraq invasion and is said to have stood
up to the neocons in Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon, he did not do so
publicly when it would have carried weight. Time magazine described him
as "the man who led the Marines during the run-up to the war – and
failed to publicly criticise the operation's flawed planning".
Moreover, Jones, who is a friend of McCain's, has said a timetable for
Iraq withdrawal, "would be against our national interest".
But the problem with Obama's appointments is hardly just a matter of bad
vision on Iraq. What ultimately ties Obama's team together is their
unified support for the classic US foreign policy recipe: the hidden
hand of the free market, backed up by the iron fist of US militarism to
defend the America First doctrine.
Obama's starry-eyed defenders have tried to downplay the importance of his
cabinet selections, saying Obama will call the shots, but the ruling
elite in this country see it for what it is. Karl Rove, "Bush's Brain",
called Obama's cabinet selections, "reassuring", which itself is
disconcerting, but neoconservative leader and former McCain campaign
staffer Max Boot summed it up best. "I am gobsmacked by these
appointments, most of which could just as easily have come from a
President McCain," Boot wrote. The appointment of General Jones and the
retention of Gates at defence "all but puts an end to the 16-month
timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, the unconditional summits with
dictators and other foolishness that once emanated from the Obama
campaign."
Boot added that Hillary Clinton will be a "powerful" voice "for
'neoliberalism' which is not so different in many respects from
'neoconservativism.'" Boot's buddy, Michael Goldfarb, wrote in The
Weekly Standard, the official organ of the neoconservative movement,
that he sees "certainly nothing that represents a drastic change in how
Washington does business. The expectation is that Obama is set to
continue the course set by Bush in his second term."
There is not a single, solid anti-war voice in the upper echelons of the
Obama foreign policy apparatus. And this is the point: Obama is not
going to fundamentally change US foreign policy. He is a status quo
Democrat. And that is why the mono-partisan Washington insiders are
gushing over Obama's new team. At the same time, it is also
disingenuous to act as though Obama is engaging in some epic betrayal.
Of course these appointments contradict his campaign rhetoric of
change. But move past the speeches and Obama's selections are very much
in sync with his record and the foreign policy vision he articulated on
the campaign trail, from his pledge to escalate the war in Afghanistan
to his "residual force" plan in Iraq to his vow to use unilateral force
in Pakistan to defend US interests to his posturing on Iran. "I will
always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our
security and our ally Israel," Obama said in his famed speech at the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee last summer. "Sometimes, there
are no alternatives to confrontation."
Jeremy Scahill
pledges to be the same journalist under an Obama administration that he
was during Bill Clinton and George Bush's presidencies. He is the
author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.
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