Posted on 10/06/2011 4:42:43 PM PDT by jazusamo
In a shock development Thursday evening, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) triggered a rarely-used procedural option informally called the “nuclear option” to change the Senate rules.
The surprise move stunned Republicans, who did not expect Reid to bring heavy artillery to what had appeared to have been a hum-drum legislative knife fight.
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.
“So we will only need 51 votes to kill obamacare in 2013?”
Reid has a majority. After he exploits the rule change, he will just change it back.
Precisely. And since we now control the house, we still can prevent bad bills from passing congress. This is the best news I have heard all year.
The list, ping
Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list
This is just the kind of thing they do. Never trust a liar to be anything more than that, a liar, and ever shake hands with the devil.
Sessions probably wants to get the Dims on record as voting for the PASS THIS BILL bill. I look forward to this same tactic being used in 2013 to repeal ObamaCare.
Thank God we have the house.
Oh, gee! Let me guess: Brown, Snowe and Collins?
From an article linked up thread.
“And just to clear up some confusion, what happened tonight was different than the so-called “nuclear option” to end filibusters. While triggering the “nuclear option” requires a Majority Leader to use the same sort of strategic maneuvers as Reid just did, tonight’s move had to do with the amendment process, not filibusters.”
-PJ
“Why would a Republican vote for this? What was their reasoning?”
According to DeMint, the effect of this rule is to prevent R’s offering amendments. Conservatives will offer difficult to vote on amendments for liberals—democrats and republicans alike. Liberal Republicans probably don’t want to have to vote on such amendments because they are looking at primaries and don’t want to reveal any more about themselves than they have to.
So Graham, Chambliss, Lugar and the Maine senators have a strong incentive not to have to vote on awkward amendments.
Democrats are out to win every time. Their words mean nothing. They do not believe in the standards they use to snare Republicans.
What I think happened is that those Republicans mentioned voted for cloture on the China bill, then other Republicans wanted to offer amendments and Reid used his tactic to prevent that. That’s how it looks from this Senate vote board, and the final vote on the bill might not have taken place, at least it’s not on the Senate site yet.
http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/legislative/a_three_sections_with_teasers/votes.htm
They used it to keep the GOP from attaching the Obama Job Killing Bill as an amendment to the China Bill they did want to vote on.
According to my copy of the Constitution, Congress (both houses) decides their own rules.
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I read in my copy of the Constitution that the party in power can invoke the NUCLEAR OPTION to change the rules.
Think it was straight from T Jefferson’s quill- he is probably the only one that would know how to spell nuclear and what it meant..
More good analysis here.While Reid’s move is bad, this is not about the filibuster.
First of all, thanks for the link Crawdad.
Here is where I am confused...look at this line from the article:
So, the end result is that by a simple majority vote, Reid was able to effectively rewrite Senate rules making it even harder than it already is for the minority party to force votes on any amendments. Should Republicans retake the Senate next year, it's something that could come back to haunt Democrats in a major way.
So tell me: what happens when we win big in November 2012? Reid and his morons still hold the Senate, and use the same 51-vote rule to just CHANGE IT BACK?
Then in January 2013, the Republicans will either have to vote again to change the rules or just let these bastards off easy.
Am I wrong?
My disdain for Democrats is palpable. I despise them.
It's also true that in this case, the nuclear option was used to change the amendment rule prior to voting for cloture, not the cloture vote itself which was the issue during the judicial filibusters.
-PJ
Yep. I was just reading that one.
-PJ
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