Posted on 12/05/2012 12:00:42 PM PST by pabianice
...Alternatively, the GOP could threaten to shut down the Senate entirely. This is technically doable. ”Keep in mind that a lot of what Senate leaders do day to day is done by unanimous consent,” explains Binder. If a single senator started objecting to every little motion and maneuver, it would become impossible to conduct any legislative business at all. Some examples:
– A 500-page amendment is brought to the floor, and the bill manager wants to dispense with the reading of the amendment? All a senator has to say is, “I object,” and it’s time to start reading all 500 pages out loud.
– The Senate leader wants to waive the rule that prevents committees from meeting while the Senate is in session? A single senator can object, and, suddenly, committees can’t meet.
– Reid wants to adjourn the Senate until Jan. 3? “I object.”
Any senator can do this at any time, if he or she is so inclined. Indeed, as Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute explains, this is basically what happens when a senator places a “hold” on a White House nominee. The senator is threatening to deny unanimous consent if the nomination goes forward.
There are a few precedents in the past for lawmakers bogging down the Senate. Back in 2010, then-Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) managed to deny unanimous consent for days on end in order to prevent the Senate from passing an unemployment benefits package that he thought needed to be paid for. His maneuvers earned him plenty of negative press. Other senators pleaded with him. Bunning simply shrugged and replied, “Tough shit.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Like I said, Mark Levin suggested Senate Rs do this in his book Men in Black, back about 2004.
The theory behind the “nuclear option” was that the Senate had the right to determine its own rules and that those rules could be determined on the basis of a majority vote. Democrats objected, arguing that the Senate’s rules could not be changed without a 2/3 vote as stated in the Senate Rules themselves. Republicans countered that the Senate’s power to govern itself was founded in the Constitution itself and that internal Senate Rules could not deny that power.[1]
wiki/Gang of 14
This is not evil. This is playing with the hand dealt us. Evil is confiscating money and assets from folks that work to give them to folks who will not work
That is called Democracy:
‘Vote for me and I will take MD Mom’s money and give it to people like you who need it more than she does, here's a free cell phone so I can text you on election day”
DA-DA.
Rules can be changed by a simple majority on the first day of the session. For 224 years, however, the Senate has operated with the understanding that, unlike the House whose members are chosen anew every two years, it is a permanent body since only 1/3rd of its members are renewed at each election. Thus whereas the House drafts its rules anew after each election, the Senate continues to operated on its standing rules which require 2/3 vote to change.
What Harry Reid is proposing is ignoring this precedent and act as if the incoming Senate is a new body which can then adopt its rules be a simple majority vote.
Conventions are not Congress. I beleive once someone rises and objects, the Chair has to recognize them.
Only the the pubics are going to do is drop pants, bend over and grab ankles.
That’s all, nothing else.
I’m not going to believe that Marco Rubio is anything other than a phony little b*tch “conservative” until he proves otherwise.
Samethign goes for Cruz.
Allen West for Speaker, then Walker/West 2016.
My friend, It’s this or bust, as far as I am concerned. These two gentlemen have been fighting the fight.
I want someone who will stand up in the face of both the Dem commies and the spineless RINOs and tell them to go F*** themselves - in whatever terms they’re comfortable saying it.
Whatever we have to do to remove RINOs I am for doing it. Tea Party insurgency, by any means necessary.
How is it even possible that he gets reelected?
There must be some unbelievably vacant Dems out in Nevada, or they are scum like him!
Read the Commiecare™ bill.
We should know within the next couple of years.
Cruz is for real. Read his history, this dude has been a Constitutional Conservative since Grade School!
The Cubans have seen what the likes of nobama can do a lot closer up than most of us.
I hope so, I certainly hope so, because conservative leadership is needed beyond need. We have none whatsoever.
However, as far as the GOP is now concerned, my support trust and loyalty must now be earned through actions and deed, not through words, promises speeches, or anything of that nature, otherwise they are just going to get a big **** you from me.
Bump.
There are so many of us thinking the same now that they ignore us at their own peril. What have we now got to lose? Freedom and Liberty are all but gone already.
The only thing that I have to lose at this poin tis the GOP itself.
I want to lose them, and I will take pleasure in it.
Interesting you mention the “defeated” West for Speaker.
The constitution doesn’t say the Speaker has to be a member.
There was talk among the democrats of making some non member the Speaker or suggesting a member retire but become Speaker anyway or something stupid like that.
If they’d put him there, I’d know they were interested in actually beating these f***ing commie pukes back into the stone age.
However, as it stands, they’re perfectly willing to go along with the Dems, and that makes them just as bad.
Actually, it makes them worse. They COULD do something to oppose them, but they choose to be complicit asswipes.
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