Posted on 11/22/2013 12:47:30 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
......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 dont 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 peoples health and welfare will be lost....
...Reids 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 minoritys 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 Senates 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
This is not a bad thing. It means that if the Republicans gain control of the Senate next fall (increasingly likely), then by a simple majority they can start peeling back Obamacare.
They can’t, because it specifically provides that if the constitution of the Senate changes (to a GOP majority), the change ceases to be in effect and reverts to the old system (2/3 majority).
All I’m waiting for now is an Enabling Act giving all power to the Executive. VZ’s rigged legislature just passed one.
Now that our Senate has been fatally rigged, I don’t think there’s much stopping it.
No he doesn't.
“.......[Harry] Reid clinched support for changing the rules at the weekly Tuesday Senate Democratic caucus lunch.
.....Reid, without mentioning the colleagues name, told his caucus that one of its senior members who had long opposed filibuster reform, recently had a change of mind and privately urged him to trigger the controversial tactic.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) then rose before the room full of Democrats and identified herself as the recent convert.
She got up right afterward and said, He was talking about me, said a Democratic senator..... ?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3094249/posts
It all comes down to the wisdom expressed in the old saying, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." They are so desirous of, and drunk on, power that they cannot see anything beyond tightening their grasp. The fact that they might one day be on the other side of the power grabs is irrelevant to them.
Half the time I click in to these threads just to see where the story came from. The sentiment is well known to us cons, but Dana Milbank? WaPo?? Really?
Kewl.
The Republican Senators should commit civil disobedience. They should refuse to give up the podium. I don’t think they can be arrested.
The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away.
Cite, please.
Keep whistling past that graveyard.
The dems have a very powerful, very effective vote fraud machine. A republican win is not "increasingly likely", it's against all odds.
Even if those odds are overcome and the republicans win, they've got a long history of caving to dem whining about "fairness" and will doubtless change the rules back.
Yes, but the Republicans have already said what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander and they’ll vote to keep the new rule.
The GOP can’t vote to keep it (since it expires automatically if the majority changes), but they can vote it again. However, I doubt that they will.
If this hard core socialist not chosen to retire, he'd be in the Reid camp.........
His vote yesterday was an attempt to salvage a possible Michigan re-election of another Democrat in his place........
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