Posted on 11/03/2015 10:36:56 AM PST by TheJIMgram
TheJIM!gram© is a publication of Jim Jatras, the only announced prospect for the 2016 GOP Vice Presidential nod, addressing the daunting challenges facing our great country. Reposting and redistribution with attribution is permitted and encouraged.
October 12, 2015 No. 1 In this inaugural issue of TheJIM!gram© I suggest:
“IT’S THE CLOTURE, STUPID! BRING BACK THE FILIBUSTER TO RESTORE ‘POWER OF THE PURSE’â€
The chaos surrounding selection of a replacement for House Speaker John Boehner is a symptom of the ongoing civil war tearing the GOP apart.
On the one side, we have Tea Partiers and other conservatives who want Republicans to play hardball with the Obama administration and use Congress’s “power of the purse†to defund Obamacare, Planned Parenthood, amnesty or gun grabs via Executive Order, and other outrages. On the other, there is the establishment (of which Boehner is a symbol), who advise caution – in effect, capitulation – in the face of “realityâ€: the MSM will blame any government shutdown on the GOP-ruled Congress, so let’s avoid damage that could lessen chances of putting a Republican in the White House in January 2017.
Republicans would have a far better chance of winning the budget blame game if they would send funding bill after funding bill, minus the targeted items, to Barack Obama’s desk and force him to veto them. Sure, the media would still blame the GOP, but at some point it would start to dawn on the American people that Congress is sending Obama money for 99.99 percent of the government’s operations and he is the one forcing a shutdown over the 00.01 percent he imperiously demands.
That hasn’t happened, though. In fact, during his tenure Obama has cast only four vetoes, far fewer than any recent president. (Counting pocket vetoes, George W. Bush cast 12, Clinton 37, George Bush the Elder 44 (in just one term), Ronald Reagan 78. FDR still holds the record with a whopping 635!) Failure of the Republican Congress to dump spending bills in Obama’s lap continues to give him a free ride while degrading the GOP brand and spurring Republicans’ intra-party bloodletting.
Observers of this failure often blame the “Democratic filibuster†in the Senate for blocking House-passed legislation. (A Google News search of “Democratic filibuster†yields over a thousand hits.) Some deride Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for failing to apply the “nuclear option†used in 2013 on Executive nominations by his Democratic predecessor, Harry Reid. It’s a step Republicans are loath to take in anticipation of the day they are back in the minority.
But the fact is, there is no Democratic filibuster in the Senate. The filibuster in its classic form – a tag-team of minority-party Senators inveighing at length on the floor to delay a vote they are sure to lose – hasn’t existed for decades. (The commendable filibuster-like speeches by GOP Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz in 2013 were essentially dramatizations.) Today, the proximate obstacle to getting legislation through the Senate with a simple majority of 51 votes is cloture, specifically Senate Rule XXII, which provides for limiting debate following a vote of three-fifths of Senators present. Ironically intended as a means to streamline Senate business, in practice Rule XXII means not much can get done without a 60-vote super-majority.
The cloture rule enables a lazy man’s filibuster. It allows a minority (today, the Democrats) of 41 Senators to “filibuster†a bill – including spending bills that ax funds for Obamacare, Planned Parenthood, etc. – from the comfort of their offices or fundraising receptions. They don’t have to haul their carcasses down to the Senate floor and speechify as long as their feet and bladders can hold out before they eventually have to fold and a simple majority vote proceeds.
Let’s stop making it easy for them. The Senate should revoke Rule XXII and go back to the archetypal filibuster that generally existed in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Set up the cots in rooms abutting the Senate chamber, empty the spittoons, send out the Sergeant-at-Arms to round up stragglers! It’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington on live TV! Especially with C-SPAN coverage, let’s see how much time Democrats want to burn defending Obama’s enormities in front of the nation – and then make ‘em vote, up-or-down.
A return to the old-timey real-life filibuster would be magnificent political theater and valuable public education on the issues. It would also respect the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body’s tradition of affording the minority their right of unlimited debate while allowing for an eventual majoritarian vote to proceed. Best of all, it would provide a much better chance of throwing the dead cat of the spending issue on Barack Obama’s desk, where it belongs.
MY PLEDGE: Presiding over the Senate is the Vice President’s only specified Constitutional duty [Art. I, Sec. 3, Cl. 4], yet no incumbent in that office has assiduously applied himself to that task. If I am selected for the Republican Vice Presidential nomination and am privileged to assume that august post in January 2017, I pledge to be the most active President of the Senate in American history, in which my almost 18 years of experience working at the U.S. Senate will serve me in good stead. I further pledge to use my influence as presiding officer to ensure, without favor or bias, full and fair debate of public business followed by a simple majority vote.
This TheJIM!gram© is being tweeted to each of the Republican Presidential candidates.
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If you liked this TheJIM!gram©, please endorse me for Vice President by tweeting with the hashtag #JimJatrasVeep. I am more than pleased to answer non-frivolous media questions about issues of public interest. Tweet me at @JimJatras. Contributions to support my issue education and public information activities can be made at www.repealfatca.com, and purchases of my unique phonetic conversion font www.EurAlfabet.com are appreciated. If you didn’t like this TheJIM!gram©, then just mind your own business.
I am pro-life, pro-gun, pro-traditional marriage, pro-immigration control, anti-war, pro-privacy, pro-tax reform, anti-phony ‘free trade’ deals. We need to feel like Americans again!
The JIM! HE’S SECOND TO ONE
“TheJIM!gram†Copyright © 2015 Jim Jatras. All rights reserved.
The Republican Congress just took a dive and handed Obama a two-year budget OKing all his spending priorities. But that does not eliminate the need -- or the duty -- of Congress to ax from spending bills funding for Obamacare, Planned Parenthood, amnesty and anti-gun policies via Executive Order, etc. The problem is that the GOP leadership is afraid to chop funding in the House because they know Democrats would kill it in the Senate, thus freeing Obama from any blame for a government shutdown. But the much-cited "Democratic filibuster" is a myth. The real problem is CLOTURE. This can be fixed, giving Congress a much stronger hand with Obama. In this TheJIM!gram, I explain how with the benefit of my almost 18 years working at the Senate.
See www.repealfatca.com for more information and my contacts.
That’s not even the whole thing either, I bet. Obama probably has dirt on literally every single politician. Say if this was Obama’s second election, and he wanted to be reelected, he’d be putting out dirt on every single candidate. Probably go so far as find pictures of them wearing silly T-shirts.
ping!
Not sure Free Republic serves as a kick off point for pols, or campaign stops either.
Great message but pimping your own .com blog is frowned upon around here. I’m really certain about that if you get my drift.
Buy a clue before you proceed.
Thank you bkopto.
Relax, as soon as Cruz/Trump is sworn in Yertle and Boner 2.0 will bring it back!
The filibuster is for the minority in Congress to use. the Democrats don’t use it as much as the Republicans. I say good.
Exactly. The author is 100% correct. They need to put an end to fake "filibusters". Make the bastards who want to stand up for the murders in planned parenthood stand on the floor talking until their eyes fall out.
I understand that Free Republic is a place to post and discuss items of interest to conservatives and patriots. I am not sure why an author’s posting original material would be “pimping” as opposed to posting someone else’s work. If I am violating a rule of the site, I will certainly correct my mistake.
It is my hope to bring to the attention of FReepers thoughts based on my experience not readily found elsewhere. Case in point regarding the current posting, there are tons of items repeating parrot-like “Democratic filibuster” — how many have you seen explaining that cloture is the real issue? My intent is to avoid same-old, same-old. We’ll see if I succeed.
As for being a “pol” making “campaign stops,” at my site www.repealfatca.com please note an interview with me posted in ABC News. (”Meet the Man You’ve Never Heard of Who Desperately Wants to Be Vice President” Not my headline, by the way. I would have said “diligently,” not “desperately.”) I am not a politician and am not (yet) a declared candidate. I have publicly expressed an interest in the GOP Vice Presidential in large part because no one else has — in *either* party, ever, as far as I can tell. Accordingly, as exceedingly small as my chances might be (though probably no worse than Sen. Lindsey Graham’s chances of getting the Presidential nod), announcing my Veep availability seemed a good perspective from which to speak out on issues, which is my main interest. Keep in mind that there are no Vice Presidential primaries nor any pre-nomination debates. Hence, no need for candidacy or “campaign stops.”
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