Posted on 11/19/2013 12:51:18 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced Tuesday that he is looking at reforming Senate rules to prevent Republicans from filibustering President Obama’s judicial nominees.
“I’m at the point where we need to do something to allow government to function,” Reid said when asked if he would consider using the so-called nuclear option, a controversial procedural tactic for changing Senate rules. “I’m considering looking at the rules.”
The seldom-used tactic would allow Democrats to change the Senate’s rules with a simple-majority vote.
“The founding fathers never had in place in the Constitution about filibusters or extended debate,” he told reporters. “This country operated fairly well for 140 years without filibuster protection.”
Reid said he will insist that Republicans allow up-or-down votes on all three of Obama’s nominees to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals: Patricia Millet, Cornelia Pillard and Robert Wilkins.
“I insist on all three of these qualified — look at their educational background, look at their experience in the law, look at their moral integrity,” he said. “Why should we agree to something less than the law of the country?”
There are three vacancies currently on the 11-seat D.C. Circuit.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) acknowledged Tuesday that Reid could change the rules with a simple majority vote.
But he characterized the controversial tactic as flying in the face of Senate comity.
“We know full well the majority could decide to break the rules to change the rules if they so chose,” he said.
Says the guy with a bunch of bills that Congress has already passed sitting on his desk collecting dust.
We could benefit from a 2/3s consensus in each chamber to issue new laws. We have more than enough Laws already.
Then when Democraps are defeated in the Senate next year, ...
CALL THIS BA6TARD’S BLUFF!
With many pundits now saying the 2014 Midterm leans Republican, I DARE this putrid sack of alpaca cheese to change the rules.
Would it not be justice to make Reid the minority leader, with him having stripped his own power?
Didn’t Reid go absolutly bonkers when Republicans suggested this very thing during the Bush administration.
I was about to say that some citizens need to go nuclear on several of the DEMs, including the POSPOTUS, but any more detail than that will get this post deleted. Heck, it still might. FR has lost a lot of spine in the 13 years I have been here.
Where’s John McCain to swing in to form some kind of gang to sell out the conservatives and help the liberals?
the burly sloth creeps out from the crypt keepers mouth
This will make it easier to repeal Obamcare with 51 votes in 2017.
Even so, Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) has promised to advance the nomination of Judge Robert Wilkins, currently a Judge on the D.C. District court. There is no reason for the Senate to treat the Wilkins nomination any differently than it did the first two. The same reasons that caused the Senate to block the first two nominations still apply—specifically the court’s low workload, the high institutional costs of inflating the bench with unneeded jurists, and the unacceptability of nominating judges to alter judicial outcomes.
The truth is that Democrats want to remake the D.C. Circuit to give the President a regulatory blank check. The President did not announce three D.C. Circuit nominees on one day out of concern for the volume of cases the court hears. All the White House cares about is the survival of its aggressive regulatory agenda. That is why Senator Reid told Nevada Public Radio, “We’re focusing very intently on the D.C. Circuit. We need at least one more. There’s three vacancies, we need at least one more and that will switch the majority.”
The irony in all of this is that, despite highly selective criticism of certain hot-button decisions, the D.C. Circuit has affirmed the Obama administration’s regulations slightly more than it did Bush era regulations. According to the federal courts’ statistics, the D.C. Circuit reversed administrative agencies in 16.7 percent of the cases it decided during the 2009-2012 reporting years. From 2001-2008, it reversed administrative agencies in 18.8% of the cases it decided. The court continues its work, steadily, non-ideologically, and with collegiality from one administration to the next..............."
Go for it, Harry. See if you have the votes.
F-off Dingy. You get nothing you sorry piece of scum.
“..“The founding fathers never had in place in the Constitution about filibusters or extended debate,”...
Hey Reid, you don’t know shi...er...Obamastuff about the founding fathers. They’ve been dead for centuries and still have more IQ than you.
Shove it up your aging Obamahole, quite breathing, and help to raise the IQ of the country.
Because of you, the word “senator” is more closely associated with feces than it is with human beings.
>>Then when Democraps are defeated in the Senate next year,
By putting forth this action he is as much as admitting that they need to do this now because they won’t have the votes next year!
Ya, do it Harry, I dare you.
Let’s all ask Sen. Kagan how she stands on this pile of Obama.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.