Republicans Need a Direction

the Wall Street Journal ^ | September 25, 2014 | Peggy Noonan

[Loud Mime]

Having the majority of the Senate allows a party to decide the agenda. That is important, but it’s not “control.”

To end the debate on a legislative proposal the chamber needs to pass a cloture vote, which takes sixty votes. So, the party can bring up any legislation it wants, but that doesn’t mean it will receive a vote.

If your faction has sixty votes it can schedule the debate, control it, and pass any bill it wants. it has full control of the chamber, not a fraction of it.

http://www.senate.gov/reference/reference_index_subjects/Cloture_vrd.htm

[Loud Mime]

Is it fair to say that the Democrats control the Senate today?

No. It's an inaccurate statement. The Democrats control some actions of the Senate, not all. See above.

[VRW Conspirator]

Eloquently stated. An Article V COS is a last best hope of placing a viable redoubt to the tyranny of the ruling class, IMO. The Repub leadership is afraid of the conservative message because they cannot sell it. The have trouble with it because they do not believe in it.

[Alberta's Child]

To end the debate on a legislative proposal the chamber needs to pass a cloture vote, which takes sixty votes. So, the party can bring up any legislation it wants, but that doesn’t mean it will receive a vote.

Right. And this is why voters have no enthusiasm for Republican candidates in the 2014 Senate races. There are too many of those jack@sses who cast cloture votes to bring legislation to a vote in the full Senate, then turned around and voted against the bill just so they could go back home and tell their constituents that they "opposed Harry Reid's Democratic agenda." If they really opposed the proposed legislation they could have blocked it in a cloture vote, but they didn't.

No principled voter needs that kind of two-bit fraud in the U.S. Senate.

P.S. I'd point out that there is no constitutional basis for a "cloture vote" at all. It isn't mentioned anywhere in the U.S. Constitution, and it's really just a relic of Senate rules that can be changed at any time.

[Loud Mime]

Actually, there is a constitutional basis for a cloture vote, in Article I, Section 5, where each Chamber may make its own rules.

I do wonder when cloture was brought up. I have some old Senate rules manuals from some 100 years ago; I’ll check them out today - I’m selling books at a gun show, so will have some time.

IMHO Cloture has its good uses, but should not be used in confirming appointments by the Executive.

[DaveA37]

Any republican potential leader that comes along with a few good ideas is quickly relished to the basement. The Rhino’s do NOT want anyone upsetting their apple cart and cushy way of life, NO SIR they do not!

[eartick]

Very good point

[Alberta's Child]

Sure -- there is a "constitutional" basis in a sense that it's a legitimate procedural matter.

But the cloture vote rule can be changed without an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It's just a rule, and that's it. It's no different than any other rule the Senate uses -- and there are probably hundreds of them.

[nathanbedford]

I don't see the point of the semantic debate. We both clearly agree that the Democrats presently control to some degree the United States Senate and, presumably, the Republicans to some degree controlled the Senate under Bush.

The point of our discussion of Senate control whether perfect for all purposes or for only limited purposes, is to impose electoral responsibility on that political party. When Republicans enjoyed some degree of control, they failed to exercise it, they failed to advance a conservative agenda to the satisfaction of the electorate.

Today when the Senate is "controlled" to a degree by the Democrats, they have effectively blocked any Republican reforms emanating from the house or in their own ranks, have changed the rules of the Senate to their advantage, and have prevailed on virtually every issue.

Also to the point, when the Democrats had "control", whether perfect or imperfect, of both houses in the first two years of the Obama administration, they advanced their agenda appreciably. They even managed to overcome their imperfect control by finessing Obamacare.

The difference is a concerted purpose on the part of Democrats and a defensive inert posture on the part of Republicans.

[The_Republic_Of_Maine]

Republicans Need a Direction

C;lose and secure our borders, all four of them, not just the mexican border, but both coast and the Canadian border. Then do as Eisenhower did, round up every illegal and send them home, and then simultaneously, arrest ever treasonous scum who allowed our borders to be infiltrated and try them for treason.

[TBP]

They have a direction -- the WRONG ONE: towards Big Government on a little bit of a budget. (We're Republicans. We booked our Big Government on Hotwire.)

[drellberg]

I joined Free Republic many years ago, when it was a very different place with temperamentally and constitutionally very different posters. I would spend many hours every week, years on end, coming to this place and engaging with others. It was sublime.

As if to prove Noonan’s point, the posts here and in most other threads are filled with rage and little else. I am reasonably confident that I agree with nearly all of the general principles held by those who now post here, as well as the overarching strategies. I surely disagree on some of the micro-tactics, but I consider us all brothers-in-arms. I am certain that most folks here would disagree on that, but no matter.

I was banned from this site for a time back in 2012 for one simple reason — Once Mitt Romney became the Republican Party’s nominee, I wrote that I felt that it was necessary and expedient to support him. I wrote that there was and is a stark difference between Romney and Obama and that all of us should be clear on what an Obama presidency would mean for our country and the world.

That isn’t such a radical position, or at least it would not have been on FR in 2004 or 2006.

A lot of what Noonan writes is obvious. Some of it is mistaken, condescending, ... And yet on the core proposition, she is proven right by thread after thread that look just like this. We need to replace anger with affirmation and partisan rigor and optimism ... we need a large enough coalition that we can win elections consistently and decisively.

We need to think more like Jack Kemp and Ronald Reagan.

[abclily]

That’s what my Daddy used to say after watching the evening news on a black and white TV, “Send all them fellers home!”

[skinkinthegrass]

Sir, Your succinct mssg. (hopefully) shall result in a series of nasty welds on the back
sides of those whom resist real change, per the USoA Constitution and the BoR. 📃

[Will we know the moment]

Didn’t Bush put Roberts on the bench. Same difference.