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On CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, Nikki Haley made the following remarks about a potential federal abortion law: For a national standard, I think we have to tell the American people the truth. In order to do a national standard, you’d have to have a majority of the House, 60 Senate votes, and a president. We haven’t had 60 pro-life senators in 100 years. So the idea that a Republican president could ban all abortions is not being honest with the American people, any more than a Democrat president could ban these pro-life laws in the states. […] I’m...

“Failure is not an option for the democracy of America,” the New York Democrat said at a Tuesday press conference with other Senate Democrats. “We’re running out of time.” Schumer has repeatedly vowed in recent days to pass voting rights legislation, and if it is blocked by Republicans as expected, to consider a change in the Senate’s current filibuster rules. The evenly divided Senate requires 60 votes for legislation to advance, and Democrats have talked about a carve-out for voting rights, a talking filibuster or some other kind of revision short of entirely killing the filibuster. But Schumer also faced...

VP Harris said US will be 'off the map as a role model' if Republicans sink voting rights bill...Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas chastised the White House's efforts to advance the Democrats' sweeping voting rights legislation on Monday, calling it an "assault" on the U.S. election system and a "threat" to democracy at large. "The American people are tired of the swamp games and Democrats are starting to show exactly how they feel about our democracy," Roy told "Fox News Primetime" Monday evening.... ...Roy chastised Harris for spearheading the election overhaul legislation, arguing that she and President Biden have waged war...

Sen. Mitt Romney is defending the Senate filibuster as Democrats look to eliminate or find ways around the rule that continues to blunt their agenda. And one of the arguments the Utah Republican uses against the idea is the “reasonable chance” that Donald Trump could be elected president and Republicans could control both houses in Congress in 2024. “Have Democrats thought through what it would mean for them for Trump to be entirely unrestrained, with the Democratic minority having no power whatsoever? If Democrats eliminate the filibuster now, they — and the country — may soon regret it very much,”...

WASHINGTON — Republican Sen. Mitt Romney on Sunday defended the filibuster and blasted Democrats calling for its elimination, dismissing their latest discussion to end it in order to pass voting rights legislation as "an unserious partisan effort aimed at messaging and energizing that party's base." "The need to marshal 60 votes to end a filibuster requires compromise and middle ground. It not only empowers the minority but also has helped to keep us centered, fostering the stability and predictability essential to investment in people, in capital and in the future," Romney, a moderate Republican who represents Utah, wrote in an...

Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) blocked an effort by Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) to bypass the 60-vote legislative filibuster on a debt ceiling hike. Schumer tried to get an agreement to set up a simple majority vote on a bill to suspend the nation's borrowing limit, which would bypass the filibuster and let Democrats raise it without GOP support. "Simply allow for a simple majority threshold to raise the debt ceiling and avoid this needless catastrophe that Republicans have steered us toward," Schumer said.

A Monmouth University poll reported Thursday 52 percent of Americans support the Senate filibuster when used to block tax increases. The polls asked whether the filibuster should be used to block “tax rate change” legislation. In this instance, the majority of Americans support the filibuster.

Moderate Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) wrote Wednesday he would oppose any attempt of his party to “eliminate or weaken the filibuster” or abuse the scheme of reconciliation. “The filibuster is a critical tool to protecting that input and our democratic form of government. That is why I have said it before and will say it again to remove any shred of doubt: There is no circumstance in which I will vote to eliminate or weaken the filibuster,” Manchin bluntly stated to the Washington Post.

Democrats’ push to eliminate the filibuster will “steamroll the interests” of Middle America, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said Monday. “A key purpose of the Senate was to ensure all parts of the country have a voice,” the 79-year-old legislator said. “Leaders from New York and California want to break the Senate’s rules on legislation because they want to steamroll the interests of Kentucky and Middle America”:

It's time, once again, to hail the important and historic progress being made in the Republican-held United States Senate on the judicial confirmation front.  Having adopted and modestly expanded Democrats' endless and ends-oriented power grabs of years past, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has wisely prioritized the reshaping of the federal judiciary.  He and his conference have steadily and diligently worked to tip the balance away from the Obama-era deluge of liberal judges, and toward constitutionalism.  No recent partnership in Washington has been more lastingly impactful than the Trump-McConnell alliance, resulting in this ongoing generational shift -- and with all the...

Thursday, March 16, 2017 The Leahy Rules for Supreme Court Confirmation Mean Gorsuch Must Be Confirmed In preparation for the Gorsuch hearing next week, we thought we would mention some of the Democrat Rules for confirmation of a Supreme Court Justice from their most senior member. The Leahy Rule (Part 1) on the President’s power to pick a Supreme Court Justice. And I think as members of the [Judiciary] Committee, we should respect the mandate the president has earned. The president had told us in 1980 and 1984 he would appoint judges of his philosophy. He was given a mandate...

Democrats tend to love sneaky lawyer tricks because their side is so good at them. The passage of Obamacare under the Senate rules governing “reconciliation” is the most prominent example of creatively applying the rules to get what they want. But it turns out that there are some really smart and creative legal minds on the GOP side, and now that the GOP runs the Senate, the sauce for the Democrat goose also flavors the Republican gander, if that isn’t too disagreeable an abuse of metaphorical license. Ted Cruz is one such legal mind; in the words of legendary Harvard...

Here is a (hopefully) simple explanation of what happened today and what can be expected. The "filibuster" was Cruze's only chance to make a statement. The vote today was to start debate on the House CR bill. It passed (as was expected). In the next step of the process, Harry Reid will introduce an amendment that strips out the language de-funding Obamacare. This will happen during debate this week. There will be another vote on Friday or Saturday to accept the "Senate Version" of the CR (Continuing Resolution Budget Bill). We will have to filibuster that (a real filibuster) to...

Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) lashed out at Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) on Friday, saying House Republicans were “tired of being abused” by the Tea Party favorite who talks big about defunding ObamaCare but won’t “get in the ring” now that it’s time to fight. “You should’ve been on the floor and back in the Cloak Room," Duffy said Friday on MSNBC’s "Morning Joe," referring to the atmosphere among House Republicans this week during discussions on a stopgap spending bill that defunds the healthcare law. "There was so much anger, so much frustration, because again, we’ve been abused by these guys...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) sustained a marathon talking attack on President Obama’s health-care law overnight and well into Wednesday morning — a feat of stamina that likely will complicate House GOP efforts to pass a funding bill aimed at averting a looming government shutdown. The freshman senator took the floor Tuesday afternoon promising to speak “until I am no longer able to stand,” and proceeded to do just that, with occasional assistance from a handful of Republican colleagues. To most Americans, it looked like a traditional filibuster, fixed in the popular imagination by Jimmy Stewart’s performance in “Mr. Smith Goes...

Should Texas legislators get another bill to ban late-term abortions to the floor of the state Senate, pro-abortion lawmaker Wendy Davis says she will not filibuster the bill a second time.The bill was filed yesterday in the Texas legislature and legislators hold the first hearing on the measure today in the state House. A representative of Davis tells U.S. News and World Report that a second special session filibuster is not forthcoming.A spokesman for Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis, who stood and spoke for more than 12 hours to help kill the bill last week, says she won’t filibuster the...

Texas Lt. Governor David Dewhurst told HotAir's Ed Morrissey that his office received reports that reporters were actively encouraging and rallying pro-abortion protesters during State Sen. Wendy Davis' fillibuster last week. "We have reports and I have my staff taking a look at the video, the internet video that we keep, we store, on the proceedings that evening and if I find as I've been told examples of the media waving and trying to inflame the crowd, incite them in the direction of a riot, I'm going to take action against them. That is wrong. That's inciting a riot. That...

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Wearing pink tennis shoes to prepare for nearly 13 consecutive hours of standing, a Democratic Texas state senator on Tuesday began a one-woman filibuster to block a GOP-led effort that would impose stringent new abortion restrictions across the nation's second-most populous state.

Was it a momentous occasion Wednesday when Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) drew praise from Rush Limbaugh to Code Pink, from Van Jones to Jennifer Rubin, by forcing the Obama administration to cough up at least some ball-advancing if unsatisfying answers about how and when it feels OK about assassinating American citizens on U.S. soil? MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell thinks so. And not in a good way: "It was the first time the black-helicopter crowd out there had one of their own, speaking into a Senate microphone," O'Donnell hissed...

Sen. Rand Paul ended his self-described filibuster against the confirmation of President Obama's nominee to lead the CIA early Thursday - at 12:39 EST -- just short of thirteen hours after the Kentucky Republican and tea party favorite began speaking. But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, also a Kentucky Republican, said he would continue to oppose Brennan's confirmation and try to keep the debate going. After Paul yielded the floor, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., filed a motion to cut off debate on Brennan's nomination and bring it up for a vote....