Repubicans can thwart "moderate's" strategy
The gang of 12 conspiracy to invoke cloture and avoid the nuclear option has a flaw. Six Republicans could vote against cloture, thwarting the plan and giving Frist the opportunity to call for a vote prohibiting filibusters of judicial nominees. There has been some suggestions that the Democrats might attempt to avoid this vote by all voting for cloture. Because of the Democrat's minority status, the Republicans could still thwart that strategy. One thing that has become pretty clear is that once the rule change has been approved the Democrats will have lost all their leverage. The reason why they have lost is because they tried to over play a weak hand.
The Democrat's slippery slope argument only has merit, if you think the Republicans will want to change the filibuster rule again. They may, very well do that if the Democrats attempt to filibuster the Bolten nomination. While I would like to see the filibuster removed entirely, apparently the Republicans want to leave it in effect for legislation. The rule makes a little more sense in the legislative area, because the minority can then negotiate a compromise to make the legislation acceptable. It makes no sense on confirmation votes, because the nominee is either acceptable or he is not. It is impossible for a person to compromise who he is.
The reason why I would like to see the rule abolished is because it is anti democratic and is used to thwart the will of the people as expressed in elections. By doing away with the rule, it makes the election process more important forcing voters to be more focused on the choices they are making. Obviously removing it may lead to changes that are bad for the country, but that is why we have elections every two years to correct things.
When Democrats talk about the traditions of the Senate and the filibuster, they leave out the history of over a 100 years of using the device to avoid the results of the southern states losing the civil war. While Robert Byrd maybe proud of that tradition since he was a participant, no one else should be.
Has anyone done a study of how many times the filibuster has been used and which party was trying to avoid change? My guess is that it was almost always Democrats fighting progress.
The gang of 12 conspiracy to invoke cloture and avoid the nuclear option has a flaw. Six Republicans could vote against cloture, thwarting the plan and giving Frist the opportunity to call for a vote prohibiting filibusters of judicial nominees. There has been some suggestions that the Democrats might attempt to avoid this vote by all voting for cloture. Because of the Democrat's minority status, the Republicans could still thwart that strategy. One thing that has become pretty clear is that once the rule change has been approved the Democrats will have lost all their leverage. The reason why they have lost is because they tried to over play a weak hand.
The Democrat's slippery slope argument only has merit, if you think the Republicans will want to change the filibuster rule again. They may, very well do that if the Democrats attempt to filibuster the Bolten nomination. While I would like to see the filibuster removed entirely, apparently the Republicans want to leave it in effect for legislation. The rule makes a little more sense in the legislative area, because the minority can then negotiate a compromise to make the legislation acceptable. It makes no sense on confirmation votes, because the nominee is either acceptable or he is not. It is impossible for a person to compromise who he is.
The reason why I would like to see the rule abolished is because it is anti democratic and is used to thwart the will of the people as expressed in elections. By doing away with the rule, it makes the election process more important forcing voters to be more focused on the choices they are making. Obviously removing it may lead to changes that are bad for the country, but that is why we have elections every two years to correct things.
When Democrats talk about the traditions of the Senate and the filibuster, they leave out the history of over a 100 years of using the device to avoid the results of the southern states losing the civil war. While Robert Byrd maybe proud of that tradition since he was a participant, no one else should be.
Has anyone done a study of how many times the filibuster has been used and which party was trying to avoid change? My guess is that it was almost always Democrats fighting progress.
Comments
Post a Comment