{"id":2507,"date":"2013-07-11T13:41:14","date_gmt":"2013-07-11T13:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/?p=2507"},"modified":"2013-07-11T13:41:14","modified_gmt":"2013-07-11T13:41:14","slug":"go-ahead-nuke-the-filibuster-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=2507","title":{"rendered":"Go ahead, nuke the filibuster rules"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is threatening to drop the \u201cnuclear option\u201d on a rule governing Senate filibusters.<\/p>\n

He should carry out his threat if his \u201cfriends\u201d on the other side, Republican senators, continue to deny President Obama the chance to fill his team with folks who share his world view.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/registerguard.com\/rg\/opinion\/30141958-78\/democrats-filibuster-republicans-senate-president.html.csp<\/a><\/p>\n

The filibuster is a legitimate tool that minority members \u2013 in this case, Republicans \u2013 use to their advantage. It can be used to stop nominees who aren\u2019t qualified or who have political baggage that senators deem unacceptable. It\u2019s been abused by both sides over many decades.<\/p>\n

But as the Eugene (Ore.) Register-Guard editorial notes, Republicans have elevated the abuse in recent times to \u201can art form.\u201d <\/p>\n

Reid is considering whether to toss out the 60-vote rule to end filibusters and rely instead on a simple majority, 51 senators, to break it. Democrats \u2013 and their \u201cindependent\u201d colleagues \u2013 have 55 votes in the Senate. The rule change would apply only to non-judicial appointments. As it stands now, the Obama administration has several key appointments awaiting confirmation votes simply because Republicans have launched filibusters to prevent those votes from occurring.<\/p>\n

Reid says he\u2019s serious. He won\u2019t get any help, of course, from Texas\u2019s two Republican senators \u2013 John Cornyn and Ted Cruz \u2013 both of whom have been near the head of the pack in leading these filibusters against virtually all of President Obama\u2019s appointees.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve long thought much of presidential prerogative. The president is the one elected leader selected by a majority vote of all Americans. Thus, that individual is entitled to be surrounded by like-minded individuals to help guide and shape U.S. political and governmental policy. Denying the president even an up-or-down vote by invoking dubious and often phony concerns is an abuse of the system.<\/p>\n

It has to stop.<\/p>\n

Go for it, Mr. Majority Leader.<\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is threatening to drop the \u201cnuclear option\u201d on a rule governing Senate filibusters. He should carry out his threat if his \u201cfriends\u201d on the other side, Republican senators, continue to deny President Obama the chance to fill his team with folks who share his world view. http:\/\/registerguard.com\/rg\/opinion\/30141958-78\/democrats-filibuster-republicans-senate-president.html.csp The … Continue reading Go ahead, nuke the filibuster rules<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2507\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}