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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced on Thursday morning that he will “go nuclear” by changing the Senate rules to end filibusters of President Obama’s judicial nominees, except for the Supreme Court.
The Republican minority has blocked the appointments of Robert Wilkins, Nina Pillard and Patricia Millett, all of the president’s appointments to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, from receiving an up-or-down vote. All of President George W. Bush’s six appointments to the court were approved by the upper house of Congress. Due to the court’s seniority system, its power is heavily tilted to Republican appointees.
Rather than allowing a vote on these nominations, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) called for the vacant seats to be removed from the court.
Before President Obama was elected, three judges to the federal court of appeals had their nominations filibustered, Reid noted. A total of 20 Obama’s nominations had been blocked.
Reid listed a litany of obstruction by Republicans in the Senate, including the unprecedented attempt to use the requirement for 60 votes to eliminate a part of the executive branch, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the attempt to block a Republican nominee for the Secretary of Defense and the successful filibuster of a sitting member of the House of Representatives.
More than half of the 168 filibusters in the history of the United States have happened during the Obama administration, he noted. In addition, 75 of Obama’s executive branch nominees are still waiting for confirmation—and they’ve been waiting for 140 days, on average.
“The American people think the Senate is broken,” Reid said, before noting that Democrats have played a part in escalating the use of filibusters.
“It’s time to change the Senate before it becomes obsolete,” he said.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) responded to the majority leader’s speech by accusing Democrats of trying to change the subject from the failure of the Affordable Care Act
http://www.nationalmemo.com/citing-u...ll-go-nuclear/
Harry found his balls! The only way to deal with Repug crazies is to out-crazy them.
passed
http://a57.foxnews.com/www.foxnews.c...121_132239.jpg
eat MY FOX, and all you Repugs and tea baggers here, and everywhere.
http://www.volokh.com/2013/11/21/time-go-nuclear/The current super-majority requirement for judicial nominations, combined with the application of interest-group litmus tests on judicial ideology, has made it increasingly difficult to confirm high caliber judicial nominees, particularly if they have ever been involved in any controversial issue. The current confirmation gauntlet has discouraged Presidents from nominating many high-quality nominees (Conspirators perhaps?), and deterred others from accepting nominations if asked. It has also furthered the politicization of the judiciary by making confirmation contingent upon satisfying a minority of the Senate.
The filibuster of judicial nominees is bad for the courts. It was a bad thing when first used against Miguel Estrada, and it is bad now. Of course it’s rich for Senator Reid and his colleagues to complain about the use of a tactic they themselves deployed with relish (and used to defeat just as many nominees), but that’s politics (and Kerr’s law). I have no idea how Senate Republicans are likely to respond if Senator Reid pulls the trigger, and how this could effect the ability of the Senate to conduct other business, but I won’t shed a tear for the end of judicial obstruction. So go ahead Harry, make my day. I am sure the next President will appreciate it.
Celebrate while you can
Only if the Repugs' voter suppression and gerrymandering works beyond red states. VA, Repugs losing all 5 statewide offices, should be good omen for all purple statesCelebrate while you can
What I'd like to see next is limiting states to one senator if their population is below some %age of the total population, to really over the underpopulated, rural western red states, to make the Senate somewhat more a proportional representation body.
Last edited by boutons_deux; 11-21-2013 at 03:40 PM.
Filibuster changes, governors underscore exodus from Washington
Events Thursday brought more evidence of why much of the 2014 campaign will feature candidates fleeing, figuratively or literally, from Washington.
In the Senate, supposedly the more collegial of the two houses of Congress, bitterness seethed beneath the veneer of civility as majority Democrats and minority Republicans fought over a filibuster rule that has, depending on the viewpoint, given voice to the outnumbered or contributed mightily to paralysis on things like presidential appointments.
“Can anyone say the Senate is working now? I don’t think so,” said Harry Reid, the Nevada senator and majority leader who edged into country-song territory to lament the “wasted hours and wasted days” caused, he said, by Republican obstructionism.
“It only reinforces the narrative of a party that is willing to do and say just about anything to get its way,” McConnell said, neatly encapsulating what Americans believe about both sides.
bull , false equivalance from the short-timer McConnell
Republican governors, meeting in distant Arizona, took pains to contrast Washington and their statehouses, which they described as the places where things were getting done, according to an account by Real Clear Politics.
"We're going to run on our record. I'm very proud of that," said Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, who faces a stiff reelection fight in 2014. "We said we were going to do these things and we've done them largely. Isn't that what you should want?"
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/1780/article/p2p-78278710/
Last edited by boutons_deux; 11-21-2013 at 03:16 PM.
Obama Applauds Senate For Changing Filibuster Rules
President Barack Obama praised the Senate for changing filibuster rules on Thursday, lauding “the step that a majority of senators took today to change the way Washington does business.”
“An unprecedented pattern of obstruction in Congress has prevented too much of the American people’s business from getting done,” the president told reporters in the White House briefing room.
“Today’s pattern of obstruction is not normal,” he added. “It’s not what our founders envisioned.”
The rule change — commonly referred to as the “nuclear option” — allows a simple majority to end filibusters on executive and lower court nominees, as opposed to the previous standard of three-fifths (usually equal to 60 votes). According to the president, the new rules will improve the legislative process.
“If you’ve got a majority of folks who believe in something, then it should be able to pass,” he said. “The gears of government have to work. And the step that the majority of senators took today, I think, will help make those gears work just a little bit better.”
http://www.nationalmemo.com/watch-ob...ibuster-rules/
Now to fill every open federal judgeship with progressives, same with his 120 govt positions that have been blocked.
I figure some Hatriots will start shooting at Dems.
http://news.yahoo.com/filibuster-rea...184412234.html
On Monday, for the third time in less than a month, Senate Republicans filibustered an Obama nominee to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. That’s the court that’s checked the president more than once, as when it said he couldn’t make “recess appointments” when the Senate wasn’t in recess. So in a Tuesday closed-door lunch, Reid moved closer to ending the practice, and it’s reported he picked up crucial support from California Democratic senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer along with Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy among others.
The hypocrisy here should not go unnoticed. Although the filibuster for legislation has a long history, prior to 2003 it was seldom used to block executive-branch nominations — and appellate-court nominees in particular. In fact, Democrats themselves began using it this way in the 108th Congress, after they lost the Senate in the 2002 midterm elections. Here’s the backstory.
Start with Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court’s December 2000 decision that effectively decided the presidential outcome, creating a firestorm among Democrats, especially among the legal professoriate. On January 13, 2001, for example, 554 professors from 120 law schools took out a full-page ad in the New York Times condemning the Court’s majority for having acted not as judges but as “political proponents for candidate Bush.” And at a Democratic retreat a month later Yale’s Bruce Ackerman urged members not to confirm a single Bush nominee for the Supreme Court until after the 2004 elections.
Democrats got their break in May when Vermont senator James Jeffords left the Republican party. That switched control of the Senate to the Democrats, who immediately turned their attention to the eleven appellate court nominees then before the Senate Judiciary Committee, two of them Democrats — a gesture from Bush. Those two were immediately confirmed. The rest would not even get hearings. Instead, Democrats began calling for “litmus tests” — explicit demands that nominees state their views on everything from abortion to affirmative action to Congress’s unquestioned power to regulate anything and everything.
But the near lock-down on appellate-court nominations did not end with the 2002 midterm elections, which switched control of the Senate back to the Republicans. It was then that Senate Democrats began the unprecedented filibustering of appellate-court nominations. The most egregious case was that of Miguel Estrada, whose life story was pure American dream. First nominated by President Bush in May 2001, Estrada finally withdrew his name from further consideration some 27 months later, after seven failed cloture votes in the next, 108th Congress.
Things came to a head early in the 109th Congress when Republicans themselves, still in control of the Senate, threatened finally to “go nuclear” — to end the appellate-court filibusters Democrats had introduced only in the previous Congress. That was headed off when the bipartisan “Gang of 14” reached a compromise: Democrats would filibuster nominees only in “extraordinary cir stances,” they agreed, and Republicans would not use the nuclear option. That compromise held for the rest of the 109th Congress — though not without difficulties — but it became moot after Democrats regained control of the Senate following the 2006 midterm elections since they no longer needed to filibuster Bush nominees.
In sum, after the 2000 election was decided, Senate Democrats sat on their hands for two years as Bush appellate-court nominees twisted in the wind. In the minority after the 2002 elections, those Democrats then initiated the filibuster for many of Bush’s nominees. Only after the 2005 Gang of 14 compromise was imposed did things settle down. And after the 2006 elections, Democrats no longer needed to filibuster.
So is the Republican use of the filibuster today simply fair turn-around — with Democrats in no position to complain when Republicans use tactics they themselves introduced? If so, that would be enough to illustrate the hypocrisy of today’s Democratic protests. But that’s not what’s at issue here. In the D.C. Circuit matter, which has driven Senator Reid to the nuclear option, Republicans are not raising ideological objections to Obama’s nominees — as Democrats did when they filibustered Bush’s picks. Their objection, rather, is that these judges are not needed, because the workload of the court is so light. In fact, speaking of hypocrisy, Democrats, in the minority in the 109th Congress, used that very rationale to urge Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter in a July 2006 letter not to confirm any additional Bush nominees to the D.C. Circuit — and none was confirmed after that letter from Senators Leahy, Feinstein, Schumer, and Durbin was sent, all of whom are still on the committee. Yet now, when the court’s workload is even lighter, Democrats cry foul when Republicans point that out.
In fact, look at the numbers from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. In 2006, written decisions per active judge had declined by 17 percent since 1997. Since 2006 they have declined another 27 percent. In 2006, the total number of appeals filed had declined by 10 percent since 1997. Since 2006 they have declined another 18 percent. The Administrative Office ranks the twelve circuits using various caseload benchmarks: 2013 is the 17th straight year that the office has ranked the D.C. Circuit last on both appeals being filed and appeals being terminated. There simply is no need for more judges on the D.C. Circuit when those there now do not have enough to do — unless, of course, the aim is to have a bench more sympathetic to rule by presidential diktat, which may be precisely why Senator Reid wants to go nuclear.
yep, that's the right wing LIE of a talking point: we conservatives control that court (and have blocked Dem nominations), so there's no need for more (Dem) nominations
Harry Reid and Senate's gonna all y'all real hard and deep approving ALL of Obama's nominees.
it's gonna be great fun watching all the Repugs trying to handle getting ed, whining and moaning in "OUTRAGED, I TELL YA" by the Dems and Barry
eat , Repugs, tea baggers, rednecks, Koch-suckers
how it feel when Y'ALL are the target of HARDBALL KICKASS politics? Feels great, don't it, having Harry Reid's up your ass?
Hypocritical pieces of . What's new.
It's unfortunate it had to come to this imo, as I like the concept of an empowered minority in the senate. That said it is amusing watching Obama and Reid fingercuff republicans. TSA has Harry Reid in his mouth and Barry in his ass.
Hilarious to hear Repugs about Dem power grab!!
Repug NEGATIVE power grab deserves another Dem power grab.
for tat.
eat , y'all.
Repugs DARED the Dems, pushed the Dems, thought the Dems were weak, soft, "compromisers", would never NUKE the Repugs.
Well, that's just another fantasy in the Repug echo chamber laid to waste.
oh, btw, EAT , Y'ALL
I'm thinking about flipping on some Fox News tonight just to check out the butthurt tbh.
I hate liars, Republican or Democrat. I hate 99% of all politicians. This move is not good for the country and I don't find any humor in it. Before this congress couldn't get anything done, what happens now when Republicans say it, nothing leaves the House.It's unfortunate it had to come to this imo, as I like the concept of an empowered minority in the senate. That said it is amusing watching Obama and Reid fingercuff republicans. TSA has Harry Reid in his mouth and Barry in his ass.
Your at ude is a prime example of what is wrong with our two party system. You don't give a about your country, it's all just blue vs. red for you.Hilarious to hear Repugs about Dem power grab!!
Repug NEGATIVE power grab deserves another Dem power grab.
for tat.
eat , y'all.
Repugs DARED the Dems, pushed the Dems, thought the Dems were weak, soft, "compromisers", would never NUKE the Repugs.
Well, that's just another fantasy in the Repug echo chamber laid to waste.
oh, btw, EAT , Y'ALL
Don't be ridiculous. And Why no youtoobz of McConnell and the other republicans arguing FOR an up or down vote? Where there is agreement between the parties, will pass. Nothing new there. The difference is Barry will be able to appoint nominees.
What gets out of the House now besides Obamacare repeals?
Oh goodie.
We will now witness more intransigence on both sides.
hooray for discord and petty personal vendettas.
Lol enlightened progressives
Start a thread about hypocritical Republicans and I'd be more than happy to post some youtubes. This thread is not about them. If you don't think this will make the house worse you're blind. I'm assuming you voted for Obama, how does it make you feel to have supported such a two faced liar?
ah, the good old "since you're against Repugs, so you're against the country, you're not A Real American, you're a traitor."
86 filibusters against all other presidents 200+ years, 82 against Obama in 5 years.
one judge waited 17 months for confirmation, then affirmed 91 - 0. Not one Repug, nothing but bad-faith obstruction.
just GFY and fellate a gun
Going to be a long three years. Hopefully the upcoming storm we are about to witness wakes people up enough clean house on both sides.
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