Posts Tagged ‘FILIBUSTER’

4 Oct

Win Or Lose, Republicans To Target New Health-Care Law After November Elections

Posted by James O'Rourke in Politics As Usual, Poppycock. Tagged: , , .

washingtonpost.com

By N.C. Aizenman

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, October 3, 2010

“Repeal and Replace.” That’s what Republicans are saying about the new health-care law as they look toward the Nov. 2 midterm elections. If they win the House, and possibly the Senate, they say, among their top priorities will be to undo President Obama’s signature legislative achievement.

“I am committed to doing everything that I can do . . . to prevent ‘Obamacare’ from being implemented,” vowed House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (Ohio) at a recent news conference, adding, “Now, when I say everything, I mean everything.”

But even in the unlikely event that an outright repeal bill could withstand a filibuster in the Senate, there is little doubt that Obama would veto it. The odds that Republicans will win a veto-proof majority in November are generally considered slim to nil.

With a few exceptions, Republican fallback plans to target discrete provisions of the law for piecemeal elimination seem similarly doomed.

So does all this talk of rolling back the law amount to mere sloganeering?

Not necessarily. But at least during the next Congress, the true battle will probably be fought at the margins, over initiatives Republicans are planning in order to slow or disrupt the administration’s preparations for 2014, when the most far-reaching provisions of the new law will begin.

Continue reading »

3 Oct

Deficit Fraud Rand Paul On Extending Bush’s Tax Cuts: “I’m Not Seeing It As A Cost”

Posted by James O'Rourke in Federal Budget and Economy. Tagged: , , , , , , .

T R U T H O U T

Sunday 03 October 2010

by: Pat Garofalo | ThinkProgress | Report

Last month, a spokesman for Kentucky Republican Senate nominee Rand Paul said that, if elected, Paul “will vote against and filibuster any unbalanced budget proposal in the Senate.” Not only can the budget not be filibustered, but Paul is going to make balancing the budget exceedingly difficult, as he is willing to extend all of the Bush tax cuts – including those for the richest two percent of Americans – without offsetting them with spending cuts or tax increases elsewhere, for a total cost of nearly $4 trillion.

This morning, on Fox News Sunday, Paul said that his focus in the Senate would be reducing the “mountains and mountains of debt.” But when asked to square that with his desire to spend trillions of dollars on tax cuts, he replied that, when it comes to extending Bush’s tax cuts, “I’m not seeing it as a cost to government”:

Q: You said at the very beginning, the first issue you mention was the national debt. If you’re so concerned about the national debt, how are you going to pay for a $4 trillion loss of revenue from the tax cuts.

Continue reading »

19 Sep

The 100 Vote Senate

Posted by James O'Rourke in Politics As Usual, Poppycock. Tagged: , , , .

thinkprogress.org

CONGRESS

 

The 100 Vote Senate

It’s common wisdom that nothing gets done in the U.S. Senate without a 60 vote supermajority, but this common wisdom is entirely too optimistic. Although only a small minority of senators object to any one of President Obama’s judicial nominees, confirmations have slowed to such a glacial pace that Republican control over federal trial courts increased since Obama took office. Likewise, a massive 372 bills that passed House during the Obama presidency have yet to receive a vote in the Senate. Only a handful of these bills were even remotely controversial in the House, and 44 of them passed the House unanimously. Such obstruction works, even against uncontroversial bills and nominations, because the Senate’s system of filibusters, delay tactics and secret holds empowers just one senator to bring the institution to a standstill. The Senate does not operate by majority rule; It does not really even operate by supermajority rule. Increasingly, the Senate can only act unanimously.

THE TOOLS OF OBSTRUCTION:  The most valuable commodity in the Senate is not votes, it is time. Sixty senators can break a filibuster through a process known as “cloture,” but filibustering senators can force up to 30 hours of post-cloture debate once a filibuster is broken. Although 30 hours may not seem like a lot, when you multiply it across the hundreds of judges, ambassadors and other officials that require Senate confirmation — not to mention the 372 unpassed bills — it adds up to more time than there actually exists to move business forward on Continue reading »

19 Feb

Health Care Reform Back from the Dead? Obama’s Team Signals Support for Public Option; 18 Senators Sign on

Posted by James O'Rourke in Opinions and Other Issues. Tagged: , , , , .

Pressure is building in the Senate among Dems, and Obama’s Health Secretary backed government-run insurance plan if Majority Leader Harry Reid signs on to it.

February 19, 2010  |  

wpid-storyimages_picture24_1266536193_310x221-y80tc3te9ppy.jpg

 Editor’s Note: AlterNet’s Daniela Perdomo writes:

“Adding to the building pressure this week from his Senate colleagues who have openly demanded a public option in the health care reform bill, comes the news that President Obama would support a government-run insurance plan if Harry Reid signs onto it.

From Thursday’s Rachel Maddow interview with Health & Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius:

Maddow: “The private insurance company writ large hasn’t done a great job. That’s why we want a public option to compete with them. These 18 Democratic senators want to bring that back into the fold. If that happened, would the administration fight for it?”

Sebelius: “Well, I think if it’s… Certainly. If it’s part of the decision of the Senate leadership to move forward, absolutely.”

The onus is now really on the Majority Leader. As of Thursday, at least 18 senators had signed an open letter urging Reid to make the public option a necessary part of the final Senate bill.

***

The following is Sahil Kapur’s Raw Story article, edited to reflect recent developments (original here):

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has become the first member of the Democratic leadership to sign the public option letter, indicating its growing momentum.

In an email to supporters, reproduced by The Plum Line’s Greg Sargent, Schumer said victory on the provision is “far from a done deal, but it’s an opportunity to break through the obstructionism Republicans have pushed for the past year.” [...]

As of Wednesday early afternoon, nine senators had signed a letter urging passage of the public health insurance option through reconciliation. [...]

The signatories urge Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (NV) to “bring for a vote before the full Senate a public health insurance option under budget reconciliation rules.”

The public option, which has been the topic of explosive controversy throughout the health care deliberations, was passed in the House legislation but eliminated from the Senate version that was later approved.

The whole process hit a gridlock in January after the election of Republican Scott Brown to the senate, which gave the party the votes it needed to filibuster the final motion.

The letter continues, “There are four fundamental reasons why we support this approach – its potential for billions of dollars in cost savings; the growing need to increase competition and lower costs for the consumer; the history of using reconciliation for significant pieces of health care legislation; and the continued public support for a public option.”

With Republicans poised to block another senate motion, Democrats have discussed using reconciliation — which would require a simple majority of 51 senators — to amend the bill before the House holds a final vote. A December poll found that six in ten Americans support the provision.

The liberal advocacy groups Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy For America have endorsed the letter, which also encourages citizens to sign in the support of the idea. One hundred and nineteen members of Congress have also signed it.

Next Thursday President Obama will convene a bipartisan summit with Republican leaders to discuss the two parties’ differences on the legislation. After initially equivocating, Republicans have confirmed they will attend.

Daniela Perdomo is a staff writer and editor of the Progressive Wire and Investigations at AlterNet. Follow her on Twitter. Write her at danielaalternet [at] gmail [dot] com.

6 Feb

Obama suggests extending debate as way to pass health reform

Posted by James O'Rourke in Obama Administration. Tagged: , , , , , .

By Shailagh Murray

Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, February 6, 2010

President Obama sketched out an alternative approach to passing health-care legislation that would enlist Republicans and potentially extend debate into the spring, a strategy seemingly in conflict with the fast-track talks among Democrats on Capitol Hill.

Speaking to members of the Democratic National Committee on Thursday night, Obama vowed to continue his year-long quest to overhaul the nation’s health-care system, to curb rising costs and extend coverage to millions of families and individuals who don’t have it.

But he suggested a different way forward than the partisan, closed-door dealmaking underway between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.).

“What I’d like to do is have a meeting whereby I’m sitting with the Republicans, sitting with the Democrats, sitting with health-care experts, and let’s just go through these bills — their ideas, our ideas — let’s walk through them in a methodical way so that the American people can see and compare what makes the most sense,” Obama told DNC members.

Democrats spent most of 2009 crafting comprehensive bills and were on the verge of agreeing to final legislation when the party lost its filibuster-proof Senate supermajority in last month’s Massachusetts special election. Many moderate Democrats, especially in the Senate, would just as soon shelve health-care reform until after the November midterm elections. But liberals are just as determined to press ahead.

After the Massachusetts loss, Reid and Pelosi embarked on an effort to modify the Senate bill that passed on Christmas Eve so it can pass the House. The unusual maneuver would rely on special budget rules that would allow the package of revisions — rather than a whole new bill — to clear the Senate on a simple-majority vote. After the fixes cleared the House, the House could approve the Senate bill and send it to Obama.

But given the public’s dim view of health-care reform, lining up 51 Senate Democrats even to approve fairly uncontroversial fixes could prove impossible. “We are not picking up votes. We are losing votes,” said a senior Senate Democratic aide.

Speaking to DNC members on Friday, Pelosi was adamant that the current effort remain on track. “I have seen grown men cry over this health-care issue,” she said. “We must pass this reform. The status quo is totally unsustainable.”

But aides involved in the Reid-Pelosi effort said numerous procedural problems remain unresolved. They said Reid is worried that Senate rules would allow Republicans to offer unlimited amendments to the revisions package, potentially tying up the floor for weeks. Continue reading »

26 Jan

Democracy Subverted

Posted by James O'Rourke in Policy, Politics, and Politicians, Politics As Usual. Tagged: .

thinkprogress.org

January 25, 2010

by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Zaid Jilani, and Alex Seitz-Wald

CONGRESS

Democracy Subverted

While it is now taken for granted than any major piece of legislation needs 60 votes to pass the Senate, this has not always been the case. Use of the filibuster — the minority’s tactic to halt action on a bill through endless debate – has skyrocketed in the past two decades, creating a de facto need for 60 votes to get anything done. It only requires 51 votes to pass any bill, but it takes 60 votes to invoke cloture to end debate and pass the bill. There are now double the number of cloture votes as there were a decade ago, and triple the numbers of 20 years agoAs evidenced by the ongoing health care reform debate, the filibuster cripples the Senate’s ability to make progress. The filibuster also gives a undue amount of power to individual senators and allows them to exploit the process for their narrow interests, dictating policy outcomes. For instance, Sen. Joe Lieberman’s (I-CT) threat to filibuster health care reform forced the removal of the public option and the Medicare buy-in, despite their tremendous popularity. Moreover, as Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) noted, the filibuster removes electoral accountability by giving the losing party the ability to obstruct the winning party’s agenda. “It’s a system in which the minority benefits if the government fails, and the minority has the power to ensure failure,” Center for American Progress Action Fund fellow Matt Yglesias noted. Under President Obama, the Republican minority has repeatedly used and abused the practice of filibusters to obstruct the progressive agenda. The House was able to pass a health care reform bill with a robust public option, a clean energy and greenhouse gas pollution reduction bill to fight climate change, and a comprehensive financial regulatory reform bill with majority votes. However, because of the filibuster, each bill has languished in the Senate.

THE HISTORY OF THE FILIBUSTER: As the Atlantic’s James Fallows observed, for most of the first 190 years of the country’s operation, the filibuster “hardly ever happened” and was mostly an “exceptional, last-ditch measure.” Historically, the filibuster was broken by “attrition” — as famously portrayed in the 1937 film Mr. Smith Goes to Washingtonwhen he talked on the Senate floor until he lost his voice and collapsed. Filibustering and cloture votes remained rare until the 1960s, and only became a regular tool of the minority party” in the early 1990s. As Mother Jones’ Kevin Drum writes, “The filibuster was never intended to become a routine requirement that all legislation needs 60 percent of the vote in the Senate to pass.” In fact, the right to filibuster is not mentioned in the Constitution. Several observersargue convincingly that the practice is unconstitutional and that the Supreme Court would declare it as such, were it not “extremely shy of challenging the internal workings of Congress.” As attorney Thomas Georghegan wrote in the New York Times, “the Constitution explicitly requires supermajorities only in a few special cases,” suggesting that a simple majority is sufficient otherwise. As Yglesias has noted, the framers provided plenty of legislative choke points. If they wanted everything passed by supermajority, they could have just said so. Continue reading »

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