Richard Arenberg of Brown University and Josh Chafetz of Cornell University discuss the history of the Senate filibuster and whether or not it should be eliminated.
However one might feel about the tyranny of democracy, under the actual law of our land, the question appears to be trivial.
de officiis wrote:
What goes around, comes around...
Who are you saying that too? Can't be Republicans, they have never held a Supreme Court nomination under regular order.
{Many in the Republican Party} are uneasy about abandoning the filibuster. As one Republican member put it, "The Senate is getting ready to do a lot of damage to itself." He added that Harry Reid "broke the rules" when, as Senate majority leader, he led the Democrats' bid to curtail the filibuster in 2013. "Now we are moving to the McConnell era, where we break the rules."
The fallout, apart from a precipitous decline in Senate comity, could be greater polarisation of the Supreme Court. Both Mr Gorsuch Merrick Garland, Barack Obama's pick for Scalia's seat, whom Republicans testily blocked for 293 days, were "boy-scout" nominees, according to that same Republican member: well-qualified picks deserving bipartisan support. With a new 51-vote threshold, he believes, "It won't be a boy scout next time": whichever party controls the White House will have every reason to tap a significantly more ideological nominee.
You can say all you want, the dems get their nominees. All this crap about upholding the sanctity of the Senate as if it is St. Peters basilica is just that. They call it the "nuclear option" for a reason once it's triggered that's it, it is over. The damage is done it is MAD. They did it to us so we do it to them.
The filibuster has cast a long shadow over the Supreme Court confirmation process. It is one reason nominees have morphed from quirky, brilliant, flawed, controversial political figures into cautious, careful, qualified and essentially perfect human beings like Garland and Gorsuch.
Now is the time to bring back the all-too-human nominee, the kind who will be excoriated by the Senate minority who opposes the president as an insufficiently experienced judge or too possessed of interesting, outside-the-box ideas.
clubgop wrote: They did it to us so we do it to them.
And pretty soon they'll change the rules so two guys in the john can make law.
There's no US and THEM..... all these clowns forget the other team will be in power in the not-too-distant future and play tit-for-tat. Congress is filled with 3rd graders. These are not thoughtful people. They are every bit as short sighted as their corporate masters.
Kath wrote:Right, because tyranny of the majority is one of our founding principles.
Too many checks and balances can be a bad thing. The Senate Filibuster is an example of a bad variety, the Senate does not the extra veto power, fuck that noise.
Last edited by StCapps on Fri Apr 07, 2017 12:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
