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| Nevada Governor, Harry Reid (New York Times) |
"The vote was a landmark moment for the Senate, a tradition-bound institution that is slow to change and prides itself on giving power to the minority party."
On Thursday, November 21st, the Senate voted to eliminate filibusters for most presidential nominations. This means the minority party can no longer use a filibuster.
Specifically, according to New York Times, "under the change, the Senate will be able to cut off debate on executive and judicial branch nominees with a simple majority rather than rounding up a supermajority of 60 votes. The new precedent established by the Senate on Thursday does not apply to Supreme Court nominations or legislation itself."
The voting process was initiated reluctantly by Democratic Governor of Nevada, Harry Reid. According to him, “the Senate is a living thing, and to survive it must change as it has over the history of this great country. To the average American, adapting the rules to make the Senate work again is just common sense.”
The elimination of the filibuster was in response to the recent gridlock situation Congress faced that resulted in a government shut down. Many Democrats felt that the Republicans abused their filibusters.
However, the Republicans are spiteful of the outcome. "This is nothing more than a power grab to advance the Obama administration's regulatory agenda," said Republican Leader Governor of Kentucky Mitch McConnell. Some Republicans even threatened the Democrats, stating that if during the next election the Republicans take seat, they will use this outcome against the Democrats.
What do you think will happen as a result of this? Do you think this will yield improvements, deterioration, or no change? Will this benefit Congress in the long run?
Feel free to add on more information, I just provided the backbones to this news.
Articles:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/11/21/9-reasons-the-filibuster-change-is-a-huge-deal/
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304607104579211881413579404
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/22/us/politics/reid-sets-in-motion-steps-to-limit-use-of-filibuster.html?_r=0
On Thursday, November 21st, the Senate voted to eliminate filibusters for most presidential nominations. This means the minority party can no longer use a filibuster.
Specifically, according to New York Times, "under the change, the Senate will be able to cut off debate on executive and judicial branch nominees with a simple majority rather than rounding up a supermajority of 60 votes. The new precedent established by the Senate on Thursday does not apply to Supreme Court nominations or legislation itself."
The voting process was initiated reluctantly by Democratic Governor of Nevada, Harry Reid. According to him, “the Senate is a living thing, and to survive it must change as it has over the history of this great country. To the average American, adapting the rules to make the Senate work again is just common sense.”
However, the Republicans are spiteful of the outcome. "This is nothing more than a power grab to advance the Obama administration's regulatory agenda," said Republican Leader Governor of Kentucky Mitch McConnell. Some Republicans even threatened the Democrats, stating that if during the next election the Republicans take seat, they will use this outcome against the Democrats.
What do you think will happen as a result of this? Do you think this will yield improvements, deterioration, or no change? Will this benefit Congress in the long run?
Feel free to add on more information, I just provided the backbones to this news.
Articles:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/11/21/9-reasons-the-filibuster-change-is-a-huge-deal/
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304607104579211881413579404
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/22/us/politics/reid-sets-in-motion-steps-to-limit-use-of-filibuster.html?_r=0
6 comments:
This could be risky, but this isn't an issue to which I feel the greatest opposition. It's always a slippery slope giving the Executive Branch more power, it's a trend we've seen over the years. This also gives the party in charge more power, and that I also find questionable. It will make a few of their votes easier and faster with limited filibusters, but there is a reason for filibusters and having the bar previously set above a simple majority. We'll see how this plays out, but I wonder what others' analysis is on the "checks and balances" side of this—woah! Connection to our textbook. It could be harder for the Senate to "check" the Executive branch with this new decision. Adaptation is good, but could this loosen the system too much?
I agree with Kira that giving the party in charge more power is always questionable, but then we really have to consider if the party in charge had much power in the first place. Extensive filibustering by Republicans has already limited the passage of a lot of legislation and in this case, judicial nominations. I think this may be an attempt to regain some of the control that the Democratic party has lost.
Interestingly enough, it has been brought to the public's attention that a lot of the people who are opposing this vote used to say the exact opposite. A lot of Republicans used to say that filibustering judicial nominees is wrong, or even "unconstitutional". Now that they're not the ones in charge, they are suddenly reversing their stances. This is a sign that perhaps their opposition is more political, and less moral. Thoughts?
As Both Kira and Amy have mentioned, it seems dangerous to limit the use of the filibuster, considering that it is one of the crucial "checks" congress has on the executive branch and that the minority party has on the majority party. However, I think it is important that we put this issue in context. In the last decade, the Republican party in congress has defiled the precedent regarding filibusters. When our country was first founded, the filibuster didn't even exist. Until 1970, the filibuster was extremely rare. Since then the number of filibusters used in each year has increased at incredible rates. This new senate law is about restoring the culture of our Senate, and I think it's great and very necessary.
My first instinct upon reading this post was that this was not a good decision. I thought it was limiting an important feature that supplements the power of the minority party. However, upon reading more about the extensive gridlock filibustering has caused over the course of history, I agree with the above comments supporting this "landmark vote." The linked NY Times article, as well as Joey, note the key fact that the usage of filibusters has increased ridiculously quickly in the past executive nominee cases since Clinton. I think this piece of information is essential to providing perspective on this new limit, since it acts as a reminder that the filibuster in recent years has become extremely distorted in its frequent use.
I agree with Alexa's point about the recent extortion of filibusters. It could be beneficial to have a limit to these filibusters. However, as Kira, Amy and Joey have previously noted, the filibuster is such an important check on the executive branch that the new limit could easily backfire.
I feel that this isn't an issue of giving the executive branch more power but of giving the party in control of the Senate more power. The filibuster isn't a check on executive power; the Senate vote to confirm a nomination is the real, constitutional check on executive power here. The filibuster is actually a check on the power of the majority party in the Senate, and the fact that the same party controls both the Senate and the White House merely makes it seem like a check on the executive branch. In other words, the filibuster would be irrelevant if Obama had to deal with a Republican-held Senate because his nominations could be blocked by a simple majority vote, and a filibuster by the Democrats wouldn't be helping the nomination get confirmed.
All that said, I feel that the lowering of the vote threshold for nominations is a good thing in that it should encourage more meaningful discussion about a nominee's merits and weaknesses. If the minority party no longer has a crutch to lean on when they oppose the political view but not the qualifications of a particular nominee, then perhaps they'd be more willing to discuss qualifications instead of using a filibuster to politically weaken the president.
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