yglesias.thinkprogress.org - 3/31/2009
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One of my new pet peeves is journalists writing about congress as if it’s always been the case that that minorities of senators would routinely filibuster every measure they didn’t like. Simple logic indicates that this is false—it used to require a unanimous vote to end a ...
librarygrape.com - 4/2/2009
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librarygrape.com —
Color me cynical but this news out of
the Senate raises all kind of red flags for...
me: A strong bipartisan majority in the United States Senate took a firm stand in favor of requiring 60 votes to pass any kind of cap and trade legislation... This is good for Republicans, since it helps them ...
(more)
Dems Grab Ankles, Set GOP Up for Filibuster on Energy
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It's not supposed to be this way
Political Animal —
IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THIS WAY.... There's a common misunderstanding in politics, especially among political reporters, that the Senate has always required a 60-vote supermajority to pass every meaningful piece of legislation. That's nonsense. As Matt Yglesias recently noted , "Simple logic indicates that this is false -- it used to require a unanimous vote to end a filibuster and, obviously, non-unanimous bills passed. But there are more examples. For example, before the 1970s you needed two-thirds of the Senate to end a filibuster, but the Lend-Lease Act went through ...
Related Content
The New Filibuster
yglesias.thinkprogress.org 2/15/2009 —
Kevin Drum raises an important point , namely that “The filibuster was never intended to become a routine requirement that all legislation needs 60% of the vote in the Senate to pass.”
Indeed, the filibuster was never intended at ...
The debate over filibuster reform
washingtonmonthly.com 2/19/2009 — THE DEBATE OVER FILIBUSTER REFORM.... There's been some good discussion over the last several days about the Senate filibuster and whether the process should be reformed. It seems, however, that some of participants have been talking past one another. ...
Time to reform the filibuster
washingtonmonthly.com 2/15/2009 — TIME TO REFORM THE FILIBUSTER.... One of the striking aspects of the political process on the Hill is how quickly everyone has adapted to a once-rare tactic becoming routine. Senate filibusters used to be exceedingly rare -- a dramatic challenge...
GOP May Target Use of Filibuster (washingtonpost.com)
washingtonpost.com 3/4/2009 — As speculation mounts that Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist will step down from the Supreme Court soon because of thyroid cancer, Senate Republican leaders are preparing for a showdown to keep Democrats from blocking President Bush's judicial ...
A Filibuster-Proof Majority?
swampland.blogs.time.com 4/28/2009 — How long has it been? You have to go all the way back to 1937 to find the last American President who enjoyed what was, in practice, a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, according to Senate Associate Historian Donald Ritchie. That was when ...
The point of making them filibuster
dailykos.com 2/24/2009 — Aaargh! Here we go again! Reid's office is once again pushing back against the "make them filibuster" crowd, whining that Democrats can't make Republicans "talk all night". That's not the point of the filibuster. The point of making them filibuster ...
Op-Ed Contributor - Make My Filibuster
nytimes.com 3/2/2009 — Charlottesville, Va. PRESIDENT OBAMA has decided to spend his political capital now, pushing through an ambitious agenda of health care, education and energy reform. If the Democrats in the Senate want to help him accomplish his goals, they should ...
Filibuster on Campaign Spending Bill Ends - New York Times
query.nytimes.com 2/23/2009 — LEAD: The filibuster that had halted activity in the Senate ended this evening, setting the stage for Republicans to win their effort to stop a bill limiting spending on Congressional campaigns. The filibuster that had halted activity in the Senate ...
Conservatives against the filibuster, sort of
politico.com 6/2/2009 — Not that Republicans actually have much chance of sustaining a filibuster against Sonia Sotomayor.
But the liberal TPMDC notes , with some snark, that the Judicial Confirmation Network — a leading conservative judicial group that opposes ...
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