Ideas, Opinions, Genealogy, and Book Reviews
I’m an currently reading an advanced reader by Ira Shapiro about the US Senate. One of the problems he mentions is the filibuster. I’ve had quite a bit to say about the filibuster here.
I ran across this this morning while looking for some of Ira Shapiro’s shorter writing on the Senate. It is well worth the read if you are interested the the Senate or the filibuster.
I thought keeping the government open and paying our debts was a good thing. But Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republicans seem to disagree with me. (SURPISE !)
The House Democrats seem to agree that both are good things. They put both in the same bill. Seems to me that while a government shutdown is bad, it has happened before. But failure of the United States to pay debts is unprecedented and catastrophic.
Continue reading “Mitch madness, debt, shutdowns and the filibuster”
The filibuster allows a minority in United States Senate to prevent a measure from being brought to a vote. The filibuster ends when “three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn” vote to close debate by invoking cloture under Senate Rule XXII. Since there are 100 Senators now, 60 votes are required for cloture.
The recent failure of cloture on the bill to establish the bipartisan Commission to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol. Under the current Senate Rule XXII 60 votes are required for closure. The vote was 54 to 35 and closure failed.
Continue reading “Modify the filibuster”
Did you that Senators can actually Filibuster while on vacation? Senator Al Franken (D-MN) would like to end that nonsense.
Senator Franken would like to change the Filibuster rule so that Senators have to be in the Senate chamber to vote to maintain the Filibuster.
Follow this story on FireLakeDog which has had several stories on this in the last few days.