Filibuster broken: Props to McConnell and the Senate for saving the High Court

[Calminian]

...Well, except for that one time the Supreme Court had to decide who won.

LOL! You mean the time with the courts didn't allow Al Gore to keep counting in different ways indefinitely until he could someone take the lead in Florida?

Again, you're upset that a pro-life president won and a pro-abortin candidate lost. You can't see why that's a moral problem?

 

[Yeshua1]

Let's give credit where credit is due. This was a home run for the Republican Senate and the President. The Senate and McConnell also deserve props for stopping the nomination Merrick Garland.

They take a lot of criticism, some deserved, but they deserve to be praised for this. All of them, even the more liberal faction stuck together and saved the High Court, and, in essence, the country. This unties Trump's hands in so many ways I can't count them. Serious game changer. Answer to prayer.

Congress is still proving to be inept, but the Senate just moved way up on my scale.

Gorsuch Nom. Forces Historic Change to Senate Rules

AP/David Zalubowski
by IAN MASON6 Apr 2017WASHINGTON, D.C.3,294

Senate Republicans used the “constitutional option” to change longstanding cloture rules around 12:30pm Thursday, clearing the way for Judge Neil Gorsuch to receive a vote of the full Senate on his confirmation to the Supreme Court.

Republicans resorted to the party-line 52-48 vote after weeks of wrangling over Gorsuch’s nomination in which Senate Democrats threatened the first partisan filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee in American history. After the Democrats assembled the forty-one votes needed to prevent the end of debate under current rules, the constitutional option allowing cloture on a simple majority became the only remaining path to placing Gorsuch on the Court.

Vice-President Mike Pence, who would have been needed to break a tie should any two Republicans have voted to maintain the 60-vote cloture rule, was not present for the vote, indicating Republican confidence their entire caucus would agree to the change.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) moved for a point of order after his first attempt to invoke cloture failed with only 55 votes. From the podium, he cited the need to “restore Senate norms” in light of the Democrats’ “unprecedented partisan filibuster” of a Supreme Court nominee.

McConnell invoked the precedent of Senate Democrats’ own change to same simple majority cloture rule for all presidential nominees but those to the Supreme Court in 2013 in calling for an override of the Senate chair’s determination sixty votes were needed for cloture. That appeal passed on a party-line 52-48 vote.

Thursday’s historic move harmonized Senate rules, removing the possibility of minority filibusters of Supreme Court nominees. Given the reluctance, in the past, for either party to filibuster a Supreme Court nominee with majority support, the constitutional option restored, as a practical matter, traditional Senate custom in this area.

A successful cloture vote quickly followed the rule change. The 55-45 vote began a thirty hour countdown to a vote of the full Senate. Judge Gorsuch is, therefore, slated for the final vote on his confirmation no later than seven o’clock Friday evening. All 52 Republicans and three Democrats are expected to vote for his confirmation, allowing him to replace Antonin Scalia as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.​

Hystr hope that the Dems do not get back into power 2018, as then they will ram their liberal judges unto SC!

 

[Calminian]

Hystr hope that the Dems do not get back into power 2018, as then they will ram their liberal judges unto SC!

Don't you need a President to do that?

 

[Ziggy]

Don't you need a President to do that?

If the Dems gain control of the Senate in 2018, they can block any federal judgeship appointment by Trump, and continue to do so until a Dem becomes president again.

 

[Calminian]

If the Dems gain control of the Senate in 2018, they can block any federal judgeship appointment by Trump, and continue to do so until a Dem becomes president again.

They would be able to do that anyway, regardless of the filibuster rule, if they gain the majority. But Gorsuch is in for good. And they wouldn't be able to put in their own choices. At worst, if a liberal judge retires, we'll still gain an advantage, even if no new judge takes his seat.

That said, let's keep praying and hope that the Church stops backsliding and get's behind conservative judges. If they don't we deserve what we get.

 

[777]

Interesting.

Looks like all you need is enough support for a Constitutional Amendment. Until then, we have the system the Constitution set up and has worked pretty well for over 200 years.

You need to go to that link:

Better elections are something we can all get behind, which is why prominent politicians and notable membership organizations have supported ranked choice voting - also known as “instant runoff voting” or “preferential voting” - for years. The list below highlights some of these people and groups.

Federal Officeholders

• Former President Barack Obamahttp://archive.fairvote.org/?page=1755
• U.S. Sen. John McCain (AZ)
• Former U.S. Rep. John Porter (IL)
• U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison (MN)
• U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (VT)

Statewide Officeholders

• Former Gov. Howard Dean (VT)

I think they could do it by a Congressional act:

Voter Choice Act of 2005 (2005 - H.R. 2690)

check out the sponsor, this kind of voting is far too complex and too easily manipulative for a nation full of stupid people. Usually combined with mandatory voting so you never know which ballots were spoiled deliberately.

 

[carpro]

You need to go to that link:



I think they could do it by a Congressional act:

Voter Choice Act of 2005 (2005 - H.R. 2690)

check out the sponsor, this kind of voting is far too complex and too easily manipulative for a nation full of stupid people. Usually combined with mandatory voting so you never know which ballots were spoiled deliberately.

I don't think an act of congress would do it.

We still have an electoral college that can't be gotten rid of without a constitutional amendment.

 

[church mouse guy]

I don't to be called a computer program or something, but it is a step for Liberty and Freedom when the federal legislators with 6-year terms instead of 2-year terms decide after so many decades to allow for majority rule, which seems to me to enforce a Constitutional Republic. Now the Constitutional Republic has an electoral college to decide Presidential elections, which have nothing to do with the federal legislature, as everyone knows. Also, in a Constitutional Republic such as the United States of America, it is not a contradiction of representative government to say that both the 2-year and the 6-year branches of the federal legislature have done well to use the simple principle of majority rules.

As for the idea of changing the electoral college, that clearly would defeat the idea of a Constitutional Republic.

In conclusion, the change in the Senate rules was long overdue and should be made permanent so that the people will enjoy majority rule from their elected legislative representatives in both houses of the federal Congress.

 

[Calminian]

Hystr hope that the Dems do not get back into power 2018, as then they will ram their liberal judges unto SC!

You know, thinking this through, it wouldn't change anything. Republicans never never filibuster dem president's nominees. They always allow a simple majority vote. All this rule change did was force the dems to do the same. If power goes back to the dems, they'll get the same opportunity they've always had. Nothing changes.