GOP melts down under nuclear option

I'm seeing speculation that the GOPers forced Harry Reid's hand as part of some eleventy dimensional liar's poker move. Maybe it's true that McConnell thinks Harry changing the rules slightly to get governance moving again is going to give him some kind of great cover if he ever gets the Senate gavel back and proceeds to immediately annihilate the filibuster altogether. Of course that assumes McConnell will survive to see that day. Looking at his current re-election chances, that's not necessarily a sure bet.

Whatever sort of devious GOP plot this might be, for the moment their playbook calls for much overwrought indignation, strained analogies to Obamacare and pathetic wailing. Why poor little Rand Paul feels bullied. Witness that mean old bully Harry Reid. [via Roll Call]



Again, you should full text of Reid's remarks because it was actually a good speech but his delivery is so awful. But I'm posting the video because Mitch McConnell is so hilarious. I'm still laughing over the line about how the GOPers have been more than fair to President Obama.

Meanwhile you need fishing waders to slough through the knee deep remains of the crackpot cons' exploded heads on the internets. Trolls are crawling out from every rock to join what passes for the GOP establishment to hurl impotent threats of vengeance. What are they going to do? Obstruct every single damn bill in the Senate out of spite?

Deep tweets

I never get into internet spats but I was in a mood today. When my waste of a Senator, Richard Burr, started spewing the GOP talking points about Harry's big move I tweeted him like mad. He actually responded to me today for the very first time on the twitter. It doesn't show on the ticker so you have to go to my twitter page to see it. And then you have to click on the convo to see the whole exchange. But the upshot was he tried to nail me with the stale quote random Democrats from 2005 trick. To which I replied, oh Im sorry, I forgot to tell you I was quoting Mitch. Then I hit him with Harry's vine.

And this:

@SenatorBurr Also this from Mitch in 2005. http://t.co/7CIc6ofqIx
— Libby Spencer (@libbyspencer) November 21, 2013

I think I won the round.

Reid shuts down Republican obstruction

It was a good day for democratic governance. Admit I didn't think he'd go through with it. Happy to be wrong. Harry Reid made history today.

After years of threats and warnings, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and his Democratic majority on Thursday executed the "nuclear option" to eliminate the filibuster for executive branch and judicial nominees, except for the Supreme Court.

Of course, everybody has an opinion but it's probably not going to restore the Senate to a functional body.

The "Reid Rule," as supporters are calling it, does not affect the minority party's ability to filibuster Supreme Court nominees or legislation.

GOPers will still block every bill and I don't think they should ever abolish the filibuster on SCOTUS nominees. Still this is a pretty BFD. By tradition, in the interests of responsible governance and Senate comity, the winner of the election gets to pick his own team and he gets to fill the vacancies on the bench. Thus does our government reflect the will of the voters.

You can read the full text of Reid's reasons for the rule change. This was the most important:

There are currently 75 executive branch nominees ready to be confirmed by the Senate that have been waiting an average of 140 days for confirmation. One executive nominee to the agency that safeguards the water our children and grandchildren drink and the air they breathe has waited more than 800 days for confirmation.

We agreed in July that the Senate should be confirming nominees to ensure the proper functioning of government. But consistent and unprecedented obstruction by the Republican Caucus has turned “advise and consent” into “deny and obstruct.”

Yes, both sides filibustered nominees, but for stated cause. Republicans don't even bother to pretend they have a good reason anymore. Why should they when BigMedia treats it as normal procedure? It's at the point where every filibuster is an attempt to extort policy concessions Republicans didn't win a mandate for at the ballot box. Somebody had to end the madness. Good for Harry for finally giving the Republicans some hell.

Just do it Harry

When last we heard from our intrepid Senate leader he was strongly considering the nuclear option but was giving the feckless Republicans one last chance because he just couldn't believe they would keep blocking votse on critical judicial nominations. Of course, those of us outside of the "greatest legislative body in the world" knew that was a fool's hope. So now having given the GOP yet more time to jam the works of responsible governance we get yet another sternly worded threat from Harry Reid.

“I’m at the point where we need to do something to allow government to function,” Reid said when asked if he would consider using the so-called nuclear option, a controversial procedural tactic for changing Senate rules. “I’m considering looking at the rules.”

Reid said he will insist that Republicans allow up-or-down votes on all three of Obama’s nominees to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals: Patricia Millet, Cornelia Pillard and Robert Wilkins.

He will insist? What, he wasn't insisting months ago? He was just suggesting? Enough of the wimpy threats Harry. Stop flailing and do it to them before they bamboozle their way into control again and do it to you. Do it now, while there's still time to repair some of the damage.

Reid threatens to go nuclear

Yes I know we've heard this all before, but this time Harry Reid sounds serious on filibuster reform.

After a tense exchange on the floor with his Republican counterpart, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, planned to recommend to his fellow Democrats at a private lunch meeting that they should vote to take the exceptional step of barring the minority party from filibustering presidential appointees.

The step that Mr. Reid will endorse, which drew strong objections from Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, would not affect filibusters of legislation or judicial nominees. But it would prevent Republicans from being able to require a supermajority of 60 votes for the confirmation of people the president appoints to cabinet level posts or other executive-branch positions.

Greg Sargent has the details on the nuclear trigger:

“We’re going to file cloture on a bunch of nominations, and those votes will occur next week when we schedule them,” Reid said, adding later that if no movement occurred on them, “we know what’s going to happen.”

According to a senior Senate Democratic aide, this means that Reid will file cloture on the following nominations today: Richard Cordray as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; Gina McCarthy as head of the Environmental Protection Agency; Obama’s picks to the National Labor Relations Board; and possibly Thomas Perez as Labor Secretary.

These are the appointments the GOPers most want to block in order to subvert the will of the majority. So a real test of the laughable "gentlemen's agreement" Reid and McConnell made at the beginning of the session. Remains to be seen if any of the old geezers have the guts to see it through. As the NYT reports, "Senators in both parties also say they fear it could irrevocably change the nature of the Senate."

One could argue we're long overdue for an irrevocable change in that moribund body.

Predictably, Reid's threat left McConnell spitting out his own threats of revenge on the floor, should the tables be turned in the future. (Warning HuffPo link.) As if that's not exactly what Republicans would do anyway if they ever regain the majority, regardless of whether Reid screws up the courage to make a bold move now while there's still time to pass some useful legislation.

Rand Paul's filibuster

By now you've heard of the so-called epic talking filibuster on the Senate floor yesterday. They're calling it "Rand Paul's filibuster" but it's not really fair to give him sole ownership. Before it was over nearly every crackpot con with an eye on an upcoming election, including Mitch McConnell, had taken to the airwaves to do a little grandstanding for the rubes back home.

I didn't watch it live myself. Listening to those self-serving hypocrites makes me want to break crockery and I'm down to my last two dinner plates. But I did follow the narrative on the twitters. By the end of the 13 hours, when they were joined by their colleagues who were fresh off a fancy dinner date with POTUS, they were reading tweets into the record and name-checking every pop culture figure they could remember. Meanwhile, the resident snarksters were cracking jokes about frat parties and wondering who was bringing in the weed. I hear the GOPers were immediately fundraising on the spectacle and had reached "high five figures."

The final act of this comedy of the absurd came this afternoon when Eric Holder delivered the dressing to toss their massive word salad.

Dear Senator Paul:

It has come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question: " Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil? The answer to that question is no.

This, we are told, has satisfied Mr. Paul's burning curiousity and he will now allow cloture.

That's the simplified version of nearly 24 hours of grandiose GOP posturing. There was plenty more drama and Republican infighting this morning.

The filibuster itself was meaningless. Rand Paul might actually care a bit about civil rights and due process but certainly none of the other opportunists who joined last night's fray give a flying leap about the policy. There's no doubt not one of them would have staged this spectacle with a Republican in the Oval Office.

If any good comes of this, it will be that there is now a precedent set for requiring a talking filibuster in the future. Perhaps not legally under the rules, but in public expectation of proper process. Of course, that would only work if the media does its job and points out every single time the GOP blocks an up or down vote without justifying it with a talking filibuster.

Not to be holding the breath for this to happen however. The fact that Republicans had only hours earlier blocked a critical judical nomination to a Circuit Court, (Caitlin Halligan), with a mere silent threat of filibuster doesn't seem to be making it into the play by play horserace coverage of the theatrics today. Guess it's up to Harry and Dems to keep pointing out.

Yes, I know. Something, something, snowballs in hell.

Mitch McConnell: Filibuster reform? To the mattresses!

(But first try the fainting couch...) Mitch McConnell pitched a drama queen worthy hissy fit over Harry Reid reforming the use of the filibuster. He's appalled that Harry, and his “cohort of short-sighted Senate sophomores,” would use some arcane procedural rule to enact changes that would make it harder for him to evoke arcane procedural rules in order to bring the work of the Senate to a grinding halt.

Contrary to Mr. McCon's overwrought wailing, these changes are not such a big deal.

“The point I would make is that I’ve said from the outset is that a test of a good proposal is whether or not you could live with serving under it in the minority,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR). “That’s why the talking filibuster is the right way to go. McConnell has broken the social contract. His team, under his leadership, uses it constantly and silently, out of public sight. Really the proposal I put forward restores the basic elements that existed in the past, and I’m quite happy to live under that structure as a minority. … [That] has been part of every conversation I’ve had with colleagues. … If we’re in the minority and we’re blocking something, we should be accountable to the public.”

Pretty sure, for Mitch McConnell, raising the concept of being "accountable to the public” is about the equivalent to driving a wooden stake through the heart of a vampire.

Fix the filibuster

No matter how much the GOP has abused the filibuster, I still believe it has value and shouldn't be abolished entirely. It's important the minority has an avenue to voice their position on important matters of policy. So how to eliminate the abuse? I'm not the only one who's suggested we simply return to the original format. No more just saying they're going to filibuster and then leaving for a round of golf. Make them stand on the floor and explain their objections to the voters who employed them. And when they run out of things to say, it comes to an up or down vote. Everybody goes on record.

Fortunately, we finally managed to elect some Senators who agree. Anne Laurie passes on an email from her new Senator Elizabeth Warren with a plan to reform the filibuster:

On the first day of the new session in January, the Senate will have a unique opportunity to change the filibuster rule with a simple majority vote, rather than the normal two-thirds vote. The change can be modest: If someone objects to a bill or a nomination in the United States Senate, they should have to stand on the floor of the chamber and defend their opposition. No more ducking responsibility for bringing the work of this country to a dead stop.

I’ve joined Senator Jeff Merkley and four other senators to fight for this reform on Day One. Will you join us? Sign Senator Merkley’s petition now.

Senate Republicans have used the filibuster 380 times since the Democrats took over the majority in 2006. We’ve seen filibusters to block judicial nominations, jobs bills, campaign finance transparency, ending Big Oil subsidies—you name it, there’s been a filibuster.

We’ve seen filibusters of bills and nominations that ultimately passed with 90 or more votes. Why filibuster something that has that kind of support? Just to slow down the process and keep the Senate from working.

It's not an acceptable process. This bill is a simple fix and a good test of Democratic resolve in the Senate. Be good to know who heard the message of 2012, and who didn't. Would love to see the internets get behind it.

[More posts at the Detroit News. Daily art graphics at Last One Speaks.]