Make them filibuster.

[gkhouston]

So now we're down to "blending" the bills in the Senate, and we're hearing a lot of saber-rattling about the possibility of a Republican filibuster.

Screw that. Let them filibuster. Let's force the Democrats who aren't willing to side with us out into the light of day and name them as the Republicans they truly are. And for every minute a filibuster goes on, let's use Alan Grayson's tactic and remind the country of how many people without health insurance are dying.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

1. For all intents and purposes, they already are.

"Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" is not something you can force. A filibuster need not be any more than "I suggest the absence of a quorum" ad infinitum.

[elocs]

3. Right, but that's not what they want to hear here at DU.

The fantasy is preferred.

The Myth Of The Filibuster: Dems Can't Make Republicans Talk All Night:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/23/the-myth-of-the-filibuste_n_169117.html

Reid's office has studied the history of the filibuster and analyzed what options are available. The resulting memo was provided to the Huffington Post and it concludes that a filibustering Senator "can be forced to sit on the floor to keep us from voting on that legislation for a finite period of time according to existing rules but he/she can't be forced to keep talking for an indefinite period of time."

Bob Dove, who worked as a Senate parliamentarian from 1966 until 2001, knows Senate rules as well as anyone on the planet. The Reid analysis, he says, is "exactly correct."

To get an idea of what the scene would look like on the Senate floor if Democrats tried to force Republicans to talk out a filibuster, turn on C-SPAN on any given Saturday. Hear the classical music? See the blue carpet behind the "Quorum Call" logo? That would be the resulting scene if Democrats forced a filibuster and the GOP chose not to play along.

As both Reid's memo and Dove explain, only one Republican would need to monitor the Senate floor. If the majority party tried to move to a vote, he could simply say, "I suggest the absence of a quorum.

[gkhouston]

6. Quite true. The point isn't to watch Republicans bloviate, as we see plenty of

that already, it's to actually force Dems to publicly commit to a side. There are still some lurking in the shadows, whom I strongly suspect have financial incentives not to support a public option, and they're hiding behind the "we need bipartisan support" talking point. If we truly don't have 60 votes, who's voting with the Republicans?

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

9. I'm sure we will take a cloture vote to do what you're saying.

But we can't do it until there's something to vote on, which there currently isn't.

[Hubert Flottz]

2. Let the Blue Dog Republicans be unmasked for what they are

Joe LIEberman Democrats are not real democrats...they just pretend to be democrats at election time.

[Skink]

4. If this passes with only dems it is in a sense bipartisan effort.

[QC]

5. President Snowe wouldn't like that.

[gkhouston]

7. Then she can take her poisoned apples back to Maine.

She's not going to vote for anything useful at the end of the day, anyway, and anyone who imagines otherwise is kidding themselves.

[QC]

8. Exactly! She is not going to vote for the legislation, but we're still letting her write it.

It makes no sense at all, at least to me.

Maybe it's more of that Vulcan chess I keep hearing about.