Senior Senators Eye Filibuster Compromise (Cloture Motion up)

[indy_azcat]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050520/ap_on_go_co/filibuster_fight

Sen. John Cornyn (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas, acted on behalf of Majority Leader Bill Frist Friday in scheduling the procedural vote after Democrats twice refused to fix a time for a final vote on Owen's confirmation to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.

"If we were just permitted to cast a vote, a bipartisan majority would confirm these nominees today," Cornyn said. "This really amounts to a veto. A partisan minority has attempted to cast a veto of majority rights, bipartisan majority rights."

Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich., countered: "This extralegal changing of the Senate rules will cause a permanent tear in the Senate fabric because it violates a deeply held American value — playing by the rules.

"Using an arbitrary way — presiding officer ruling by fiat — will produce a deeply embittered and divided Senate because it tears at the heart of the way we operate," Levin said.

*********:puke:Cornyn

ETA: link

[shoelace414]

1. I think someone needs to inform him what bi-partasin means

[indy_azcat]

3. Yeah! WTF does "bipartisan majority rights" mean?

:shrug:

[Avalux]

2. Bipartisan? huh? They don't have enough repug votes and he knows it

Bring on the vote!

[kimchi]

4. Liars.

Majority my buttocks.

In related news, we have always been at war with EastAsia.

[yellowcanine]

12. "Majority my buttocks." If you insist. Err - just how is that done?

[kimchi]

13. Well they are quite large...

Not sure; just a 'spression.

[reality based]

5. With approval of Congress at less than 40%

I would say to the Republicans "Enjoy your temporary victory!" The day is coming, and probably is not far off, when you will flee to the filibuster for protection and find a hollow and weakened shell. And rest assured, we will take every advantage of the precedent you are setting.

[freedom_to_read]

6. I for one hope not

... I hope that if the Nuclear Option is enacted, then when the Democrats get the majority back, they restore the filibuster. I know, it's naive "turning the other cheek," but I think if we are arguing that it should be preserved now, we should also argue that it should be restored, if it is taken away.

Well it's too far in the future to predict right now...

[indy_azcat]

7. but only after we pass everything on the dem agenda

that reverses everything they did after the filibuster busted.

nyah nyah nyah

[tritsofme]

8. They're not busting the legislative filibuster

(yet) so I don't see what it has to do with our agenda.

We couldn't take advantage of their nuclear option until we have a Dem President and a Dem Senate.

[reality based]

11. I grew up on nursery rhymes

All the King's horses and all the King's men
Couldn't put Humpty Filibuster together again.

[damntexdem]

9. He knows what he thinks bi-partisan means:

1. we'll do what we want
2. you'll let us

[merwin]

10. Uh, the fact that they're going to filibuster it means that there IS NOT

ANY FRICKIN' BIPARTISAN SUPPORT.

[Toots]

14. Tyranny of the Majority

The US was set up to protect against such a thing. To insure that the Minority would at least have a voice. That is being taken away by Tyranny. No Less.

"Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities. But reflecting persons perceived that when society is itself the tyrant — society collectively over the separate individuals who compose it — its means of tyrannizing are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. Society can and does execute its own mandates; and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development and, if possible, prevent the formation of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own. There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence; and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs as protection against political despotism. — On Liberty, John Stuart Mills