Don’t Bring Back the Judicial Filibuster

[Draggingtree]

National Review:

NOVEMBER 5, 2014 4:00 AM

 

Don’t Bring Back the Judicial Filibuster

Why Republicans have to leave the process — which comports with tradition — alone.

 

By Ed Whelan

In Tuesday’s elections, Republicans won control of the Senate and expanded their majority in the House. In the coming weeks and months, Republicans in Congress must focus on developing and pursuing a winning agenda over the next two years — an agenda that will help elect a Republican president in November 2016 and provide that president with a governing majority in Congress. But a small cadre of current and former Senate staffers is instead pressing Republican senators on what strikes me as a profoundly foolish and destructive diversion: reinstating the filibuster — more precisely, the 60-vote cloture threshold — for lower-court (and executive-branch) nominees.

[Cyber_Liberty]

I thought it was automatic...that the Reid Rule was only for this session?

[Draggingtree]

I thought it was automatic...that the Reid Rule was only for this session?

Nope its the rule of the Senate, I can not make myself agree on what to do

[Cyber_Liberty]

 

I thought it was automatic...that the Reid Rule was only for this session?

Nope its the rule of the Senate, I can not make myself agree on what to do

 

 

We'll have to see how it plays out. I don't think the Senate can bind future Senates to a rule that's based on a simple majority, but I also think they can set their own rules as they please.

[Geee]

Orrin Hatch: Republicans should keep the nuclear option

 

Sen. Orrin Hatch says the Republicans should keep the nuclear option, which places him in agreement with prominent grassroots conservatives.

 

In an op-ed at the Wall Street Journal Wednesday, the Utah Senator said that the year-old filibuster rules changes are crucial for Republicans in the coming years. The op-ed was cowritten with former White House counsel C. Boyden Gray.

 

Hatch wrote that with a new Senate majority, it now is the job of the GOP “to counteract President Obama’s aggressive efforts to stack the federal courts in favor of his party’s ideological agenda."

 

To accomplish this would be impossible should “Republicans choose to reinstate the previous filibuster rule now that the damage to the nation’s judiciary has already been done,” he wrote.

 

The so-called nuclear option allows the Senate to confirm nominations, such as judicial appointees and cabinet members, with a simple majority vote. Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, and Senate Democrat leadership changed the rules in 2013 to considerable Republican dismay.

 

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/orrin-hatch-republicans-should-keep-the-nuclear-option/article/2555858

[Draggingtree]

Eliminate the Filibuster

Joseph Kulisics November 19, 2014

 

Ever since Democrats changed the Senate’s rules to prohibit filibusters of judicial appointments, Republicans have been debating what to do in response once they take the majority. Some have argued for returning to the status quo before the changes, while others contend that we should stick to the new rules to give Democrats a taste of their own medicine. I argue we should advance the changes and eliminate the filibuster entirely.

 

Liberals generally think they’ll benefit from the end of the filibuster, but the truth is that conservatives would gain far more from its repeal

http://ricochet.com/eliminate-the-filibuster/

[Draggingtree]