Forum Post: PETITION To Reform The Filibuster NOW! Time running out!
Posted 11 years ago on Jan. 23, 2013, 5 p.m. EST by WSmith
(2698)
from Cornelius, OR
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Just a few days left to end the GOP sabotage abuse of the filibuster!
Over the next few days, the fate of filibuster reform hangs in the balance.
Let’s tell the leaders of the U.S. Senate that real reform includes a full talking filibuster.
Other proposals out there don’t go far enough, and won’t change the culture of obstruction that paralyzes the Senate.
Your grassroots support today is critical. Sign the petition: Tell the Senate to fix the filibuster.
Thank you.
Make dirty dealing RepubliCons stand up and account for the gridlock, obstruction and sabotage of our government and holding the country hostage!
done
Tell a friend!
The Good news, the Bad news, and the really really F'n bad news
[As OVERT GOP Zombies resume the attack on We The People, democracy, the 99% and Obama; and the COVERT/OBLIVIOUS GOP Zombies resume the attack on Obama, RELEVANCE and REALITY!!]
There is a lot of 'new' talk going around Washington as we experience yet another peaceful transfer of power to our new duly elected government.
Obama is talking like FDR when he says '...that doesn't make us takers'. In a direct slap to Congressman Paul Ryan (or more accurately a beat down...) the President of the United States made it clear he works for the people and not the billionaires that tried to install Romney-Ryan as the mouth piece for their Oligarchy.
President Barack H. Obama, "We, the people, still believe that every citizen deserves a basic measure of security and dignity. We must make the hard choices to reduce the cost of health care and the size of our deficit. But we reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future. For we remember the lessons of our past, when twilight years were spent in poverty, and parents of a child with a disability had nowhere to turn. We do not believe that in this country, freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few. We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, any one of us, at any time, may face a job loss, or a sudden illness, or a home swept away in a terrible storm. The commitments we make to each other - through Medicare, and Medicaid, and Social Security - these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great." Take that 'granny starver'.
Harry Reid is talking 'Constitutional Option', that is he's saying that 50 votes plus the VP should be enough to pass any bill in the Senate. While this isn't explicitly stated in the Constitution, it does list five exemptions from a simple majority, such as the 'veto override with 2/3 vote' and one can only conclude that the Framers meant a simple majority, and not 60 votes to do anything.
Nancy Pelosi is doing the 'real' talking as the de facto Speaker of the House. The 'fiscal cliff' bill was passed by Democrats and a minority of Republicans. The same as with the bill to avoid default on the expenditures that the Republicans have already made, also know as raising the debt ceiling.
That was all the good news, now for the bad news, the Koch brothers funded state legislatures are moving toward an Apportioned Electoral College in 'blue states' that the Republicans have captured through gerry mandering. In these states that would normally go for any Democrat running for President, the Republicans would cleave off the electoral votes in any Congressional District that they have managed to carve out for Republican domination (assuming that district was made to vote for the Republican). The end result would be a Republican becoming President with millions of fewer votes than a majority. Language in the Bush v. Gore ruling from the Supreme Court that establishes that there is 'no Constitutional right' for citizens to 'vote' for the President sets the stage for this abomination.
The way Gerrymandering works is that Republicans create as many districts as possible that contain a bare a majority of Republican voters, and as many districts as possible that contain nearly 100% of Democrats in liberal voting ghettos. Often distant pockets of Democrats are linked by block wide corridors that can be a hundred miles long and include few voters.
In practice a the 'Republican' district may contain only one third Republicans, that is if sufficient voter suppression is applied. Either through simple negative advertising that disgusts enough 'normal' people that they don't bother to vote while Conservatives goose-step down to the polls to vote against their own self interest based on their irrational fears and prejudice. Or through out right suppression of Constitutionally eligible voters who are kept from voting by any number of 'illegal' means, ranging from 'voter caging' where people are illegally stricken from the registration list, to selective denial of voter access to the polls.
If you live in a 'Democratic' precinct any number of means, including but not limited to an 'insufficient' numbers of voting machines to literal 'voter intimidation' by the use of goons to scare voters away, to the use of misleading mailers from official and bogus sources to confuse voters. The possible ways to make this happen is endless, the depths of their deceit bottomless, and the evil in the hearts unlimited by time or space.
The 'really, really bad news' is the current push through the same Koch Brothers controlled state legislatures is to have a Constitutional Convention. Ostensibly this is just to pass an amendment to require a 2/3 majority to enact any increase in the income tax. This would not include peasant taxes like sales and excise taxes that would pass with a simple majority. All profits for the rich, all taxes for the poor. That would be bad enough, but a Constitutional Convention is not limited to a preset agenda once it's in session. Any number of really nasty 'reforms' could be put in place that would be pre-loaded with language that would allow the conservative Supreme Court to carve out anything they were ordered to produce.
That's not to say that the Supremes can't sing any tune at anytime, but with the tiny minority that the conservatives actually have, they must maintain the fiction that this is all the 'will of the people'. The only thing that can stop this is that 'the people' become fully aware of the difference, and enforce their will instead. Tuesday, January 22, 2013 www.prairie2.com
If the dems were in the minority in the senate and the republicans wanted to do what reid wants to do,..................the dems would be screaming about it and so would you.
Harry Reid: Fix the Filibuster Now!
By Thom Hartmann and Sam Sacks
President Obama won and the Democrats increased their majority in the Senate - and moved it in a far more progressive direction. For now, the Supreme Court is safe from radical right-wing ideology. [The American People have spoken, TWICE!]
But to guarantee its safety for future generations, Harry Reid must take decisive and historic action on day one of the new Senate term. He must end or radically reform the filibuster.
The filibuster is mentioned nowhere in the Constitution - it's something, in its modern form, the Founders knew nothing about. It requires 60 votes in a 100-vote Senate to end debate and move on to a vote - and Republicans have used it over 370 times during Harry Reid's tenure. For comparison, Lyndon Johnson was Senate majority leader for the same period of time as Reid, in an incredibly turbulent time, and only had to deal with one, single Republican filibuster.
Wiki: In response to the use of the filibuster in the 111th Congress, all Democratic senators returning to the 112th Congress signed a petition to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid requesting that the filibuster be reformed, including abolishing secret holds and reducing the amount of time given to post-cloture debate.
On December 6, 2012, another milestone in filibuster history was reached when Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Senate Minority Leader, became the first senator to filibuster his own proposal, though he did not give a lengthy speech, instead merely invoking the rules of filibuster on his bill to raise the passage threshold to 60 votes. McConnell had attempted to force the opposition Democrats, who had a majority in the Senate, to refuse to pass what would have been a politically-costly measure that would nonetheless solve the current ongoing debt ceiling deadlock; when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) elected to call a vote on the proposal regardless, McConnell immediately invoked the rules regarding filibusters on his proposal, effectively engaging in the first self-filibuster in Senate history. [41]
At least make the democracy-hating GOP cowards stand and take credit for sabotaging our government and holding the country hostage, OR we could hang 'em. I'd go for the latter.
harry backed down. 60 votes still the required number.
I wish HR had sequestered the Cons in the senate and sent them GITMO!!