The End of the Filibuster in the Senate? by Charles Ashie

On Thursday 21st of November, there was a historic change in the Senate that in turn, will alter centuries of precedent. In the past, when a bill has got to the Second Reading, there is the opportunity for the opposition of the bill (normally the minority party) to essentially "talk a bill to death" 

This is called a filibuster. It can be done by an individual senator or a group of senators and they are not allowed to go to the toilet, or even sit down. 

 Filibuster topics have ranged from reading out extracts from the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, or even Green eggs & Ham by Dr Seuss. One may think that it is an impossible feat but the record for an individual senator goes to Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes against the Civil Rights Act of 1957. 

A procedure known as cloture is necessary for a filibuster to be ended. This did require a super majority vote (60 votes, three-fifths of the Senate) as well as a signature from 16 senators. 

Filibusters and cloture motions in the Senate since 1919.
Picture Credit: Washington Post

 However as of last Thursday the Senate voted, in a 52 to 48 vote, to require only a majority vote to end a filibuster of certain executive and judicial nominees, not including Supreme Court nominees, rather than the 3/5 of votes previously required.

This is significant because it now allows President Obama to get Senate approval for a large number of executive appointments; numerous senior federal judges have not been appointed for example.

Useful for any G&P student contemplating the power of Congress and the Senate in particular. The power of the President is also an issue related to this too. Republicans were seemingly against any Obama appointment, so they stopped all of them. 

However as the Washington Post says here, the reforms mean that "Senate Republicans retain the power to slow, though not derail, Obama’s appointments". 

In addition to the links above, there is a long Huffington Post about it all here, and a blog post from the Washington Post also discusses it here.

Congress, the opposite of progress

Interesting stuff here about procedures in the Senate from the New Yorker magazine (I found it from this post on the Economist's Democracy in America blog).

Essentially, the Senate is there to slow down the passage of legislation, and on the whole that is not necessarily a good thing:

The two lasting achievements of this Senate, financial regulation and health care, required a year and a half of legislative warfare that nearly destroyed the body. They depended on a set of circumstances—a large majority of Democrats, a charismatic President with an electoral mandate, and a national crisis—that will not last long or be repeated anytime soon. Two days after financial reform became law, Harry Reid announced that the Senate would not take up comprehensive energy-reform legislation for the rest of the year. And so climate change joined immigration, job creation, food safety, pilot training, veterans’ care, campaign finance, transportation security, labor law, mine safety, wildfire management, and scores of executive and judicial appointments on the list of matters that the world’s greatest deliberative body is incapable of addressing.

Obama, the mid-terms and the 2012 Republican race

I've just come across a couple of articles on the web-site of centrist (liberal) US magazine the New Republic, which help to expand on a couple of things on my previous post about Obama and the mid-terms.

Here is one discussing Republican former Presidential candidate, and candidate for the 2012 race. Specifically it focuses on his somewhat bizarre take on the non-controversial nuclear-weapons-reducing treaty New START. Essentially, according to the article, the Republicans are becoming increasingly "hawkish" about anything which smacks of reducing spending on defense. They also hate President Obama and everything he stands for, so won't give him any sort of political victory even if it's in US and World interests. Obama's policy of reducing nuclear weapons in the US and Russia seems like a good strategy and helps to encourage co-operation on thorny issues like Iran's dash for the nuke (to borrow a UK phrase: "tough on nuclear holocausts, tough on the causes on nuclear holocausts"). Mitt Romney wants to stick it to those pesky Ruskies because that plays well with the Republican base in these uncertain Tea-Party influenced times.

This article here reflects on the problem Obama has with getting anyone to listen to his message about jobs and the recovery, which has an impact on the Democratic result in the mid-terms.

This one delves into some of the races which are a source of worry for Democrats in the mid-terms. One to watch is the battle for Nevada with Senate Majority Leader (Democrat) Harry Reid, which he looks likely to lose, and this in turn could be devastating for the Democrats and Obama.

All of which should be useful examples if one is thinking about policy in the Republican party, the power of the Presidency, and elections in general.

Republicans and the Tea Party

As noted in a previous post, the Tea Party movement is having an effect on Republican nominees and their policies; they are lurching to the right. Specifically Meg Whitman the billionaire former boss of eBay has become the GOP nominee for the governor's race in California, and the multi-millionaire former boss of HP Carly Fiorina has become the GOP nominee for the California Senate seat.

In addition, the Nevada Republican Senate candidate, Sharron Angle, is the Tea Party movement's favourite, and defeated the moderate candidate to be the challenger for the seat belonging to Harry Reid, the incumbent Democrat and Senate majority leader. As noted in this article here (one which also briefly covers a successful Democrat in Arkansas) the Sharron Angle is the Obama team's favoured Republican candidate too as it will make Harry Reid's chance of keeping his seat higher:

Ms Angle’s controversial policies include privatising Social Security (pensions) and closing the federal departments of energy and education, among others.

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The key problem, as noted here in the "Democracy in America" blog is that they have moved to the right to avoid being outflanked by other candidates in the race and to get the support from the Tea Party movement types of the Republican party. California is generally a "Blue" state, and is more liberal than most places in the US. It'll be interesting to see how they fare in this year's mid-terms, and particularly whether they can move back to the middle to get the independent voters and at the same time avoid being called a "Republican in Name Only" or RINO.

In other US-related news, Congress is likely yet again not to be able to pass a bill to take action on climate change. Scathing stuff from another post from Democracy in America, especially since over two-thirds of US citizens support action (although they don't want to increase taxes, just spending). In other analysis here, Senator Graham who originally helped write the bill he is now objecting to is now saying that there is not enough provision for further off-shore drilling (of the kind which is spilling thousands of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico).

More significantly for G&P students is the analysis of the Grist article linked to above which says that the Republican party has moved away from anything which smacks of limiting big-business (actually they say it much less kindly than that). In their analysis and in the this article here Senator Graham has been trying to find a way out of supporting the bill, and has finally found it.

Whether the Republican party and the actions of politicians will continue to be driven by the Tea Party movement away from anything resembling the centre ground will be interesting to see, especially in the impact on the mid-terms in November.

It is also a useful illustration of how Congress does (or doesn't) work as a key part of the legislative process. A bi-partisan approach to some of the key issues in American politics today (health-care reform, climate change) is just not possible it would seem.

Supreme Court Justice Retirement

A few days ago, news broke that Supreme Court Justice Stevens was to retire at the age of 90.

More on the implications of this can be found at the articles above and here - a blog about the Supreme Court written from a neutral perspective by lawyers.

For G&P students, this is all useful stuff for the Supreme Court section of the course - both in terms of the impact this significant change may (or may not) have on the rulings of the court, but also for President Obama's power and influence given his success with the health-care bill. Will he be able to carry the Senate in getting through his chosen candidate, especially given the November mid-terms and the likelihood that they will become a referendum on the reform of health?

More on health-care soon.