The filibuster itself has lost its luster these days. It used to impact the Senate substantially, like back when Strom Thurmond spoke for twenty four hours trying to kill a civil rights bill in 1957. Today the filibuster is basically a threat, and if it did strongly impact a bill, the senate more than likely pulled the cloture card. My point being, was it really necessary for their to be increased restrictions on the filibuster? It was passed by the Democrat majority, don't they realize that it will later effect them if the Republicans managed to hold the Senate majority in the future? Why crack down on something that has basically lost its strength and popularity over time?
What makes you think that the filibuster had lost its strength? Frankly the Senate had made it easier to fillibuster- no more standing and talking 24 hours. I don't think the change was necessary- but I think that the change was good. And yes, most Democrats know that this will be used against them by Republicans when and if they can. As it should be.
I'm saying that its lost its strength in a sense, because senators can just say that they want to filibuster, instead of actually speaking for hours to kill a bill, I realize now that the change will help the president in his future nominations.
i say bring back the filibuster for executive nominations, but require the person actually stand and speak non-stop.
What I think we should do is sustain the integrity of the filibuster so that if a senator threatens to filibuster, he or she should have to stand and speak in order to kill a bill, but I am all for the restriction it had placed on it for executive nominations, because time and time again, the president was receiving way too much pressure during his nomination attempts.
I agree but why didn't the Democrats do this? This would certainly have stopped the abuse and it seems so logical! Bob
As long as President Obama is in office, the Senate Republicans will do anything they possibly can to put pressure on the president and the Senate Dems.
The Dems wont filibuster because the majority of bills that will be circulating through will favor them and the President for the duration of the President's term, also do to the fact that the Dems have the majority in the Senate, the Republicans are ultimately powerless in policy making, so their only defense is the filibuster itself
I wouldn't be so quick to say that the filibuster has lost its luster. True, many of the filibusters are broken by successful motions for cloture, but the overall number of motions for cloture has been dramatically higher over the past 3 or 4 election cycles. Check out this graph by the New York Times illustrating this point here: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/11/21/us/politics/senate-filibusters.html?_r=0 Certainly most Democrats are not so naive that they do not anticipate the Republicans using this rule to break filibusters and railroad through legislation when Democrats are in the minority.
