Excellent! I think this is a great idea! - ZvilleMT

Rules of the Senate - bootstraps

The Rules of the Senate (and a little history of it) - backwards typist

The Senate has a long history of using the filibuster--a term dating back to the 1850s in the United States--to delay debate or block legislation. Unlimited debate remained in place in the Senate until 1917, when the Senate adopted Rule 22 that allowed the Senate to end a debate with a two-thirds majority vote--a tactic known as "cloture." In 1975, the Senate reduced the number of votes required for cloture from two-thirds (67) to three-fifths (60) of the 100-member Senate.

On March 8, 1917, in a specially called session of the 65th Congress, the Senate agreed to a rule that essentially preserved its tradition of unlimited debate.  The rule required a two-thirds majority to end debate and permitted each member to speak for an additional hour after that before voting on final passage.  Over the next 46 years, the Senate managed to invoke cloture on only five occasions.

Majority Leader Harry Reid, frustrated by abuse of the filibuster, has vowed to change the Senate’s rule on the first day of the new Congress.

If he chooses to invoke the “constitutional option” — the assertion that the Senate can, on the first day of a session, change its rules by a majority vote — he will be heading down a slippery slope that the current president of the Senate, Vice President Biden, once excoriated as an abuse of power by a majority party

The argument over the constitutional option is more than 200 years old. The Senate has consistently held that it is a continuing body since at least two-thirds of its members are always in office. That’s why it uses a rule book written in 1789 by the first Senate and does not adopt rules on the first day of a new Congress, as the House of Representatives does. To underscore the point, the Senate adopted in 1965 Rule V, which states, “The rules of the Senate shall continue from one Congress to the next Congress unless they are changed as provided in these rules.”

Senate Rule XXII requires a two-thirds vote to end a filibuster against a rules change. This means that changing Senate rules must be a bipartisan matter. The danger is that the majority party will attempt to use the “constitutional option” and ignore the Senate’s rules.

The “constitutional option” could be accomplished in January (or, really, any time) if the Senate’s presiding officer decides to ignore the rules and the advice of the parliamentarian — which presiding officers usually rely upon — and declares that debate can be ended by majority vote.

Since the Senate’s presiding officer is likely to be the vice president, it is instructive to remember what Biden said about this ploy from the floor of the Senate in 2005:

“This nuclear option is ultimately an example of the arrogance of power. It is a fundamental power grab by the majority party . . . to eliminate one of the procedural mechanisms designed for the express purpose of guaranteeing individual rights and they also, as a consequence, would undermine the protections of the minority point of view. . . .

“[Q]uite frankly it’s the ultimate act of unfairness to alter the unique responsibility of the United States Senate and to do so by breaking the very rules of the United States Senate.. . . But the Senate is not meant to be a place of pure majoritarianism. . . . At its core, . . . the filibuster is not about stopping a nominee or a bill. It’s about compromise and moderation.”

He went on to call the constitutional option “a lie about the rule.”

 In recent days President Obama and the leaders of the House and Senate have called for bipartisan cooperation. Imposing rules changes by partisan fiat would be just the opposite and would destroy the fabric of the Senate. Now is a good time for a new gang of senators to rise above partisan bickering and negotiate changes based on what’s best for the Senate and our democracy, not just what’s best for the majority.

Did you write this, Backwards? NM - bootstraps