Tag Archives: filibuster

Elections Have Consequences — Biden Agenda Edition

By tmess2 | Published October 24, 2021

It is a phrase that we repeatedly hear — typically by the majority as a justification for the unjustifiable, but elections do have consequences.  But it’s not just who wins, but how they win.  In many parliamentary countries, there is another common phrase a “working majority.”  And the basic concept is that it is rarely enough to win by one or two seats.  When you have a one or two seat majority, it only takes one or two members deciding to walk to cost the government the majority.  And that’s in a parliamentary system where members risk forcing a new election if they defect from the government to the minority.  In the United States, there is no threat of an immediate new election hanging over members’ heads to encourage the majority to stick together.  As a result, the margin required for a working majority is somewhat larger in the U.S.

And that’s the problem that the current Democratic majority is facing.  Currently, the Democrats have a 220-212 majority in the House (which will go up to 222-213 in January when all of the vacancies are filled).  That means a mere four (now or five in January) defections means that nothing can pass.  In the Senate, the Democrats do not have an actual majority.  Even including the two independents who normally vote with the Democrats, the Senate is a 50-50 tie.  Given the Senate filibuster rules, a 50-50 Senate can only pass reconciliation bills or confirm nominees, and even that requires all fifty members of the caucus to stick together at which point the Vice-President can break a tie.

The current mess on reconciliation and election reform is the result of the lack of a working majority.  Needing every vote in the Senate requires getting the agreement of every Senator.  Thus, each Senator can insist on concessions from the rest of the party.  (It is a little harder in the House, but a group of five or more members have the same leverage).  And to be clear, the leverage is not equal.  When you need every vote, the ones who want to do less have a negotiating advantage over those who want to do more.  The reality is that something is almost always better than nothing.  So the  “moderates” can tell the “progressives” that we are willing to vote for some increased funding for child care and clean energy and expanding Medicare but not for as much increased funding as you want, and the progressives have the option of accepting some funding for needed programs or not getting those programs at all.  The only real limit to the moderates leverage is that, when it comes to needing to cut funding, progressive can counter by trying to trade off programs that they want for programs that the moderates want that progressives do not see as particularly useful.  But that is very limited leverage.  Thus, at the end of the day, the current numbers give a lot of additional power to Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Senator Krysten Sinema of (suppoesedly) Arizona.  (The supposedly is that Senator Manchin’s positions flow from the politics of West Virginia and it is unlikely that Democrats could elect a more progressive Senator from West Virginia.  Senator Sinema’s positions on the other hand do not flow from Arizona’s politics as her fellow Senator from Arizona, Mark Kelly, who actually has to run in 2022, is not blocking current proposals.) Continue Reading...

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The New Senate

By tmess2 | Published November 7, 2020

Based on where things currently stand, it looks like when the new Senate convenes on January 3, the Republicans will have a 51-48 or 50-49 majority (depending upon the results in Alaska).  First, a word on why there will be only 99 Senators.

At this point, it looks like both races in Georgia are headed to a run-off on January 5.  Senator David Perdue’s current term ends on January 3.  As there will be no winner in that race, the seat will technically be vacant as of January 3.   Senator Kelly Loeffler, however, was appointed to fill a seat.  The term for that seat ends on January 3, 2023.  Under the Seventeenth Amendment, until there is a winner of that special election, she continues to hold that seat.  (For Arizona, that means that as soon as the result is certified, Mark Kelly replaces Sally McBride as the new Senator.  So, if there is a lame duck session in December, the margin will be 52-48 rather than the current 53-47.)

The big issue is whether anything will be able to get through the new Senate.  The real question is whether there is a moderate caucus that could try to leverage both parties against each other to make some real reform to allow the Senate to function.  On the Democratic side of the aisle, Senator Joe Manchin (Senator from Coal Country West Virginia) has to walk a very fine line if he wants any chance at re-election.  Likewise Senator Sinema and Senator-to-be Kelly from Arizona represent a marginally swing state as would potential Senator Osser and potential Senator Warnock from Georgia.   And Senator King from Maine seems to be a true independent.  So, there is a group of four to six in the Democratic caucus that are not going to want to move too fast and might be open to reforms to make the Senate a more “collegial” body. Continue Reading...

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The Supreme Court and the Filibuster

By tmess2 | Published April 2, 2017

This week has the potential to be a significant week in Senate history.  Over the past two presidencies, there was a rise in the use of the filibuster to block executive branch and lower court nominees.  During the George W. Bush presidency, there were enough Democratic and Republican senators willing to work out a deal in which the Democratic senators agreed to vote for cloture on most nominations and the Republicans agreed not to invoke the “nuclear option” (exempting such nominations from the three-fifth’s rule for cloture by the vote of a majority of the Senate).  During the Barack Obama presidency, there were not enough Republican senators willing to make such a deal and the Democrats were forced to go with the nuclear option on such executive branch and lower court nominees.  However, the normal cloture rules were left in place for Supreme Court nominees.

As a starting point, here is the tentative schedule for the week.  First, on Monday, the Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on the nomination of Neal Gorsuch.  Right now, it appears likely that the committee will approve that nomination by a majority vote.  Assuming that the Committee sends its report on that nomination to the Senate on Monday, that would trigger Rule XXXI which provides that (except by unanimous consent which will not be given) the Senate may not vote on a nomination on the same day that the nomination is reported to the full Senate.   The Republicans will then attempt to call the matter up for a vote by unanimous consent on Tuesday.  At least one Democrat will object, and the Republicans will file a cloture motion.  Under Rule XXII, that motion will probably come up for a vote on Thursday and would take sixty votes to pass.  Based on current whip counts, those sixty votes will not be there.  If somehow, the Republicans get the sixty vote or invoke the nuclear option, Rule XXII would permit thirty more hours of debate resulting in a vote between Friday and Monday the 10th.  (Technically, the Easter state work session is currently scheduled to start on the 10th and go through the 21st.  The last two weeks of argument in this year’s Supreme Court term are the weeks of April 17 and April 24.  So if Judge Gorsuch is confirmed this week, he could sit on the last thirteen arguments of this term.  If the final vote takes place after April 21, Judge Gorsuch will not sit on any argument until the next term beginning in October.)

Assuming that the cloture vote goes as currently anticipated, the Republicans will have three options.  Option number one would be to use the Easter recess to put pressure on vulnerable Democratic senators.  Right now, the two most vulnerable Democratic senators (Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota) seem likely to vote for cloture, but there are other Democratic senators from other states that Trump won by wide margins.    While there are ten Democratic senators on the 2018 ballot from states that Trump won (and Maine’s independent Senator is not necessarily going to join the Democrats on this issue), half of those senators are from swing states.  The only two other Senators who come from states that were not too close to call in 2016 are Senator McCaskill from Missouri and Senator Donnelly from Indiana.  Unless the Democratic senators hear from party activists that party activists do not really care about this issue, the vote is unlikely to change much after the recess.  On the other hand, the Republican leadership would be in a stronger position to invoke the nuclear option after the recess.  (The more moderate members of the Republican caucus might believe that the Democrats should at least be given some time to debate and make their case before the nuclear option is invoked.) Continue Reading...

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Judge Gorsuch — What should we do?

By tmess2 | Published February 4, 2017

On Tuesday, the maniac-in-chief nominated Judge Neil Gorsuch to fill the vacancy left by the death of Antonin Scalia.  This nomination creates a significant question for Senate Democrats on how to proceed.

On the merits, at least based on current public knowledge which may change, Judge Gorsuch is a typical member of the Republican conservative establishment:  The son of Reagan’s EPA chief, educated at top schools, a mix of government and private practice before being appointed to the bench by George W.   While it is tough to tell for sure by a decisions on a lower court — where judge’s are bound by Supreme Court precedent and are trying to read between the lines to avoid reversal — Judge Gorsuch seems very similar to Justice Scalia.  It is not really possible to tell if he is on the Alito (more conservative) or Roberts (more moderate) side of Scalia.  In any case, with the exception of some criminal cases, Justice Scalia was rarely the fifth vote in a progressive decision.  As such, barring someone on the loony side, it is unlikely that any Trump nominee is going to substantially alter the balance on the Supreme Court from what it was before Trump died.  (Of course, it would have been preferable to have a Democratic president replacing Justice Scalia, but that is not now a possibility.)  And Trump is likely to nominate a candidate in his/her upper 40s or lower 50s like Judge Gorsuch, so the next opportunity for Democrats to replace any of the four conservative judges will be at least a decade or more in the future barring any unexpected deaths.  Given this reality, the question is how hard to fight this nomination.

The battle over judicial nominations — like everything else — has become more a matter of political trench warfare with each cycle.  In the 1960s, the nomination of Thurgood Marshall was contentious, but — at that time — the ideological lines between the two parties were blurrier and the opposition was regional (Southern senators of both parties) rather than partisan.  However, with the exception of the nomination of Abe Fortas in 1968, all nominees received a vote on the merits (except for those who withdrew before any floor vote) until 2016.   At the time of his retirement in 1991, Justice Marshall was one of two members of the court who received double digit “no” votes on confirmation (with 11 no votes).  However, the last four nominees all received more than twenty “no” votes and only Chief Justice Roberts received less than thirty “no” votes. Continue Reading...

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