The Filibuster is Dead!

Below is an excerpt from an article dated November 21, 2013, in the Washington Post by Ezra Klein entitled "Nine reasons the filibuster change is a huge deal."

"The filibuster now exists in what you might call an unstable equilibrium. It theoretically forces a 60-vote threshold on important legislation. But it can — and now, in part, has —been undone with 51 votes. Its only protection was the perceived norm against using the 51-vote option. Democrats just blew that norm apart. The moment one party or the other filibusters a consequential and popular bill, that's likely the end of the filibuster, permanently."

Read the full text of the article.

Comment:

According to the Constitution, there are only five instances where a supermajority is unambiguously required:

1.  Approval of an amendment to the Constitution requires a two-thirds vote of both House and Senate plus the approval of three-fourths of the state legislatures.  
2. A two-thirds vote of both houses is required to override a presidential veto of a bill.  
3. A two-thirds majority of the Senate is required to convict a president, vice-president of "officer of the United States" impeached by a majority vote of the House.
4. A two-thirds vote in either body is required to expel a disorderly member of that body.
5. Treaties must be approved by a two-thirds vote of the Senate to enter into force.

The Senate filibuster, which was never in the Constitution but was simply a rule of the Senate, is, for all intents and purposes, dead.

The only people who'll be weeping are Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell [R-KY], alias Mister Filibuster--who holds the record of over 400 filibusters--and his plutocrat paymasters, whose generous bribes have made him a multi-millionaire.

But now, Senator Filibuster's chances of losing his reelection bid to Allison Grimes in 2014 in the Commonwealth of Kentucky are greatly enhanced, because the plutocrats will now have less incentive to bribe him due to his diminished ability to do their bidding through his filibusters. 

 

In short, why should the plutocrats bribe Mitch, when he can't do what they want any more?  

So, the irony is that the plutocrats, his erstwhile allies and fairweather friends, will be just as eager to throw Senator Filibuster under the bus as the Democrats.

 

There IS a God!