January 25, 2013 By: Juanita Jean Herownself Category: Uncategorized
Welcome to The World's Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, Inc.
My name is Susan DuQuesnay Bankston. I live in Richmond, Texas, in the heart of Tom DeLay's old district. It's nuttier than squirrel poop here.
I am honored and privileged to know Miss Juanita Jean Herownself, hairdresser extraordinary and political maven. Since she does not have time to fiddle with this internet stuff, I type her website for her and you can read it if you want to. If you don't, she truly does not give a big bear's butt.
A lot of what I post here has to do with local politics, but you probably have the same folks in your local government.
This ain't a blog. Blogs are way too trendy for me. This is a professional political organization.
Well heck. I was looking for Harry Reid.
He’s the biggest joke in the Democratic Party.
IMHO.
1#Failibuster
2You two brains…. JJ and PDiddie explain something to me.
It is Constitutionally mandated that the Vice President will be the guy to fote any “tie-breaking votes” in the United States Senate.
That kinda says to me that the Founding Fathers thought a simple majority would be how the place would be run. (Even though that would make it “like” the House of Representatives).
What I don’t know, and don’t understand is who….did it….. and when….. did they come up with this ….. it takes 2/3rds (or in modern times…. 60 votes) to pass anything.
It’s become a gridlock nightmare. Special interest groups write the legislation, deliver it….and at some point it gets a vote. These guys get paid pretty handsomely, and have great perks, for just showing up. God Bless America!
Again. JMHO.
3“not fote” VOTE.
My arthritis in my fingers gets ahead of me every once in a while. Sorry.
4@Miemaw, yes, they are paid quite handsomely since they only show up about two days a week and work for maybe five hours. If they worked for a corporation they love so much they wouldn’t get any benefits.
5@Miemaw — Article 1 Section 5 Paragraph 2 says:
Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two thirds, expel a member.
The rule about filibusters is part of the rules of the Senate’s proceedings and I wish they would agree to expel Itchy Mitchy.
6@Don A…..Do you know…. when did they vote the 2/3rds rule that pretty much assures that nothing gets done in The Senate.
I’m just wondering…… if since the Founders made it possible for the Vice President to cast a “tie-breaking” vote… they thought,…. that at some point there might be a “tie”….and that the Senate would work on a simple majority rule, similar to the House, and the Supreme Court.
To easy I guess.
7Ezra Klein has a fascinating, and very informative, article in the week’s New Yorker on the history of the filibuster. Haven’t gotten through the whole thing, yet, but what I’ve read makes it clear that the Founding Fathers never imagined anything but “Majority Rule” in both houses. The Rethugs are just putzes. But, apparently, Reid didn’t have the votes to bully his way through.
8Hey, Miemaw ~ Deb posted this bit of history about Senate rules & filibusters (comment #11 to “who let the balls out” on Jan 23):
Filibusters are a parlimentary procedure and as such not governed by the Constitution, it is part of the “rules of the Senate” and in requires a 60% vote to bring a bill or nomination to the floor for a vote. The filibuster permits a senator, or a series of senators, to speak for as long as they wish and on any topic they choose, unless “three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn” decide to invoke cloture (end the debate). In the good old days, you actually had to stand on your feet and talk (the record for this went to Strom Thurmond who spoke for a little over 24 hours in his successful attempt to block civil rights legislation), today’s lazy varmints just automatically fold if someone says the word filibuster. If you want to read it, I believe it is Senate Rule 22.
Back in 1892 the Supreme Court ruled in The United States v. Ballin (1892), that changes to Senate rules could be achieved by a simple majority, but only on the 1st day of the session in January or March. Kinda like Bill Mahr’s New Rules, the rules of the new legislative session are determined on the 1st day and rules do not automatically cary on from one session to the next.
People who want to change the filibuster call such a change the constitutional option, people who hate it call it the nuclear option. Under current Senate rules, a rule change itself could be filibustered, with two-thirds of those senators present and voting (as opposed to the normal three-fifths of those sworn) needing to vote to break the filibuster.
I know this sounds complicated but actually the rules in the House are much more complex.
One thing I would caution about, this might be one of those times when we should be careful what we ask for. Anytime your party is in the majority you hate the filibuster just as anytime you are in the minority you love it. The filibuster has often been referred to as the conscience of the Senate (see Capra’s “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington”), in the past it has been helpful to Democrats (see Robert Bork), so while in recent years it has been seriously abused, we still need to think about this.
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9I liken the Senate’s filibuster rule to a football rule that gives a special advantage to the team who has the ball. All the teams hate the rule, but hate to give it up even more because they get to take advantage of it when they have the ball.
In law school, that ‘rule of law’ was called the “Well, now, it all depends on whose ox is getting gored this time.”
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