There is some very good news about eliminating the filibuster. Senator Joe Manchin supports Majority Leader Schumer not giving up eliminating the filibuster now. This strongly suggests that the Democratic caucus is completely united on not committing to eliminating the filibuster now. It also suggests that he might be open to eliminating the filibuster on legislative issues if Minority Leader McConnell tries to filibuster important legislation that he supports including coronavirus relief.
Schumer is resisting McConnell’s demand, telling reporters on Thursday he did not want any “extraneous” provisions in the power-sharing deal.
Moderate Democrats like Senator Joe Manchin favor keeping the legislative filibuster. But even Manchin supports Schumer sticking to his guns and not making any promises to McConnell, keeping the threat of going “nuclear” on legislation in reserve if Republicans do not work cooperatively.
“Chuck has the right to do what he’s doing,” Manchin told reporters this week. “He has the right to use that to leverage in whatever he wants to do.”
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Everybody should ask themselves, “Why is it so all fired important to Minority Leader McConnell to eliminate the filibuster at the beginning of the session ? “ There is only one obvious answer to that. Minority Leader McConnell plans to invoke the filibuster. Another question is, “ Why should the minority leader get to dictate the rules ? “ The American voters have spoken. And if it should be objected that the American people wanted power split or did not favor the Democratic Party having control of the US Senate, there is a simple answer. If you add up all the votes for all Democratic Party candidates for US Senate for all cohorts since and including 2016 and you add up all the votes for all Republican Party candidates for US Senate for all cohorts for the same time period, the Democratic candidates earned far more votes. So, the American people voted for the Democratic Party to have stronger control of the US Senate. That’s just a fact. Another obvious question is, “Why should the US Senate not use the power sharing agreement that was put in place in 2001?”
Right now, Minority Leader McConnell is preventing the Biden administration from getting to work by insisting on something that was not in the 2001 agreement and by trying to determine a rule that the majority leader has historically decided. Minority Leader McConnell is preventing the Biden administration from getting control of the pandemic by this attempt at power grabbing. If McConnell weren’t planning on implementing the filibuster often or threatening to, then why would he be trying this power grab ? McConnell has always shown that he cares far more about his party’s power than he does about the American people. He showed that when he chose making President Obama a one term president as his greatest priority while the American economy was in the midst of Bush’s “Great Recession”. We are losing more than 4,000 people a day from the pandemic. Why is this power grab more important to the minority leader than saving American lives when we lost 4,300 people due to the pandemic yesterday alone ? We are at 420,000 deaths already. Yet, McConnell is focused on procedural matters by trying to grab power historically decided by the party in the majority. The Biden Administration and the Democratic Party are trying to get to work on behalf of the American people to control and overcome the pandemic. Why is McConnell obstructing that ? We need prominent democrats on television making these points clear.
Still, many Kossacks are wondering why Majority Leader Schumer is negotiating with Minority Leader McConnell. The question is if Majority Leader Schumer can just ignore Minority Leader McConnell and set up the power sharing arrangement that democrats want. However, I have read a comment by an attorney on Daily Kos which says we don’t have enough votes to set up the structure for the new Senate because Vice President Kamala Harris cannot vote on the rules. I believe the Kossack because even though we are often at odds, he is an attorney and is very smart and seems to only assert that which he can sustain to be fact . The problem is that Reuters seems to contradict this.
Democrats could unilaterally change the rule to require only a simple majority for legislation to advance, if all 50 Democrats plus Harris agreed to do so, a gambit sometimes called the “nuclear option.”
This seems to be repeated by the Hill.
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But several Democrats, most notably Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), are opposed to getting rid of it. Because Democrats only have 50 seats, they would need the support of every senator in order to change the rules on the filibuster via the "nuclear option."
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Repeated searches have not found information that would seem to contradict these sources. I must be misinterpreting these sources
Nevertheless, supposing that he, the attorney kossack, is correct there cannot be an arrangement that passes the Senate unless a republican senator or Minority Leader McConnell vote for it. Until then, everything stays as it is. Right now, republicans have a majority on all the committees. All legislation goes first to the appropriate committee which has jurisdiction and none of it would get out of committee until enough republicans vote for it. The same is true of nominations.
Summary Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution provides that the President shall appoint officers of the United States “by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate.” This report describes the process by which the Senate provides advice and consent on presidential nominations, including receipt and referral of nominations, committee practices, and floor procedure. Committees play the central role in the process through investigations and hearings. Senate Rule XXXI provides that nominations shall be referred to appropriate committees “unless otherwise ordered.” Most nominations are referred, although a Senate standing order provides that some “privileged” nominations to specified positions will not be referred unless requested by a Senator. The Senate rule concerning committee jurisdictions (Rule XXV) broadly defines issue areas for committees, and the same jurisdictional statements generally apply to nominations as well as legislation. A committee often gathers information about a nominee either before or instead of a formal hearing. A committee considering a nomination has four options. It can report the nomination to the Senate favorably, unfavorably, or without recommendation, or it can choose to take no action. It is more common for a committee to take no action on a nomination than to reject a nominee outright.
We are only beginning the second full day of Biden’s term and McConnell and the republicans are already creating more disunity. We need to make what is happening clear to the voters by having a full court press on this.
Friday, Jan 22, 2021 · 1:55:02 PM +00:00 · Dem
David Nir and David Jarman seem to disagree with the Kossack as well who did not post in that diary. In a diary on the same topic, he must have posted four or more times that VP Harris can not vote on eliminating the filibuster.
He said it here and here and here and here .
argument 1
If the VP had a vote on Senate rules, why would Schumer be negotiating, rather than dictating
argument 2
No, Schumer is negotiating because the VP doesn’t vote on Senate rules and McConnell is willing to live with how the Senate would be structured with no “agreement”.
argument 3
The VP doesn’t have a vote on ending the filibuster which suggests that the VP doesn’t have a vote on any Senate “rules”. Surely Schumer knows the Senate rules better than any of us, and he is still negotiating. What we write here isn’t going to have any impact on Schumer’s negotiating positions.
argument 4
I know the VP has no vote on ending the filibuster, that’s been in the press, and I believe it is because the VP has no vote on Senate rules. If the VP could vote on rules Schumer would have a 51/50 majority and wouldn’t be negotiating.
So, he must be positive as an attorney who posted this so many times.