https://www.dailykos.com/news/EmmetBondurant News Community Action Copyright 2005 - Steal what you want Tue, 28 Jan 2020 02:03:43 +0000 Tue, 28 Jan 2020 02:03:43 +0000 Daily Kos rss@dailykos.com (Daily Kos) Daily Kos rss@dailykos.com (Daily Kos) https://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/7/15/1223988/-Filibuster-change-the-countdown-to-Humpty-Dumpty-rules <blockquote>"I love the Senate, but right now the Senate is broken and needs to be fixed. It’s time for course correction."<br /> - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada), <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-senate-nears-filibuster-showdown-reid-says-republicans-can-still-avoid-fight/2013/07/15/4dbc54ce-ed65-11e2-bed3-b9b6fe264871_story.html" title="WaPo: Reid speaks to Center for American Progress on filibuster" target="_blank">speaking</a> at the <a href="http://www.americanprogress.org/" title="CAP site" target="_blank">Center for American Progress</a>, Monday morning</blockquote> Something that could shake the bustling tunnels beneath the U.S. Capitol is about to be released by Sen. Reid - a recipe for ending the gridlock that is keeping President Obama's nominees to executive branch appointments from being confirmed by the United States Senate, under its constitutional obligation to advise and consent. Reid is holding fast to his threat to change the Senate rules regarding the filibuster, to make it easier for "whoever is president, [to] have the ability to pick their team." <p>A joint conference of the entire Senate, held Monday night, in the Senate chamber, was unsuccessful in finding a solution to this problem. <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2013/07/senate-nears-nuclear-option-showdown-94156.html?hp=f3" title="Politico on filibuster dilemma" target="_blank">According to reports</a>, an offer by McConnell to allow the seven held nominations to come to a vote, if Reid doesn't change the rules, was declined by the majority leader. "It was a good hearing, a good meeting, good exchange of views and still no conclusions,” Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) told <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/311201-meeting-ends-without-deal-on-nuclear-option" title="Update from McCain, via The Hill, after the Senate's Monday meeting" target="_blank">The Hill</a>. “We continue to negotiate and we continue to talk and then I’m afraid the majority leader may schedule a vote unless we reach some agreement.”</p> <p>Reid calls his plan "a minor change, no big deal." But many observers, even those who support filibuster reform, say the maneuver is a slippery slope, with cascading side effects that may be worse than the gridlock itself.</p> <p>"Senator Reid would be opening a Pandora’s Box if the and the Democratic majority were violate the Senate rules by resorting to a subterfuge like the nuclear option to 'amend' the Senate rules," Emmet J. Bondurant, the lead attorney in <a href="http://proseandthorn.net/2012/08/20/filibuster-castrates-majority-rule-violates-constitution/" title="PnT: Bondurant speaks to Constitution Society about filibuster lawsuit" target="_blank">a lawsuit against the U.S. Senate to end the filibuster</a> on constitutional grounds, wrote to us in an email.</p> <p>He warned that such a move would shatter any semblance of order in the upper chamber, and create "a lawless Senate in which ever-shifting majorities are free, like Humpty Dumpty, to invoke the nuclear option whenever they find it inconvenient to abide by their own rules."</p> rss@dailykos.com (ProseAndThorn) Emmet Bondurant EmmetBondurant Filibuster Harry Reid HarryReid MitchMcConnell Politics Senate _1223988 Tue, 16 Jul 2013 03:13:14 +0000 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/8/21/1122487/-Filibuster-castrates-majority-rule-violates-Constitution <blockquote>"It's not a rule of debate. It's a rule of silence, a rule of censorship."<br /> - Emmet J. Bondurant, lead attorney in the<a title="the lawsuit" href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Icfvg0CYp3e-tJOFWo7Nn0xP1mQ3KXurjc2rFG36viA/edit?pli=1" target="_blank">&nbsp;lawsuit against the United States Senate</a>, calling the filibuster rules unconstitutional</blockquote> Sometimes it seems like the filibuster holds up every bill, motion and nomination that comes to the floor of the U.S. Senate. Last week, though, President Obama <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2012/08/obama-signs-bill-giving-him-more-power-over-appointments-132463.html?hp=l3" target="_blank">signed into law a bipartisan bill that bypasses the Senate</a> for nearly 170 executive nominees and 3,000 Officer Corps positions. But that does little to raise the hope that Congress' "legislative inertia," which Justice Antonin Scalia joked about during oral arguments on the Affordable Care Act, is going to budge in any significant way. <p>The abuse of the filibuster, and its affect on the dysfunction of our legislative branch, is the number one reason that Congress is regarded with such low esteem by the American public.</p> rss@dailykos.com (ProseAndThorn) Congress Elections 2012 Elections2012 EmmetBondurant FilibusterintheUnitedStatesSenate Politics Senate StandingRulesoftheUnitedStatesSenate _1122487 Tue, 21 Aug 2012 15:04:26 +0000