Okay, I'm curious: can't the Democrats use the filibuster too?

[grumpyduck]

Use their own tactic against them?

Or are they too nice to do that?

[elleng]

1. Yes, and Yes.

However, repugs have no legislation pending, have nothing positive, have no platform.

[fescuerescue]

17. We should encourage them draft some bills

So we can block'm

[brush]

2. We can once we're in the minority, but now as the majority...

we have the advantage. Democrats/Leader Schumer controls what bills come to the floor to get voted on and thus the bills will be bills Dems want passed. The minority republicans have no say but to filibuster them.

They, the minority, can't push bills to the floor to be voted on.

[msongs]

3. on the filibuster and voting rights repubs now have a 52 vote majority nt

[targetpractice]

4. Yes, but...

... As soon as the Republicans retake the two branches... They'll get rid of the filibuster without the handwringing we see with 2 democrats. I guarantee it... Not before Biden is out of office, of course, because he can veto things. Mitch McConnell has always stated that his life goal is a "permanent Republican majory", and he doesn't mean a majority of the popular vote. Hope that doesn't keep you awake tonight.

[Celerity]

9. No, the Rethugs will not do away with filibuster if they regain the Senate, as it almost always only

Last edited Thu Jan 13, 2022, 09:22 PM - Edit history (1)

fucks us, not them. They love the filibuster.

The filibuster hurts only Senate Democrats -- and Mitch McConnell knows that. The numbers don't lie.

My own add - Sinema wants a 60 vote threshold on most all of any Senate action. Not joking. She also wants to repeal the 2 mini-nuke exceptions on the books now, and also do away with reconciliation.

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/filibuster-hurts-only-senate-democrats-mitch-mcconnell-knows-n1255787

snip

Cutting off debate in the Senate so legislation can be voted on is done through a procedure called "cloture," which requires three-fifths of the Senate — or 60 votes — to pass. I went through the Senate's cloture votes for the last dozen years from the 109th Congress until now, tracking how many of them failed because they didn't hit 60 votes. It's not a perfect method of tracking filibusters, but it's as close as we can get. It's clear that Republicans have been much more willing — and able — to tangle up the Senate's proceedings than Democrats. More important, the filibuster was almost no impediment to Republican goals in the Senate during the Trump administration. Until 2007, the number of cloture votes taken every year was relatively low, as the Senate's use of unanimous consent agreements skipped the need to round up supporters. While a lot of the cloture motions did fail, it was still rare to jump that hurdle at all — and even then, a lot of the motions were still agreed to through unanimous consent. That changed when Democrats took control of Congress in 2007 and McConnell first became minority leader. The number of cloture motions filed doubled compared to the previous year, from 68 to 139.

Things only got more dire as the Obama administration kicked off in 2009, with Democrats in control of the House, the Senate and the White House. Of the 91 cloture votes taken during the first two years of President Barack Obama's first term, 28 — or 30 percent — failed. All but three failed despite having majority support. The next Congress was much worse after the GOP took control of the House: McConnell's minority blocked 43 percent of all cloture votes taken from passing. Things were looking to be on the same course at the start of Obama's second term. By November 2013, 27 percent of cloture votes had failed even though they had majority support. After months of simmering outrage over blocked nominees grew, Senate Democrats triggered the so-called nuclear option, dropping the number of votes needed for cloture to a majority for most presidential nominees, including Cabinet positions and judgeships. The next year, Republicans took over the Senate with Obama still in office. By pure numbers, the use of the filibuster rules skyrocketed under the Democratic minority: 63 of 123 cloture votes failed, or 51 percent. But there's a catch: Nothing that was being voted on was covered by the new filibuster rules. McConnell had almost entirely stopped bringing Obama's judicial nominees to the floor, including Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland.

McConnell defended the filibuster on the Senate floor last week, reminding his counterparts of their dependence on it during President Donald Trump's term. "Democrats used it constantly, as they had every right to," he said. "They were happy to insist on a 60-vote threshold for practically every measure or bill I took up." Except, if anything, use of the filibuster plummeted those four years. There are two main reasons: First, and foremost, the amount of in-party squabbling during the Trump years prevented any sort of coordinated legislative push from materializing. Second, there wasn't actually all that much the Republicans wanted that needed to get past the filibuster in its reduced state after the 2013 rule change. McConnell's strategy of withholding federal judgeships from Obama nominees paid off in spades, letting him spend four years stuffing the courts with conservatives. And when Trump's first Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, was filibustered, McConnell didn't hesitate to change the rules again. Trump's more controversial nominees also sailed to confirmation without any Democratic votes. Legislatively, there were only two things Republicans really wanted: tax cuts and repeal of Obamacare. The Trump tax cuts they managed through budget reconciliation, a process that allows budget bills to pass through the Senate with just a majority vote.

Republicans tried to do the same for health care in 2017 to avoid the filibuster, failing only during the final vote, when Sen. John McCain's "no" vote denied them a majority. The repeal wouldn't have gone through even if the filibuster had already been in the grave. As a result, the number of successful filibusters plummeted: Over the last four years, an average of 7 percent of all cloture motions failed. In the last Congress, 298 cloture votes were taken, a record. Only 26 failed. Almost all of the votes that passed were on nominees to the federal bench or the executive branch. In fact, if you stripped out the nominations considered in the first two years of Trump's term, the rate of failure would be closer to 15 percent — but on only 70 total votes. There just wasn't all that much for Democrats to get in the way of with the filibuster, which is why we didn't hear much complaining from Republicans. Today's Democrats aren't in the same boat. Almost all of the big-ticket items President Joe Biden wants to move forward require both houses of Congress to agree. And given McConnell's previous success in smothering Obama's agenda for political gain, his warnings about the lack of "concern and comity" that Democrats are trying to usher in ring hollow. In actuality, his warnings of "wait until you're in the minority again" shouldn't inspire concern from Democrats. So long as it applies only to legislation, the filibuster is a Republicans-only weapon. There's nothing left, it seems, for the GOP to fear from it — aside from its eventual demise.

snip

[uponit7771]

15. They'll categorically dilute the filibuster when it suits them like for debt ceiling

[Celerity]

16. that was a bi-partisan play, kabuki theatre

[uponit7771]

18. Which makes me think this is all coordinated bullshit, they didn't hesitate to work together to get

... debt ceiling increased.

Looks like Schumer is calling for vote on Tuesday, lets see who the assholes are.

[Celerity]

20. yes, and a preview

Looks like Schumer is calling for vote on Tuesday, lets see who the assholes are.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

5. Senate Democrats used the filibuster during the first two years of TFG to block ACA repeal

Democrats block the repeal of the ACA during the first two years of the TFG administration

When you are the majority, you do not need the filibuster. The Senate Majority leader can block bills from coming to floor

[Hoyt]

12. Fact. We seem to forget.

[world wide wally]

6. Did Biden or Schumer ask McConnell to talk with Manchin or Sinema?

Maybe he would have some better luck

[karynnj]

7. Yes and we have done so. Not now, because we control both houses and most bills are our agenda

[GoodRaisin]

8. Mitch will nuke it when it benefits him.

Once they control both chambers and the White House and need it to do something big for the plutocracy they shill for.

[kelly1mm]

10. During the Trump Presidency the Democrats filibustered

314 times. So yes, Democrats can and do use the filibuster. There are multiple videos of President Biden and Senator Schumer vigorously defending the filibuster as late as 2017.

[Bev54]

11. Yeah if the repugs actually brought any actual bills to the floor.

They used reconciliation for their only success of tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.

[Tickle]

13. Fortunately for us all

It was used frequently during TFG time

[PoliticAverse]

14. Democrats used it a lot when Trump was President...

they don't need to use it now, because Democrats control the House and Senate and can keep Republican bills from reaching the floor for a vote.

[inwiththenew]

19. They did and quite often

A big reason why Trump accomplished very little legislatively was because of the filibuster.