Saturday, November 10, 2007

Now here's an interesting question

In the wake of Attorney General Mukasey's confirmation by the Senate on a 54-43 vote, whatever happened to the "60-vote requirement" that the media (and the Democrats) cite to explain why liberal legislation fails enactment.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here's a mind-boggling effort at explaining how it happens. The Senate rules (following text) are manipulated back and forth in Senate Rule 22.

"The short version is the Constitution gives the Senate the power to make its own rules. Under Rule 22 either by unanimous agreement (aka "unanimous consent") or at least 60 votes on a motion to invoke cloture, the Senate must end debate before it can vote on anything to do with legislation. Got that? Legislative filibusters have a long tradition and Rule 22 upholds that Senate tradition.

However a different agreement for judiciary committee nominations has been in place since the 109th Congress, and still applies to any nomination coming from that committee. That agreement was forged by a group known as the "Gang of 14" who have, in effect, agreed that Rule 22 for judiciary committee nominations won't apply by refusing to become party to filibusters against nominees. In the closely divided Senate, the refusal of 7 Senators on each side to participate in judicial filibusters (which have been described by many as unconstitutional anyway) has effectively nullified the use of the filibuster there. Thus there is no 60 vote requirement for a cloture since there is no cloture vote. Consequently all judiciary committee nominees can be confirmed with a simple majority."

Source, Orlando Blog - : www.qando.net/details.aspx?entry=7233

-Woodbilder

Anonymous said...

ERROR - Text "Orlando" was misplaced in proper cite for the Qando Online Magazine, Quando.net.

- woodbilder

Erik said...

Thanks for the info, Woodbinder.