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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (129578)	1/29/2010 11:36:10 AM
From: Paul Kern	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542785

59 senators are going to sit in a corner pouting and blame republicans? Who should take the blame -- the Zoroastrians?

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (129578)	1/29/2010 11:44:42 AM
From: Bridge Player	Respond to of 542785

the key here is you have to have a great bill that Americans can understand and want. Completely agree with that, Steve. And if such a bill is proposed and pushed I'm pretty sure that you will get more than enough support from the right to get it passed into law.

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (129578)	1/30/2010 10:07:59 PM
From: Cogito	Respond to of 542785

>>Doris said that rules are such that you can't eat or even go potty and you have to keep talking .....republicans will look like jackasses and we can get on with governing.<< Steve - Doris must be unaware that the filibuster rules were changed in 1975. Before a final vote can be taken on a bill, the Senate must have a "cloture" vote. That's a vote to end debate. It takes sixty votes to do that. All the Republicans have to do, under the current filibuster rules, is to refuse to vote for cloture. They don't have to actually stand up and talk on the Senate floor. No actual debate has to be occurring. That's why it takes sixty votes to get anything done, and that's why it's perfectly legitimate for Democrats to blame Republicans for obstructing progress. Remember that there actually aren't sixty Democrats in the Senate. Actually, there haven't been sixty Democrats in the Senate in recent memory. Presently, there are fifty seven of them, plus two independents (Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman) who caucus with them, but can't be counted on always to vote for cloture. As long as the forty one Republicans are united in their desire to maintain a filibuster, there's nothing any Democrat can do about passing anything.