By ,
Published December 22, 2016
The Democrats said it was a major step toward ending Congressional gridlock. Republicans called it a sinister attempt to divert attention from the flaws of Obamacare.
The implications are nothing short of "nuclear."
Democrats weakened the Senate's hallowed filibuster tradition on Thursday, clearing the way for speedy confirmation of controversial appointments made by President Barack Obama and chief executives in the future.
The move was labeled as the Democrats opting for the "nuclear option" on filibusters.
Majority Leader Harry Reid, who orchestrated the change, called the 52-48 vote a blow against gridlock.
Sen. Robert Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, agreed.
"The American people have had enough," Menendez said in a statement. "Enough of the gridlock, inaction and disregard for the concerns of middle class families. This is not a decision made easily, but the abuse of rules and the unprecedented obstruction against this President by the other side have brought us here. We must return to the people's business."
Republicans warned Democrats they would regret their actions once political fortunes change and they find themselves in the minority and a GOP president in the White House.
At the White House, Obama welcomed the shift. "The gears of government have got to work," he said, and he declared that Republicans had increasingly used existing rules "as a reckless and relentless tool to grind all business to a halt."
But Republicans warned of a power grab by Democrats, some predicting that worse was yet to come.
"This drastic move sets a dangerous precedent that could later be expanded to speed passage of expansive and controversial legislation," said Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama.
Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, said the vote to prohibit filibusters was a scheme to divert attention from the problems that have cropped up with the healthcare law, which he vehemently opposes.
“The heart of this action is directed at packing the D.C. Circuit because that is the court that will review the lawless behavior of the Obama administration implementing ObamaCare,” he said, according to The Hill.
“President Obama and the administration refuse to follow the plain text of the law, and the D.C. Circuit is the court of appeals that has been holding the administration accountable."
Cruz also said the Thursday filibuster vote, “was designed to pack that court with judges that they believe will be a rubber stamp.”
Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, also voted against the rule change.
Rubio spokesman Alex Conant was quoted in the Tampa Bay Times as saying that Rubio supported filibusters to block Obama nominees who were "ill-suited for federal appointments and to demand more transparency from the Obama Administration."
Conant echoed Cruz’s accusation that the vote was meant to bump the problems tied to the new healthcare law off the public radar.
"It’s outrageous the Obama Administration and Senate Democrats would attempt to change the topic from the disaster that is Obamacare by picking a new fight over Senate rules,” the newspaper said.
The day's change involved presidential appointees, not legislation — and not Supreme Court nominees.
The immediate impact was to ensure post-Thanksgiving confirmation for Patricia Millett, one of Obama's three stalled nominees for the District of Columbia Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals, and for others whom Republicans have blocked. Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C., tapped to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency, is among them
The longer-term result of the unilateral move by Democrats was harder to gauge in a Senate that has grown deeply constrained by the major political differences emblematic of an era of divided government.
At issue was a rule that has required a 60-vote majority to end debate in the 100-member Senate and assure a yes-or-no vote on presidential nominees to federal courts or to Cabinet departments or other agencies.
Under a parliamentary maneuver scripted in advance, Democrats changed the proceedings so that only a simple majority was required to clear the way for a final vote. In Senate-speak, this was accomplished by establishing a new precedent under the rules, rather than a formal rules change.
Supreme Court nominations still will be subject to a traditional filibuster, the term used to describe the 60-vote requirement to limit debate.
The day's events capped more than a decade of struggle over judicial nominations, in which first President George W. Bush found his appointees stalled by Senate Democrats, and more recently Obama has complained that Republicans have been delaying or preventing confirmation for his picks.
The vote adds to the list of issues likely to figure in next year's congressional elections.
In a fundraising appeal emailed a few hours after the vote, the Tea Party Express accused Reid of invoking "the nuclear option," and said the only way to stop him "is to rip the gavel out of his hand in 2014 by electing a conservative majority."
On Thursday, in a certain sign that a showdown was imminent, senators filed into the Senate chamber at midmorning in unusual numbers. They listened from their desks as Reid and McConnell swapped accusations that preceded a series of votes on arcane parliamentary points. Yet there was no suspense about the final outcome.
McConnell said Republicans had grown tired of threats of action. "We're not interested in having a gun put to our head any longer," he said, noting that Democrats have periodically talked of changing the rules in recent months.
Still, the events marked a reversal for Reid, who had threatened earlier in the year to change the application of filibuster rules for nominees to Cabinet departments and other agencies, but not for appointments to the courts.
Back then, he and McConnell clashed in highly personal, accusatory terms. This time, they recited their grievances in an exchange that was courteous if sharply worded.
"In the history of the Republic, there have been 168 filibusters of executive and judicial nominees. Half of them have occurred during the Obama administration — during the last four and a half years," Reid said.
The Nevada Democrat accused the GOP of "unbreakable, unprecedented obstruction." He said Republicans had blocked qualified appointees "to force wholesale changes to laws ... to restructure entire executive branch departments" and because they don't want Obama "to appoint any judges to certain courts."
McConnell retorted that Democrats had "pioneered the practice of filibustering circuit court nominees," beginning with Miguel Estrada, a 2001 Bush appointee to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked by Democrats under pressure from outside liberal groups. A Hispanic immigrant viewed at the time as a potential future Supreme Court pick, he withdrew his nomination after more than two years in limbo.
McConnell said Republicans had allowed confirmation of 99 percent of Obama's appointments to the courts. And he likened Reid's dropping of his pledge to leave rules for judicial appointees unaffected to the promise the president made that Americans who liked their health coverage could keep it under "Obamacare."
Reid said his GOP counterpart "may as well just have said, 'If you like the rules of the Senate, you can keep them.'"
The change is the most far-reaching since 1975, when a two-thirds requirement for cutting off filibusters against legislation and all nominations was lowered to 60 votes.
The original impetus for the change came from relatively junior Democrats, including Sens. Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Tom Udall of New Mexico, who are among the 31 members of their party who have never served in the Senate minority.
More senior Democrats came around gradually, some noting the Senate's traditions while others fretted about the possibility that they were giving up the right to block nominees of the future whom they might oppose strenuously.
Asked about that concern after the vote, Reid said, "This is the way it has to be. The Senate has changed."
Modern-day rules covering filibusters have evolved slowly in the Senate, where change rarely comes easily. Since 1917, the minority has enjoyed the right to unlimited debate on legislation and nominations until the majority can amass a super-majority. In recent years, that has meant 60 votes.
In the end, Democratic Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Mark Pryor of Arkansas parted company with Reid on the switch.
Pryor, who faces a difficult re-election fight next year, said in a statement the Senate was "designed to protect_not stamp out_the voices of the minority."
Pryor also noted he had been among a bipartisan group of senators, the so-called Gang of 14, that produced a last-minute compromise nearly a decade ago when Republicans threatened a change in procedures to assure confirmation of several of Bush's stalled judicial nominees.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., another veteran of the Gang of 14, said he had met with Reid on Wednesday urging him to reconsider. "I reached out until my arms ached," he said.
Based on reporting by The Associated Press.
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