Bush, judicial nominations, Democrats, filibusters, and the nuclear option

[Lunar]

I support fillibustering.  I'd like it to be back up to 66.

Nothing says "minority rights" like reading the telephone book!

[Lunar]

All politicians are power-mad.  That's why the fillibuster is good - it plays them against one another and acts as a check on the government.

You want to know why Bush wasn't able to control spending?  Because there wasn't an opposition party that could veto pet projects and pork.

If you want to change the requirement from over 1/2 to 33/50, pass an amendment.

Why not require every Senator while you're at it?

Logically it doesn't make sense for it to be 51%.  The 49% deserves the time to attempt to persuade the majority over to their side.

Logically it also doesn't make sense for it to be 100%.

Things don't have to be in absolutes.  66% is a good number to act as a check for the determined.

[Lunar]

The Democrats had 48 seats in Congress. With a 60 vote requirement, they still didn't stop mad spending.

Obviously.  However, the fillibuster helped to keep the GOP in line at least a little bit.  The threat of the fillibuster probably controlled many things behind the scenes as well.

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If the GOP wants to vote on them, all they have to do is beat the fillibuster.

[Lunar]

It's very easy to beat the fillibuster - declare it unconstitutional, which it is.

The GOP doesn't have that power.

The fillibuster isn't magical.  Just wait for Democrats to give in.

[Lunar]

What the minority "wants" is meaningless in a representative Republic.

There's millions of checks on the majority in this representative republic.  The Constitution, the Senate, etc.

[Lunar]

I agree too.  I doubt they have much backbone unless they feel the public will support them.

They're probably mostly trying to castrate bills with threats of fillibustering.