the filibuster has been abused by the democrats as an excuse to permit minority rule. a filibuster that requires a pause for debate is not minority rule. fix the filibuster to make it harder for the dems to abuse.

(and since i expect the filibuster rule to be broken by dems in order to pass “entitlement reform” and also expect to depend on SS, i take the whole issue pretty personally)

It’s minority rule.

It’s not defensible.

Or the proposal to get several Dem Senators to commit to banning the filibuster once the Repubs are in majority, thereby convincing the Dem “leadership” to ban it now? This would take guts, on top of [being] a decision to oppose minority rule.

Not to mention being a decision to oppose minority rights, the safeguarding of which is a primary reason this nation wasn’t designed as a pure democracy in the first place.

I agree with almost everything you’ve said in this thread, David – you indeed helped make this an informative discussion and asked Jonathan excellent questions [I particularly appreciated your question @ 47: "Or, let me put it this way: how much loyalty will you have to the leader of your party, how much to your branch of government?"] – but I differ with you (and Jane, insofar as she advocates ‘eliminating’ the filibuster) when it comes to your idea of abolishing the Senate and/or its provisions for unlimited debate (aka the “filibuster”).

Such a position, at least pre-campaign finance reform, defaults us to endorsing the current, extremely-undemocratic House floor status quo – in which the Parties have stifled democratic debate and amendment almost to the point of extinction, via the majority Party stranglehold on the House Rules Committee. [Stifled to the extent that, as just the latest example, the Speaker and her Party provided for a grand total of just two amendments that were proposed by the body-at-large on the House health care bill to reach the House floor for debate and a vote - the two being Stupak/Pitts, and the traditional doomed-to-fail motion-to-recommit sop to the minority Republicans - during a grand total of one day of floor "debate" on the bill, participated in by a fraction of the 435 "Representatives" in the "People's" House.]

I went into some detail to highlight what seem to be misconceptions about the power and procedural source of the (actual) filibuster here – to which I welcome counter-arguments – which illustrates, I think, why expecting even a simple majority of current, sitting Senators to support an end to the Senate’s unlimited-debate format, and thus every Senator’s ability to block Unanimous Consent attempts to overcome that format by objecting, is unrealistic.

Absent coordination among members, the Senate record for a one-man (actual) filibuster is 24 hours. I doubt the Senate will be very bothered by a one-day shutdown of its activities, even if it happened, say, once a month for a while. Which is why the Sanders/DeMint/Bunning holds/objections to proceeding to, and possible future filibuster of, a Bernanke floor renomination – lauded by many, including me, and even those who think they want the filibuster to disappear – is facing an uphill battle, even if all three take turns ‘shutting down the Senate’ via actual filibuster in an effort to stop it. [And it seems to me that the ability to object to all UC Requests, including the constant and convenient fake quorum calls, in an effort to bring the Senate to a standstill and inconvenience members, can actually be an effective tool to force Senators privately obstructing off the floor to fish or cut bait: to either actually publicly filibuster, or to negotiate, or else to look like the bad-faith obstructionists they are. Which, of course, is why no Democrat ever even considers deploying such a tactic to call a Republican (or Lieberman) filibuster bluff...]

gamd521 @ 250 says something that ought to register with those claiming the Senate is unnecessarily or excessively slanted toward the minority, because, perhaps unknowingly, it describes what’s missing from the ongoing floor amendment process on the health care bill in the Senate, where every Democrat, and every Republican, and every Independent has privately agreed that only amendments receiving 60 floor votes may be adopted. Not receiving 60 floor votes to overcome a filibuster, so as, via passage of a cloture motion, to ‘move the question’ to a final simple-majority vote for passage, but instead receiving 60 floor votes simply as a new, obviously minority-favoring, voting threshold for adoption of Senate amendments:

A simple majority is after all what we are advocating for in legislating.

I wonder, then (though obviously the Party-serving secrecy of the process is one huge reason), why no one is making a peep about the unanimously-adopted special requirement that all amendments – good, bad or indifferent – on the Senate health care bill receive a super-majority of 60, not to end debate and move to a vote, but simply to pass?

Under that obvious precedent, apparently instituted – though some clued-in reporter really needs to ask Harry Reid this on the record – at the behest of politically-fearful and/or campaign contributor-serving Democrats, why should the final vote on the as-amended bill, and conference report, be any different, even if, as here, no filibuster, and thus no cloture motion, on the final bill or conference report ever actually materializes?

we need passion in our fighting this horrifying, mind-numbing, amoral status quo. and believing (having that gut feeling) that health care is a human right, a civil right, is about morality and a sense of what is just and right. that sense of entitlement is missing from the learned helplessness of the najority of the bottom 90% or more of us in this oppressed and struggling often authoritarian-following society.

intellectually analyzing the predicaments the citizenry is in is important. Accuracy is important. But repressing a sense of outrage … that is not healthy and is also not waking up a public that needs inspiration and a sense of community. 45,000 gratuitous deaths a year from adequate health care. Is that statistic seriously embraced??? Grayson embraced it. Kucinich. It needs to have a stronger drumbeat.

laugh all you want at Palin. Her emotionality (which i think is manipulative or at best times misguided) is so contagious and compelling it inspires people. Sadly she is the messenger of toxic untruths.

But that freefloating anger and frustration in this country needs to find a proactive or sadly faux-proactive outlet.

To be acknowledged and channeled for justice, ideally. Otherwise, more surreal perversions of democracy and law will keep on occurring.

my take. :)

I think you should feel confident that you speak for the vast majority of the people who do not believe the Iraelis are chosen to live in what was other peoples’ rightful land.

A two stae solution with the 1967 borders that is mandated by every country excepth the US and Israel is where the boundaries ought to be.

Better to stick with more uniformly acknowledged grounds such as practicality, affordability and better health outcomes. Tangible things which in essence is what we are really after. These grounds suffice in making an argument.

Morality in a way doesn’t even enter the picture, because there is no choosing between a better versus a worse outcome. Moral considerations only apply when you have to choose among two options that are of value to you.

A better way is to force a vote by a simple majority in the Senate to see if that rule should be eliminated. A simple majority is after all what we are advocating for in legislating.

Unions can exert a collective power and influence just when this sort of counterweight to corporate pillaging of the public is needed.

This sort of public engagement in determining and achieving their own needs is just the thing.

It all fits together. :-)