Democrats Invoke ‘Nuclear Option’ in Senate

Democrats Invoke ‘Nuclear Option’ in Senate

Sunlen Miller
ABC News
Oct. 6, 2011

Democrats invoked the so-called “nuclear option” to change the rules in the U.S. Senate, bypassing Republicans and evading two difficult votes, including one on President Obama’s jobs bill.

The procedural precedent, which blocked Republicans from adding more amendments, could speed passage of a bill to punish China for currency manipulation.

It could also open a Pandora’s box, forever altering the traditions of the senate and its role on Capitol Hill.

The bickering was the culmination of months of arguments and fierce partisanship that revealed themselves tonight in a nasty fight over procedure that yielded little actual progress on legislation.

After a marathon argument on the Senate floor for more than two hours, the precedent of the Senate was changed, none of the bills that were intended to get voted on did, votes were delayed until next week, senators have gone home for the holiday weekend with little to show for their work week, hurt feelings were on full display and there are now changes to Senate procedure that could have ramifications for years to come.

The argument originally started on the Senate floor tonight over the China currency bill, which ironically enough enjoys bipartisan support. Earlier Thursday it received 79 votes on one procedural motion and 62 votes – two more than necessary – to cut off debate.

But Republicans sought to add as amendments to the China currency bill two measures on which Democrats did not want to vote – one was on the President’s jobs bill, which they hope to change, and another was from Senator Mike Johanns, R-NE., to block EPA rules on farm dust.

When McConnell would not give up on seeking votes for the two unrelated bills, Reid used the nuclear option. Reid said that the Senate must have the ability to move forward with bills that have broad bipartisan support.

Reid said that unlimited motions to suspend the rules could lead to a filibuster. So in the end the Senate voted on appealing the ruling of the Senate parliamentarian, and won. This created the new precedent allowing the majority to cut off motions to suspend as dilatory, ie: wasteful.

McConnell accused the Majority Leader of turning the Senate, usually with ample time for debate and discussion, into the House.

“We are fundamentally turning the Senate into the House,” McConnell said, “No amendments before cloture. No motions to suspend after cloture. The minority’s out of business.”

“I know there are some hurt feelings here,” Reid admitted, “This has to come to an end; this is not the way to legislate,” although adding that he’s “very comfortable with his move to block dilatory amendments.

“When we get a chance to legislate, we shouldn’t be held up by these dilatory matters,” Reid said, “I’m willing to legislate. I’ll take a lot of hard votes in my career and I would be happy to vote on these. But there has to be an end to this.”

McConnell rebutted that the country is better off with more debate and said the Senate made a “big mistake” tonight.

At the end of the night a tired and frustrated Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., even said that the argument may have gone a little too far.

He called for a joint meeting of Democrats and Republicans behind closed doors to air out their grievances in a saner manner once they all have had time to cool off over the long Columbus Day weekend.

“I think that would be a good step forward, that [Senate Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell and I could be there in front of everybody else together, questions could be asked, statements could be made, and we could see if that would let a little air out of the tires,” Reid said of the intended impromptu future therapy session.

The vote on the China currency bill, three long-stalled trade agreements and President Obama’s jobs bill are now all delayed until Tuesday of next week. Senators have now gone home for the holiday weekend and will be back on Tuesday.

Here’s how the Senate winded their way to this very complex situation tonight.

The Senate voted to suspend the rules out of order, using a simple majority to change the rules of the debate and do an an end-run around a filibuster Republicans were launching by offering many amendments . This is called the “nuclear option” because it stops the minority from offering amendments and establishes a new precedent for the Senate. After tonight’s vote, it is no longer allowed to add post-cloture amendments which seek to suspend the rules.

Emotions ran high – not only by the procedural moves and what they’ll mean for the Senate, but also because what this move shows about the Senate.

“I think members on both sides of the aisle feel like this institution has-to-degraded into a place that is no longer a place of any deliberation at all,” Senator Corker, R-Tenn., said, “and I’d like for you and the minority leader to explain to us so that we have one story here in public as to what has happened this week to lead us to the place that we are. That’s all I’m asking. That’s all I want to know. Explain how the greatest deliberative body on a bill that many would say was a messaging bill in the first place ended up having no amendments and we’re in this place that we are right now.”

“We have changed the rules of the senate on a messaging bill, on a matter that the majority leader had the votes on,” Senator Wicker, R-MS., said, “so that is my objection. That is why I am so disturbed about the overreaction and heavy-handedness of this move. This is not a matter of supporting of one bill that he wants to get us out of town on. This is precedent, and we have — unless we can change it, we have forever changed the right of the majority to be heard post cloture, and I am saddened about that.”

Senator Schumer, D-NY., channeling a therapist, suggesting using this debate as a flashpoint to try to come together and work the larger problem of partisanship in the Senate out. ”

“If we’re going to bring this place back to a way where we can legislate, we are going to have to both sides back off and we’re going to have to figure out how to do that, which we haven’t very adequately yet,” Schumer said.

Concluded Reid, “I’m sure we can all cinch up our belts and as they say in the old and new testament gird our loins and try to do a better job of how we get along here.”

The Senate’s ‘Nuclear Option’: Has the Upper House Reached a New Low?

Sunlen Miller
ABC News
Oct. 6, 2011

The U.S. Senate is often referred to as the world’s greatest deliberative body. But to anyone who caught even a few minutes of Thursday night’s meltdown in the Senate, it would be easy to think otherwise.

The fight – in which Democrats invoked the ‘nuclear option’ and used a simple majority to curb the rights of the supermajority - on one level was about procedure. But years of division and partisanship contributed to emotions and rhetoric that ran high, highlighting that the Upper House in Congress might have, to some, turned into a fun house – more about games than getting things done – more about politics than policy.

“I think members on both sides of the aisle feel like this institution has degraded into a place that is no longer a place of any deliberation at all,” Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said.

Even Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, whose strategic move Thursday night was described by Republicans as “heavy-handed,” admitted the dysfunction. “This has to come to an end,” Reid said of both sides. “This is not a way to legislate.”

Arcane procedural squabbles aside, the fight was really about politics, both sides casting the other has holding up legislation for political gain, and the minority party in the Senate arguing to protect more of its rights in the chamber.

“Let’s get back to legislating as we did before the mantra around here was ‘defeat Obama,’” a frustrated Reid said on the Senate floor.

Democratic aides consistently point out that Republicans have made no secret that their goal is to prevent the president from winning the 2012 election. Democratic Senate aides today say that Thursday night’s episode highlighted the extremes to which Republicans are “making good on that promise at the expense of the economy.”

“McConnell isn’t happy unless the Senate is in a state of dysfunction,” a Senate aide said today of the GOP minority leader from Kentucky, Sen. Mitch McConnell. “He got hot under the collar last night, and was grasping at procedural straws to try to tank a bipartisan bill at the 11th hour.”

Republicans argue that the majority party, the Democrats, are taking a my-way-or-the-highway approach on everything. And that is not the way the Senate is supposed to work.

“We are fundamentally turning the Senate into the House. No amendments before cloture. No motions to suspend after cloture. The minority’s out of business,” McConnell said. “In the United States Senate, the minority is entitled to be heard. Not entitled to win, but entitled to be heard. That is the core problem here.”

A Republican Senate aide today said, “This is a remarkably short-sighted thing for Democrats to do, given that they’ll be in the minority some day.”

Members were sent home for the holiday weekend and instructed to cool off and let the air out of their tires a bit. Reid announced that he’d like to have a full caucus meeting with Democrats and Republicans to have a more civil debate about all the issues that came up in heated way in the Senate Thursday night.

As the dust settles today on Capitol Hill, the question left is whether the dynamic has fundamentally changed in the Senate. Has this poisoned the well?

The proverbial well wasn’t all that good to start off with. An ABC News-Washington Post poll released this week found that 14 percent of people approve of the job Congress is doing. “I have a hard time recalling any real bipartisan achievements from this Congress to show that it was functioning in the first place,” a Senate Democratic aide admitted today.

Asked if this latest dust-up will have ramifications, beyond the new precedent set for procedure, in the Senate’s working relationships, many said it will.

A Republican Senate aide thinks the Republicans will be less inclined to work with Reid in the next session, less inclined to give Reid cloture the next time he “fills the tree,” or cuts off additonal amendments, which is one of the many points to which Republicans objected Thursday night. “I think they learned a real lesson here: Just because you cooperate with Reid, doesn’t mean he won’t screw you,” a Republican aide said.

But Sarah Binder, an expert on Congress and legislative politics for the Brookings Institution, said that while Thursday night’s tensions boiled over, this was hardly a “revolutionary move” because such a dynamic has been in the Senate for a long time, nearly 50 years as the two parties have grown more polarized.

“Leaders long before Reid have been really frustrated with their inability to kind of control and move the Senate along toward final decisions,” Binder said. “No one likes to see the sausage getting made, but that is the reality of legislating in the Senate. It’s bared for all to see on the floor.”

Regardless of the long-term consequences of Thursday night’s procedural and political fight, one thing is for sure: Thursday night was not a good night for the Senate.

Great. Now, I hope Democrats understand that if this is the game they want to play, then ObamaCare will be repealed by a simple GOP majority in the House and Senate (if they gain and hold next year).

Payback is a bitch when you do something self-serving.

Same here! These bastards bitched and wailed when the Republicans so much as intimated they were considering the nuclear option and now they pull this crap!

I hope like hell the Republicans kick their asses in 2012 and then go fucking crazy with the nuclear option while telling to MSM (who will side with Dems and be their mouthpiece of "outrage" while forgetting to mention this episode) to go straight to hell - damn the coverage, full speed ahead!

It's high time the Republicans grew a pair and did what is right REGARDLESS of what the media say.

I'm not in favor of the nuke option even when the GOP threatened it back when they ran the Senate. It always comes back and bites ya in the ass.

But.......

Hey, the Dems can't stand compromising, so they pull this shit. Oh, the GOP won't compromise? Hell, the GOP wanted this bill to go to a vote. They supported some of the stuff. What it is, is that the Dems couldn't get their precious tax increases thru otherwise. But no fear... they don't control the purse strings (the U.S. House of Representatives).

But hey.... do the nuke option the rest of this term and watch that shit hole ObamaCare go by the wayside when the GOP takes control of the Senate next year.

We can only hope the Republicans have the balls to give it back to the Dems if we are lucky enough to take over the Senate in 2012.