Reply #17: The Senate Parliamentarian may only advise the Presiding Officer of the Senate and not make rulings. [View All]

The Parliamentarian of the United States Senate is the official advisor to the United States Senate on the interpretation of Standing Rules of the United States Senate and parliamentary procedure.

As the Presiding Officer of the Senate may not be fully aware of the parliamentary situation currently facing the Senate, staff from the Senate Parliamentarian's office sit on the Senate dais to advise the Presiding Officer on how to respond to inquiries and motions from Senators. The role of the parliamentary staff is strictly advisory; the Presiding Officer is in no way required to follow their advice ....


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentarian_of_the_United_States_Senate


The Presiding Officer of the Senate is not required to follow the Parliamentarian's advice. End of story.

Senator Reid also has the power to replace the Republican appointed Senate Parliamentarian at any time and for any reason!

The current Senate Parliamentarian, Alan Frumin, was hired by Republicans when they were in the majority, but only after Republicans had fired a previous Parliamentarian for not ruling in their favor.

Robert Dove, was Frumin's predecessor as Senate parliamentarian. Dove was fired in 2001 (Frumin replaced him) after Republican senators, then in the majority, disputed several of his rulings. Dove was dismissed by the Majority Leader, Mississippi Republican Trent Lott.

And the President of the Senate, Vice-President Joe Biden, can easily implement the Constitutional Option.

Joe Biden, acting as President of the Senate, can rule that 51 Senate votes can end filibusters.

If Democrats really want to run the Senate they can get a ruling from the Senate President that only a majority of votes is required to end debate on any legislative proposal and/or that Senate rules can be changed at anytime by a simple majority of Senators using the "Constitutional Option.

It's likely the Republicans will utilize the above options whenever they regain control of the Senate. Meanwhile it seems the Democrats would rather let the Republicans continue their obstruction of the Senate by not utilizing these options.


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During the filibuster, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, acting as President of the Senate, ruled that the debate over a rule change could be ended with a simple majority. Mansfield opposed Rockefeller's ruling and introduced a motion that was quickly tabled, 51-42, thus endorsing the majoritarian decision of Rockefeller. Conservatives were outraged and Mansfield, Byrd, and Minority Leader Robert Griffin attempted to overturn the precedent. Ultimately a proposal by Sen. Russell Long to change the cloture limit to 3/5 for two years and then revert back to the original 2/3 limit led to a compromise between the two factions to overcome Rockefeller's ruling.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Filibuster

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The Case for Busting the Filibuster
By Thomas Geoghegan
This article appeared in the August 31, 2009 edition of The Nation.

In 1975 Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, in his role as president of the Senate, ruled that just fifty-one senators could vote to get rid of the filibuster entirely. A simple majority of liberals could now force change on a frightened old guard. But instead of dumping the filibuster once and for all, the liberals, unsure of their support, agreed to a "reformed" Rule 22. It was this reform that, by accident, turned the once-in-a-blue-moon filibuster into something that happens all the time. The idea was to reduce the votes needed to cut off debate from sixty-seven, which on the Hill is a big hill to climb, to just sixty. Liberals like Walter Mondale wanted to make it easier to push through civil rights and other progressive legislation. What's the harm in that?

The only problem is that, because the filibuster had rendered the chamber so laughable, with renegade members pulling all-nighters and blocking all the Senate's business, the "reformers" came up with a new procedural filibuster--the polite filibuster, the Bob Dole filibuster--to replace the cruder old-fashioned filibuster of Senate pirates like Strom Thurmond ("filibuster" comes from the Dutch word for freebooter, or pirate). The liberals of 1975 thought they could banish the dark Furies of American history, but they wound up spawning more demons than we'd ever seen before. Because the senators did not want to be laughed at by stand-up comedians, they ended their own stand-up acts with a rule that says, essentially:

"We aren't going to let the Senate pirates hold up business anymore. From now on, if those people want to filibuster, they can do it offstage. They can just file a motion that they want debate to continue on this measure indefinitely. We will then put the measure aside, and go back to it only if we get the sixty votes to cut off this not-really-happening debate."

In other words, the opposing senators don't have the stomach to stand up and read the chicken soup recipes. We call it the "procedural" filibuster, but what we really mean is the "pretend" filibuster.

http://www.thenation.com/article/case-busting-filibuster