We don't need 60, just 41 to stave off a filibuster. Edited.

I remember seeing an article recently to this effect in truthout.


Edit: Here's a link referencing the article and pointing out a mistaken understanding of how the Senate workds. Much like beaconess, below, did.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=3540075&mesg_id=3540120

You'll have to explain that one, unless you are being sarcastic. And if you are, I assure you a whole bunch of DUers will believe you and take it as gospel anyway.

In the last couple of weeks. I posted because I don't recall the specifics.

I think that started in Media Matters as a claim that the media was misreprenting the facts. The argument was that 41 Senators could halt the war by filibustering the budget, thus cutting off funding for the war. It was a sophomoric understanding of government, but it still gets repeated around here. The fact is that there is enough money in the pipeline already to keep the troops over there long after the rest of our government has shut down, so blocking the budget in reality would not end the war.

Maybe that's what you're referring to? A filibuster requires 60 votes to end it, or it requires the majority to wait until each opponent has talked himself or herself out completely (Senator LBJ did this to end the filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1957). At best, the Senate could exercise the parliamentary procedure often called "the nuclear option" to change the laws and thus forbid filibustes. But that would require a majority.

Just because there's "enough money in the pipeline already to keep the troops over there long after the rest of our government has shut down" doesn't make the idea undesirable.

I think it's a great idea for one reason alone: it's one way we can stop bush's madness. Sure, it might not stop "immediately" due to the funds previously appropriated being "in the pipeline," but it will stop the shoveling of the treasury into halliburton's offshore bank accounts and will have the desired effect down the road.

It's also odd that there's this focus on the closely divided senate regarding this funding when it would be far easier to cut off the funds in the house, where there's a comfortable margin of democrats. It's the house where funding originates, so the house could simply refuse to consider any bill that continued funding bush's crime spree. Such a move would be immune from any veto or filibuster.

Thanks.

It won't stop Bush's madness, or anything. It will cut off funding to people on welfare, medicaid, and people employed by the government. It's Bush's wildest fantasy--why do you think Reid and Pelosi have refused to do it? You buy the lies that they are in favor of the war, or on Bush's side, or lack courage? Bullshit. It gives Bush everything he wants--it halts spending programs he hates in the first place, and it's the one thing that could turn the public back to his side. He's got the scripts and the PR moves plotted out already, praying to a God I doubt he believes in that we will be so stupid. That's exactly what he told them in that meeting they held the first time they passed a budget he vetoed.

You're right, it's not sophomoric. I was being kind to call it that. It might stroke a few frustrated egos, but it would give the Republicans an issue to run on in 08, and it just could give them another four years. And we won't survive that, no matter how happy our fragile little egos might be in the short term.

vulnerable in our society suffer.

Made sense to me knowing less than its author about the workings of the Senate. :thumbsup: :)

All I see is apologist spin and unfounded assertions.

one Dem to stop the bill. If this is wrong let me know. I'd like to set others straight.
If it only takes one, it doesn't matter how many it takes to stop that one, if there is
no one going to do it. I keep thinking they have got to have a plan, but I never see it
They(Dems)

going to keep any more blank checks from being written for this war on the Senate side. We don't have to pass legislation that doesn't contain mandatory deadlines.

The Republicans cannot force us to PASS their legislation...they can only keep us from passing our own.

What happened with the last blank check is that when Dubya vetoed the legislation that fully funded the troops, because it was tied to mandatory deadlines, the Democratic majority caved like a Utah coal mine, and passed Republican legislation, instead of sticking to their guns, and sending back the same "deadlines for dollar" legislation.

And, I'm afraid, it's going to happen again, with the bogus argument that we need 67 votes to stop it. The truth is, we, being in the majority, do not have to even allow a "no strings attached, blank check" bill onto the floor.

The, "we don't have the votes argument" is a lie. We do have the votes. The question is: Do we have the political courage?

41 no votes (or 41 not yes votes) are needed to successfully sustain one.

If we want to proactively do something and the Republicans want to block it through a filibuster, we need 60 votes to end a filibuster and proceed to a vote. If we want to stop something from happening - i.e., filibuster it ourselves - we need 41 Senators to not vote yes (it doesn't matter whether they vote no or don't vote at all, as long as they don't vote yes).

Examples - Dems tried to pass the DC Voting Rights bill this week, which most (but not all) Republicans opposed. The Republicans filibustered and Dems needed 60 votes to end debate and bring it to a vote. We only managed to get 57 votes to invoke cloture (end the filibuster), so the bill was stopped for the time being. The bill's opponents got 42 no votes, but it didn't matter if they didn't get any votes at all - as long as we didn't get 60 votes, the bill couldn't move, regardless how many no votes there were.

On the other hand, when the Democrats were in the minority, they tried to filibuster Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito. The Republicans needed 60 votes to end the filibuster and move the nomination to a vote. That meant the Democrats had to convince 41 Senators not to vote yes - either by voting no or not voting at all. We only managed to get 28 to not vote yes (25 voted no, 3 didn't vote). The Republicans got 72 to vote yes - way more than the 60 they needed.

So the magic number is 60 if we are trying to stop a filibuster, 41 if we are trying to mount one.

I hope this makes sense - it's a little confusing!

Makes sense. :hi:

the one that blocks the actual vote - threshold was arbitrarily raised by the GOP to 60 from the majority vote it has been traditionally. Instead of telling the GOP to piss off, the Democrats are kowtowing to the BS GOP overlords.

We need a leader. Someone who will light a firecracker under their asses. The wannabees are too busy running for president to lead in a take-no-prisoners kind of way (I know some will argue that they are, but they are operating in carefully measured sound bytes now.)

Paging Al Gore.

Dems have spinelessly capitulated to Thugs game plan for so long they can't mount a convincing offense.

When a measure is ready to move from being debated to being voted on, it usually just goes to a vote. However, if some Senators want to extend debate indefinitely and keep the issue from going to a vote, they file a cloture motion indicating that they intend to filibuster, i.e., not cut off debate. The Senate then votes on whether to cut off debate and vote on the matter. In order to cut off debate, 60 Senators must vote yes. If 60 Senators vote yes, the matter proceeds to a vote. It doesn't matter how many vote no, although usually they will vote anyway to make their point. If it doesn't get 60 votes, the bill is blocked.

Funny when you realize something you thought to be true (vaguely) turns out to have no basis in fact. Thanks for the heads-up on that.

This is all very confusing!

Some of those running are currently in positions to truly LEAD NOW ~ I don't want to see them on the stump; I want to see them leading in Congress.

I hope Gore hears your page!

We'll lose the 3 Repubs, plus Landrieu and Baucus, possibly Salazar, Nelson FL, and Lincoln; who knows about Dorgan, Johnson, Conrad, Feinstein, and how many others.

The best chance we had was knocking down the Dems are caving propaganda, but people around here always prefer to believe the worst about the Dems than to fight the Repubs. Great to have a scapegoat I guess.

Not true?

Regardless of whether that's true, where the heck are the Dems? They should be all over TV decrying the Republicans' threat of a fillibuster, saying that they are obstructionists, etc., the way the Republicans did several times during the last several years. The Dems should've fanned out, en masse, and shouted the obstructionist behavior from the rooftops! The Republicans - who just a year or two ago wanted to BAN the right to fillibuster altogether - are now threatening fillibustering?

If the Dems don't start acting less like "girly men", they're going to lose in '08. I'm serious. Who wants wimps running the country? If they don't even so much as point out obstructionist behavior, why would we entrust to them our national security, our taxes, our children's education?

You rightly point out the bizarro world fact that the same people who threatened to eliminate the filibuster because it was "anti-democratic" for the minority to "thwart the will of the majority," have mounted more than 45 filibusters since January.

Outrageous. The Dems are talking about it, but, of course, the press is ignoring the hypocrisy.

I watch a lot of the political talk shows...the ones where Dems and Repubs are guests. The Dems have had AMPLE opportunity to make a strong case about this, but they have repeatedly failed to do so.

Besides failing to even MENTION this bizarro fact about the Republicans, they apparently have not gotten together to fan out and appear on politico shows to do that. These shows are desperate to get guests...they have hours and hours of air time to fill. They'd LOVE to have politicians on criticizing the opposing party.

Hillary was on Meet the Press this morning. She didn't mention it. I watched Hardball most of the week...I didn't see any Democrat on that show mention it. It's not the media, in my view. You can't divert your own responsibility to the media and expect THEM to do your complaining for you.

The Dems still haven't gotten it together, it seems, as far as bold strategy.