The BIG LIE on Chris Matthews Hardball: Democrats need 60 votes to pass healthcare legislation.

Chris Matthews and his guests keep repeating the same lie over and over and over again. Using a tried and true method of political propaganda, Matthews and other media mouths believe that if this lie is repeated enough most people will begin to believe it .... even liberals and progressives!

And I have yet to see any guests on these talk shows dispute that false claim, including members of Congress!

Only 50 votes (with the Vice-President casting the tie breaking vote) are needed to pass legislation in the Senate.

50 votes, not 60 votes.

You do need 60 votes to end a filibuster on the Senate floor. If the Republicans threaten a filibuster (they haven't even suggested they will do that because they see the Democrats folding) make them engage in a real one! 60 votes will be obtained to end it, sooner rather than later.

And the Senate chair has the power to require a filibustering Senator to be on the Senate floor so they can't just "call it in."

If President Obama demonstrates leadership he pressure the Senate to pass healthcare reform with a strong public option. The ball is in his court. He fumbled this weekend, can he recover this week?

Chris Matthews hardball@msnbc.com

...I was there. He repeated it three times.

And 60 senators could invoke cloture even if some then voted 'no' on a bill.

But with the health conditions of Kennedy and Byrd, even having the 60 could be problematic.

There would be wall-to-wall coverage of a filibuster, since they have become so rare. Some conservative would get the chance to stand in front of the cameras for days spouting off -- unopposed -- about the horrors of death panels, etc.

I wouldn't count on this going our way.

http://www.ourfuture.org/obstruction

As this chart shows, never have so many filibusters been threatened as in the first session of the 110th Congress. In just the first year, Republicans filibustered more legislation, and required more cloture votes to break those filibusters, than in any Congress in recent history. By the time this term ends, Congress could well more than double the number of cloture votes of previous Congresses — including the ones that Republicans controlled and complained of Democratic 'obstruction

If we were actually to have one carried out, it would be quite a spectacle.

I don't know what you are talking about. Just because they aren't broadcast doesn't mean they aren't happening.

Democrats agreed to believe them that they would actually carry one out if they had to.

A real filibuster would entail holding the floor continuously for an open-ended period of time. That hasn't happened in decades, probably not since the civil rights movement.

This is from Wikipedia, explaining the difference between the "procedural filibuster" that has been used lately, and the "actual traditional filibuster".

Procedural filibuster
"In current practice, Senate Rule 22 permits filibusters in which actual continuous floor speeches are not required, although the Senate Majority Leader may require an actual traditional filibuster if he or she so chooses. This threat of a filibuster where no floor speech and no quorum is required may therefore be more powerful than an actual filibuster that would require attendance by a quorum of Senators as well as the physical presence of the Senators speaking.
Previously, the filibustering senator(s) could delay voting only by making an endless speech. Currently, they need only indicate that they are filibustering, thereby preventing the Senate from moving on to other business until the motion is withdrawn or enough votes are gathered for cloture."

The results are the same. Both require a cloture vote of 60 votes.

we had forced them to make their speeches for days on end and let their idiocy show, instead of just backing down as soon as they threatened a filibuster.

But in this case, I'm afraid giving them that platform might backfire.

You can look it up. The breaking of the filibuster of the 1964 Civil Rights Act -- a "real" filibuster -- was the first time that a filibuster had been broken in five decades. It was after that the decision was made to change the way things were done and to use the current approach (although the number of votes needed for cloture has changed).

And think about how it would play out in the media -- the repubs would stand and read from the bills -- long, complicated pieces of legislation; they would read from "think tank reports" bought and paid for by the opponents of health care reform;they would introduce amendment after amendment; they would use quorum calls to force the Democrats to be present on the floor. The bottom line -- the Senate would grind to a halt. No hearings, no meetings with constituents, no anything. And the media would portray this as the Democrats fault since it will be presented that the Democratic leadership could've avoided this by using the more common (today) cloture process, which is the process the repubs used when they were in the majority and was the process used by the Democrats were stopping drilling at ANWR and the same sex marriage ban and other bills and nominations.

That is how, I'm afraid, a "real" filibuster would play out -- the media would turn the repubs into Jimmy Stewart's/Mr Smith's and Reid and the Democrats into the unrelenting, uncompromising ones.

Not saying it should go this way, just that it almost certainly would.

Suddenly the Rethugs would be the champions of Medicare and of the disabled. It would be a sickening spectacle.

I'd like to see some stats on when and on what legislation Republicans have engaged in a real filibuster this year or last year.

Usually the mere threat of a Republican filibuster is enough to send many Democratic Senators into a state of panic.

I'm sure that people in other lands not familiar with this political system probably think the Republicans control Congress, not the Democrats.

..Or 50 plus Biden. IF the Democratic leaders in the Senate have the stomach for it, and IF Obama makes it very clear that he wants it, they can take the bill that comes out of the house and "reconcile" the details with the Senate. The details can include the PUBLIC OPTION!
Actually, I wouldn't mind watching the Repubicans (intentional misspelling) filibuster for a while. Such fools they'd make of themselves

The bills passed seperately by the House and Senate go to a conference committee to have a unified bill produced. Reconcilliation is a special procedure that, as Phx_Dem posted, has to do with bills affecting the deficit or surplus. If I understand it correctly, the Byrd Rule states that parts of the bill that don't directly affect the deficit or surplus can be stricken from the bill if it's being considered under the "reconcilliation" procedure.

What matters in that circumstance is who has the better argument about whether a particular section affects the deficit/surplus.

in the public option provision being stripped from the bill when it's voted on. So what could happen if certain reconcilation rules apply is that they pass the bill, and guess what, public option is no longer included.

Lawrence O'Donnell covered this last week. It sounds very complicated, which is probably why most people don't understand it, but it's not as simple as getting 51 votes and the bill is passed in tact. If provisions can be stricten during reconcillation process, which provision do you think is most likely to be a gonner? My money's on the public option.

I think O'Donnell said it has to do with the Byrd Rule:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconciliation_(Senate)

Reconciliation generally involves legislation that changes the budget deficit (or conceivably, the surplus). The "Byrd Rule" (2 U.S.C. § 644) outlines what reconciliation can and cannot be used for. The Byrd Rule defines a provision to be extraneous in six cases:

(1) if it does not produce a change in outlays or revenues;
(2) if it produces an outlay increase or revenue decrease when the instructed committee is not in compliance with its instructions;
(3) if it is outside the jurisdiction of the committee that submitted the title or provision for inclusion in the reconciliation measure;
(4) if it produces a change in outlays or revenues which is merely incidental to the non-budgetary components of the provision;
(5) if it would increase the deficit for a fiscal year beyond those covered by the reconciliation measure, though the provisions in question may receive an exception if they in total in a Title of the measure net to a reduction in the deficit; and
(6) if it recommends changes in Social Security.

If a provision violates the Byrd Rule, then any Senator may raise a procedural objection and unless 60 Senators vote to waive the objection, then the offending provision will be stripped from the bill.

If they can make sure it doesn't violate the Byrd Rule, go for it. But O'Donnell seemed to think any bill that came from Reconciliation would be so watered down, it would be worthless.

It only takes 51 votes to pass legislation. It takes 60 votes to stop a filibuster so that the vote on the legislation can happen.

Haven't you heard... 60 is the new 50.

:crazy:

against public option. Never once saying how Gallop reflects misinformed opinion and maybe not indicative.

They are not going to allow the public option to pass, period.

I want to see it. I want to actually see the "official" destruction of the republican party.

Senator Reid can force them to filibuster on the Senate floor.

All filibusters end.