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March 23, 2005

Comments

I'm excited to see Part IV, but I wanted to point out that Frist, in the opening day of the new Congressional session on January 4, 2005, stated: "Right now, we cannot be certain judicial filibusters will cease. So I reserve the right to propose changes to Senate rule XXII [which requires cloture by 41 votes], and do not acquiesce to carrying over all the rules from the last Congress." See Cong. Rec. S14 (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?r109:1:./temp/~r109UXnQCk::).

I don't know how that plays out, but I just wanted to give you the heads up that we may still, for parliamentary purposes, be at the beginning of a new Congress on this issue.

Yes he did. But I decided to break that off and save it for Part IV, because Part III was getting hairy.

Frist's reservation, and the problems with it, are set for tomorrow's installment, which shouldn't get as drawn-out as today's.

Excellent. And I thought Part III was really interesting and not hairy -- and least not in the back-hair hairy kind of way.

So it occurs to me that there is an expression about changing the rules after the cards are dealt that we ought to be hearing from the Democrat side to make it intuitively clear to the most casual observer that this rule change is an affront to fair play and tradition.

and my question is, why DIDN'T they change the rules at the beginning of this Congress since obviously they are not making this up as they go. did they decide the threat of the nuclear option was more useful this session than executing it, and they will wait until 06 to push the button?

Good stuff, X. Excellent series, written so's even I can follow it. I just don't get why John Warner and Lindsay Graham and Chaffee would go along with this.

I dunno about anyone else, but if you say that phrase again, someone's gonna get hurt.

emptypockets and DemFromCT get their answers in one convenient package:

via The Carpetbagger Report comes this report in the Washington Times indicating that Collins, Warner, McCain and Hagel are inclined against Frist's move, and Chafee and Snowe are firm nos.

Still unannounced in terms of positions on the option are Sununu, Voinovich and Cochran.

Apparently, that leaves Frist currently holding 49 votes. One more gets him both Cheney's favorable ruling and... Cheney's vote to table the appeal of his own ruling.

Ah... so McCain or Hagel get to save Frist's butt by being vote # 50... and make their case for the GOP nomination in 2008. That's why the current debacles on Schiavo and Soc Sec are sooo important. Give the moderates a taste of what it feels like to be on the losing side, or see momentum go against them, and they might hold firm on what principle they still have. That is to say, if the public's opinion of congress keeps dropping, it might be sexy again to look like a maverick.

I wonder if this week's inventive misadventure with the Schiavo case will induce one of the conservatively-minded conservatives (Cochran, Sununu, ...) to view Frist's new whizbang conservatively, in consideration of the Law of Unintended Consequences.

You refer to Sen. Frank Church as (D-IA), a Democratic senator from Iowa.

Church was elected to the senate from Idaho, so he is Sen. Frank Church (D-ID).

Quite right. Thanks!

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