Here's stuff as I understand it (though I could be wrong and if I am someone should correct me).
The first thing that's changed is that in order to filibuster, you don't actually have to stand up and keep the floor for as long as you can. As I understand it, you're basically just tabling it until one side or the other has enough votes to end the filibuster. Since filibusters are no longer as annoying as they once were to be in the assembly for, nobody ever cares enough to end filibusters (whereas back in the day, people would finally end them just to go home).
This means that filibustering basically means one side or other other has arbitrarily decided that this bill doesn't need 51 votes to go through. It needs 60 votes for cloture--to even be voted on as a bill--and then 51 votes to go through. It means that any bill could potentially suddenly need 60 votes to pass instead of 51, depending on whether someone filibusters it (which we've established doesn't actually cost anyone to do, so there's really no reason anymore not to use this to kill legislation).
This is how the Republicans ended up with a 49-seat majority in the senate. Reconciliation is a budget measure used to pass a financial bill in an emergency (such as "we have to pass a budget or the government has to shut down because we don't have a financial plan this year, so we're overriding a filibuster to get SOMETHING done at least). However, I think that Republicans used Reconciliation like, five times or something while GW was in office to defeat Democratic filibusters, so their bluster and moaning about what a dirty trick this is... kind of rings hollow to me.
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Date: 2010-03-16 04:24 pm (UTC)The first thing that's changed is that in order to filibuster, you don't actually have to stand up and keep the floor for as long as you can. As I understand it, you're basically just tabling it until one side or the other has enough votes to end the filibuster. Since filibusters are no longer as annoying as they once were to be in the assembly for, nobody ever cares enough to end filibusters (whereas back in the day, people would finally end them just to go home).
This means that filibustering basically means one side or other other has arbitrarily decided that this bill doesn't need 51 votes to go through. It needs 60 votes for cloture--to even be voted on as a bill--and then 51 votes to go through. It means that any bill could potentially suddenly need 60 votes to pass instead of 51, depending on whether someone filibusters it (which we've established doesn't actually cost anyone to do, so there's really no reason anymore not to use this to kill legislation).
This is how the Republicans ended up with a 49-seat majority in the senate. Reconciliation is a budget measure used to pass a financial bill in an emergency (such as "we have to pass a budget or the government has to shut down because we don't have a financial plan this year, so we're overriding a filibuster to get SOMETHING done at least). However, I think that Republicans used Reconciliation like, five times or something while GW was in office to defeat Democratic filibusters, so their bluster and moaning about what a dirty trick this is... kind of rings hollow to me.
Anyway, that's my understanding of it.