OUR OPINION: Heitkamp should call for bipartisan filibuster reform
November 24, 2012 at 11:50 pm in Grand Forks Herald
When Senator-elect Heidi Heitkamp goes to Washington, she’ll be representing 680,000 North Dakotans. And over the course of her six-year term, her vote will carry exactly the same weight as the vote of fellow Senator-elect Ted Cruz, who’ll be representing 26 million Texans. Continue Reading
The problem with the filibuster is not with the concept, but the implementation. It used to be that one had to be on the floor to filibuster and not only that, senators had to be there to listen. Over time, this became a hollow shell where a senator can filibuster from his or her office. I would add one more senate change that needs immediate fixing as well, the ability of a single senator to hold up nominations indefinitely.
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Exactly right…….On one hand I hate to agree with the Herald that showed it’s true colors by picking the worse possible candidates in Berg and Romney just to be consistant right wing (Although Dennis doesn’t seem so), but there’s a lot of truth here. By getting rid of the filibuster all together you just know it will come back to bite the Dems in the butt really hard some day. I too think the best they can do is to go back to the old way of requiring them to actually do the physical filibuster……Like Strom did in Depends so he wouldn’t have to leave for the bathroom
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I think it is so funny the people want to label Romney “right wing”. He did not have the support of the right wing of the Republican party in the primaries. He did not get a vote of support from the right wing in the general election. Those from the right did not vote for him as much as vote against Obama. To them Romney was the lesser of two evils not their man. The same was true of McCain when he ran. It also tells you that while the Democrats and media want to make the right into this huge threat they do not even have the power in the Republican party to nominate their own person.
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Well, what you say may be true of him immediately before the election, but all the positions he took before he was nominated were as far right as you can get. He was even to the right of Rick Perry on several issues. The fact that the right got screwed by the GOP kind of says it all as to where the Repubicans are now. They have to go to the middle to win anytime soon, but they lose their base of core conservatives if they do that. Rock meet hard place.
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Don’t feel too bad for them. The pander to the base during the primaries & move towards the middle for the general election affects both sides & is a time honored staple of politics.
The GOP problem is there is no middle. In this respect they have lost their soul. Social conservatism has trumped fiscal conservatism & there simply are not enough social conservatives in this country to elect a President.
To be successful you need at least 40% of the Hispanic vote (that is what GWB got) & the middle right independents (male & female). The GOP got neither, & it shows in the House and the Senate. The White House was not their biggest loss
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Believe me, fn, I don’t feel bad for them! Makes my day…
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True but nobody on the right believed him because of his record as Gov. It was not the right that got him the nomination.
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Well, who did then, Glen? There aren’t enough moderates left in the GOP to do anything. It was the religious right, tea party, fiscal conservatives and right to lifers who swung the nomination. And, oh, yeah, old white men.
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the far right wanted Paul or Santorum. They do not have the power in the Republican party you want to give them credit for. They do have influence but are far from controlling the party. Look at who ended up with the nomination the last two pres elections from the Republicans… center right Republican. Both had to pick far right running mates to placate the far right of the party. But in the end we all know the VP does nothing but attend funerals and put his foot in his mouth.
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It was Rove who got him the nomination. With the pac money he was able to dig the dirt on everyone else and released it whenever one of the others became the front runner. The Americans United decission was considered a tool that would basically make it impossible for Dems to get much going any more, but in the end it actually damaged the GOP big time.
Hopefully those of you on the right with some common sense will join us on the left in pushing for changin the pac money rules. Making limits and especially having an accounting of who is donating. Having all that pac money with so few strings is horrible for demoracy and will come back to bite either side in the but time and time again….
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You can expect very little change on this or any other rule because changes made while you are in the majority will inevitably come back to bite you in the backside when you are in the minority.
Politicians are amoral power hungry fools who have usually forgot why they were elected: to represent the people, not themselves. That said, they are generally not stupid. They know life is cyclical, & need to adopt a long term strategy if they don’t want to go the way of the Whigs or Dixicrats.
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I love it when people say the GOP failed to cater to voters, and how it failed to move to the middle of the road etc…
What i see is a party that stayed true to its roots and its beliefs while the other party sold its soul for votes.
Democrats won.
Now take responsibility for your win and do something.
And accept the results both victories and failures.
QUIT BLAMING EVERYONE ELSE!
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Cap….I have no idea what the hell you are talking about….The side that is extremely busy trying to figure out who deserves the blame….Is your side. Your side is doing what I used to see people coming into AA do all the time…Blame everyone in the world for their problems…Except that person in the mirror. You wont even consider that this idea of your side staying true to their ideas from the neo-cons might have been the problem all along. People want a balance and your side wanted to strip away many of the things that actually help people just so that these damn tax breaks for the wealthy would never expire (Even though Bush had them set up to expire two years ago….Once in a while he thought ahead). That insanity was just too radical especially it’s because of those breaks along with two wars that we didn’t pay on (Oh and just robbed SS to help pay so it wouldn’t look bad on the books) was what got it into this mess in the first place….
Yes..We need to be fically responsible, but we also need to be socially responsible. Somehow your right wing media has convienced many of you that attending to anything that helps society is akin to socialism so all common sense has gone out the door on your side when it comes to programs that help everyone instead of just the money changers…
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Some are incapable of rigorous honesty….
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They might have been born that way….
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Cap, this is the beauty of liberalism…they never have to take responsibility for their policies. Look at obama..the numbers don’t lie, his last four years were ugly, and yet he was able to dupe his followers into believing it was the previous presidents fault. Again, libs never have to be responsible for anything, its always the right who have to take stock, come to the table, or fix their mistakes. Like you said… I hope the left eats the next four years…because I believe its gonna get really ugly and thats about the only thing that will bring folks out of their slumber. As for Heitkamp… she’ll be at the back of the pack, picking up Obama’s dirty socks like the rest of the dems…but she’ll have a pension for life and a steady paycheck.
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And it is that strikingly upbeat world view that will get everybody to the polls for the GOP next time.
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The republican party will keep dying a slow death until they sever ties with Rush and Karl. So called job creators put their profits into the Cayman islands and Switzerland…this has been proven fact. You sew what you reap….
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Get real, Tom. As a freshman senator, she only has the power to call for a refill of coffee and another piece of pie.
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