by hilzoy
Via ThinkProgress, Harry Reid calls the Senate Republicans' bluff:
"M. President, my worst fears on this bill have been realized. We have just seen the Republican leadership again resort to technical maneuver to block progress on this crucial amendment.It would be one thing for Republicans to vote against this bill. If they honestly believe that “stay the course” is the right strategy — they have the right to vote “no.”
But now, Republicans are using a filibuster to block us from even voting on an amendment that could bring the war to a responsible end.
They are protecting the President rather than protecting our troops.
They are denying us an up or down — yes or no — vote on the most important issue our country faces.
I would like to inform the Republican leadership and all my colleagues that we have no intention of backing down.
If Republicans do not allow a vote on Levin/Reed today or tomorrow, we will work straight through the night on Tuesday.
The American people deserve an open and honest debate on this war, and they deserve an up or down vote on this amendment to end it.
Given the Republican leadership’s decision to block the amendment, we have no choice but to do everything we can in the coming days to highlight Republican obstruction.
We do this in hopes of ultimately getting a simple up or down vote on this and other important amendments that could change the direction of the war.
All Senators will be welcome to speak their mind. Those of us who are ready to end the war will make our case to the American people. Those who support the status quo are welcome to equal floor time to make their case.
Let the American people hear the arguments. Let them see their elected representatives engaging in a full, open and honest debate.
Let them hear why Republicans are obstructing us on this amendment.
Whenever Republicans are ready to allow a vote on this most crucial legislation, we stand ready to deliver the new course that has been so long in coming."
This is wonderful. As I noted a few days ago, the Senate Republicans have filibustered a huge raft of bills. I listed some of them in my post; a fuller list is here (pdf). This is within their rights; however, since they seem to be using the filibuster not as an extraordinary measure, but to make any significant legislation fail unless it gets 60 votes, I see no reason why the Democrats should do them the courtesy of simply tabling every bill they fail to allow cloture on, rather than forcing them to actually filibuster. This is all the more important since, as Josh Marshall notes, the press has not been doing a good job of making it clear what, exactly, the Republicans are doing. Josh's example: their headline after the Webb amendment got 56 votes, well over 50 but too few for cloture: Senate Narrowly Backs Bush in Rejecting Debate on Increasing Time Between Deployments.
Well, no. Not at all.
But there's another point about forcing a filibuster on the Reed/Levin amendment in particular. As long as it goes on, a filibuster prevents any law from being enacted, and thereby prevents any change to the status quo. In the normal case, what's filibustered is a proposed law; a filibuster therefore prevents the law from being enacted for as long as it goes on. Since that law not being passed is exactly what the people doing the filibustering want, they can live with not voting on it indefinitely.
The Reed/Levin amendment, however, is an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill. If this amendment is not voted on, the result is not just that it does not pass, but that the Defense Authorization bill itself cannot be voted on. In this case, the status quo ante is not that a law they do not want to be passed is not passed; it is that funding for the Defense Department is not authorized. This is not a state of affairs that either party wants to prolong indefinitely. But as long as Republicans are blocking the up-or-down vote that will allow the Authorization bill to be passed, I think, they will (rightly) be seen as the party doing the obstructing. This is especially true if they can be seen at all hours of the day or night reading the Manhattan phone directory aloud on CSPAN.
That means, I think, that on this occasion perceptions of who is to blame for holding up the Defense Appropriations bill will for once mirror who is in fact to blame. And that can only be good.
But as long as Republicans are blocking the up-or-down vote that will allow the Authorization bill to be passed, I think, they will (rightly) be seen as the party doing the obstructing.
Just you watch, I'd put down good money that the Dems get blamed anyway (at least in headlines similar to what JMM points out).
Posted by: Ugh | July 16, 2007 at 05:13 PM
I'm all for making people really filibuster when they want to filibuster a bill. So I'll take this limited opportunity to wholly agree with the Democrats (though I admit it is on a procedural issue).
Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw | July 16, 2007 at 05:30 PM
"as Josh Marshall notes, the press has not been doing a good job of making it clear what, exactly, the Republicans are doing. Josh's example: their headline"
Utterly trivial point: "the press" didn't provide the headline you cite: the New York Times did. "The press" is hardly synonomous with that single newspaper, and didn't collectively provide the headline (this is obviously an understandable artifact of haste, but I thought you might -- or not -- want to correct it).
Posted by: Gary Farber | July 16, 2007 at 05:37 PM
Good for Harry Reid, but if my understanding is correct (it isn't always), he is coming to this realization about filibusters WAAAY too late.
Didn't the Republicans offer, last congress, to abolish the filibuster? Didn't he say no? That was the story as I heard it, and I thought it was dismal proof, by itself, of Reid's ineptitude -- any Democrat who doesn't understand the history of filibustering, vis-a-vis useful progressive legislation, has no business running their caucus. I welcome corrections if any.
Posted by: voxpoptart | July 16, 2007 at 05:40 PM
As much as I hate me-tooing, I second Sebastian's statement.
Posted by: Slartibartfast | July 16, 2007 at 06:02 PM
Oh thank God, agreement. Now I can start to put those clumps of hair that lie strewn about my house back into their follicles.
Posted by: hilzoy | July 16, 2007 at 06:04 PM
No, Voxpoptart, the "nuclear option" would have removed the option of filibustering only on appointments; regular legislation could still have been filibustered.
Posted by: Steve | July 16, 2007 at 06:06 PM
Reid's move strikes me as half-assed and unlikely to bring sufficient press coverage to the issue of Republican obstructionism.
If I were Reid, this is what I would do. Rather than setting aside one day, I would set aside a whole week. I would call it Republican Obstruction Week, and I would use it to highlight Republican obstructionism across a whole range of issues, not just Iraq. Each day I would force the Republicans to filibuster a different popular piece of legislation. Monday could be the minimum wage increase. Tuesday could be Medicare Part D reform. Wednesday could be the CLEAN Energy Act. Thursday could be the Webb amendment. I would save the Reed/Levin Iraq bill until Friday.
If done right, this could result in a full week of headlines and coverage of Republican obstructionism. The press would love the pure theater of it all. And perhaps more importantly, the Republicans might actually allow a few of the measures to be voted on, if for no other reason than to break up the news cycle and get some rest.
Posted by: A.L. | July 16, 2007 at 06:09 PM
Gary, what hilzoy wrote is correct. JMM writes, "All the big press outlets seem to suddenly have forgotten how this works." He also gives an example, which she notes as such.
Posted by: rilkefan | July 16, 2007 at 06:17 PM
the "nuclear option" would have removed the option of filibustering only on appointments; regular legislation could still have been filibustered
But - and again, I could be wrong, I'm just asking y'all to clarify the story in my head - didn't "nuclear option" come into the story later? I certainly didn't hear the term at first. I thought it was a fallback position: the total abolition of the filibuster came up first, then for appointments only. No?
Mind you, if I am wrong about this, I'd still say Reid missed a bet: certainly, if total abolition of the filibuster wasn't proposed by the Republicans, he should have proposed it himself. It was the closest the progressives had come all century to their chance.
Posted by: voxpoptart | July 16, 2007 at 06:19 PM
McConnell says “bring it”:
"I doubt that they can accomplish in an extra seven hours what they've failed to accomplish in the last seven months," said Don Stewart, McConnell's spokesman.
I have to give style points for that response anyway.
Posted by: OCSteve | July 16, 2007 at 07:21 PM
"any Democrat who doesn't understand the history of filibustering, vis-a-vis useful progressive legislation, has no business running their caucus."
Interestingly, lots of Democrats understand it deeply, and still see a point to preserving filibusters. They may be wrong, but it's not a matter of being unfamiliar with relevant history.
"I thought it was a fallback position: the total abolition of the filibuster came up first, then for appointments only. No?"
No. Factually all wrong.
I really shouldn't respond to this, as I see little good coming of it, but in point of fact, what Josh Marshall wrote is irrelevant to the trivial antecedent error I mentioned.Posted by: Gary Farber | July 16, 2007 at 07:43 PM
OCSteve: style points, yes. Substance points, not so much, since we have yet to see whether he and his party really want to keep debate going, and for how long.
Posted by: hilzoy | July 16, 2007 at 07:56 PM
"I really shouldn't respond to this, as I see little good coming of it"
I shouldn't respond to this (just deleted what I actually think), so I'll just note that you're wrong.
Posted by: rilkefan | July 16, 2007 at 08:05 PM
but... this isn't a real filibuster, right ?
the Dems are going to do the talking, for only 30 hours - it's not unlimited. and then they'll hold the cloture vote and it will fail, as usual.
right?
a true filibuster is when someone ties up the Senate to prevent the cloture vote from ever happening. and that isn't what's going on here. cloture is bound to fail, once the show is over, no matter what the Dems do.
Posted by: cleek | July 16, 2007 at 08:10 PM
"I shouldn't respond to this (just deleted what I actually think), so I'll just note that you're wrong."
It's a perfectly simple point.
The statement was:
Thus "the press has not been doing": "the press" is the antecedent to "their headline." The referred to headline is "their" headline: it belongs to "the press." That's what the possessive does there.But that's an (of no matter, but since you claim otherwise) error, because "the press" did not author the headline. The New York Times did.
Josh Marshall has nothing more to do with this than my next-door neighbor, or Grover Cleveland.
If I'm wrong, then who do you say the "their" in "their headline" refers to? I ask because I'm curious what alternative you see.
Posted by: Gary Farber | July 16, 2007 at 08:18 PM
Posted by: Gary Farber | July 16, 2007 at 08:21 PM
'If I'm wrong, then who do you say the "their" in "their headline" refers to?'
Hmm, my internal editor had corrected "their" to "the", or had supplied the missing "NYT". I would wager that hilzoy no more meant "the headline of the [plural] press" than Drum meant all rich people have a certain characteristic. I thought you were arguing that the NYT headline-writing apparatus isn't the press, because my internal editor correction seemed not worth pointing out. I acknowledge that from your POV your comment was correct.
Posted by: rilkefan | July 16, 2007 at 08:33 PM
re: Gary's 8:21. I imagine it is difficult to actually burn all the bridges in the Senate, given the smaller and, from what I understand, more congenial nature of the institution. Pointing this out is not to imply that Gary doesn't know this, but just to suggest an explanation. I have this sinking feeling that some Dem senators saw the Webb/Graham fight on MTP and thought that Webb was altogether too combative, (I disagree, of course) I personally think that the Dems are eventually going to have go all the way with this stuff, and it will be interesting if it kills collegiality completely, or if it just forces it to hibernate for a few years.
Posted by: liberal japonicus | July 16, 2007 at 08:43 PM
What I've heard is that having a real filibuster means that debate only keeps going for as long as people are actually talking - once debate ends, cloture happens, and the bill gets voted on.
Presumably, this means the filibuster - i.e., debate - will last as long as the GOP can keep its members awake and talking. That's why filibusters are considered strenuous. I guess at some point, the Senate decided that just having a cloture vote made sense, to avoid tieing up the Senate over one piece of legistlation.
But since the GOP has decided not to let any legislation pass unless it's something they like, there's no reason not to tie the place up.
I'm very pleased with Reid's decision. I hope it's not the only weapon in his armament, and that he's spent some quality time scouring parliamentary rules for other ways around GOP obstructionism.
Posted by: CaseyL | July 16, 2007 at 08:48 PM
The Democrats talking for hours straight to obstruct things and stop a vote? Uh, no, I don't think so.
It's the Republicans who are filibustering to block a vote on the troop deployment bill. Reid is calling their bluff--if they want a filibuster, it has to be the old traditional style rather than a parliamentary manuever.
Remember the Republicans, who always insisted on an up or down vote, with no opportunity for Democrats to read or debate the bills? Okay, it's time for an up or down vote.
Perhaps the American people will understand which party it is playing politics to serve their party rather than their country. And just as it won't be the Dems talking, neither is it they blocking progress.
Posted by: Georgette Orwell | July 16, 2007 at 08:50 PM
here's how Bob Geiger (via Drum) describes it:
In making this move (based on my understanding of Senate rules), Reid is invoking the provisions of Rule 22 (Precedence of Motions) of the Standing Rules of the Senate, which provides, at the Majority Leader's discretion, up to 30 hours of debate if a filibuster is initiated -- as the Republicans will most certainly do, knowing that Reed-Levin may very well have the 51 votes needed for passage.
Sixty votes are needed to achieve cloture (end debate) and move legislation to a full, deciding vote.
Reid will be using the provision of Rule 22 that allows for up to 30 hours of continuous debate once it's made clear -- in this case, by Republicans trying to avoid an up-or-down vote on Reed-Levin -- that there is a desire to continue debating the issue.
In other words, the Majority Leader is saying "You want to debate? We'll stay all night and debate."
...
Reid could hold the Senate in continuous session overnight Tuesday and into midday Wednesday unless Republicans agree to a simple-majority vote on Reed-Levin.
Senate Democrats will then be prepared to take to the floor and speak all night and, if their Republican colleagues do not remain in the chamber, invoke ongoing quorum calls and other procedural maneuvers to force GOP members back to the Senate floor.
And then, when Wednesday afternoon comes around... ?
Posted by: cleek | July 16, 2007 at 09:05 PM
cleek: I've been trying to figure this out, and as best I can tell the 30 hour thing only kicks in if the cloture vote passes. But the idea of keeping the Senate open is, indeed, to keep debate going on (and on and on) until a cloture motion does pass.
I could be missing something. I find Rule 22 pretty opaque.
Posted by: hilzoy | July 16, 2007 at 09:12 PM
Looking at Rule 22, it seems as though the filibuster could be broken by a motion to adjourn, recess, or postpone indefinitely. Or by any 16 Senators requesting a vote on cloture.
But none of these make the bill go away. No matter what maneuverings the GOP can use to halt the filibuster, it just re-starts again when the bill comes up again...
Unless they vote to postpone indefinitely, which I don't think they have the votes for. Rule 22 doesn't say whether such a vote needs 2/3 or just a simple majority. I'm assuming it just needs a simple majority. Even if Lieberman votes, as he undoubtedly will, with the GOP, there might be enough defectors from the GOP to avoid ending debate by postponement. I could be wrong, though.
Posted by: CaseyL | July 16, 2007 at 09:37 PM
I find Rule 22 pretty opaque
Me too. I’m also reading it that debate is limited to 30 hours after cloture passes. Until you get the 60 votes to pass it, debate remains open indefinitely. The only other limitation I see is that each member can only give 2 speeches on the bill in the same legislative day (not by the clock, but by when the session adjourns.)
One question I do have: How is the Defense Authorization bill different than other budget bills where a filibuster is not allowed by Senate rules?
Posted by: OCSteve | July 16, 2007 at 09:55 PM
Rilkefan: "I acknowledge that from your POV your comment was correct."
Thank you.
"I would wager that hilzoy no more meant 'the headline of the [plural] press' than Drum meant all rich people have a certain characteristic."
I agree, which is why I wrote in the first place that "this is obviously an understandable artifact of haste, but I thought you might -- or not -- want to correct it." I made clear that I understood that Hilzoy hadn't intentionally meant other than what she clearly meant.
I'm sure we're all excited to have this cleared up.
It would be useful if anyone who knows more than Geiger does would provide more knowledgeable information (his piece, which I read back around noon, also via Drum, was what was making me wonder). Speculation from uninformed people isn't a good substitute (ever).
But I'll be controversial, and declare that Time Will Tell.
Posted by: Gary Farber | July 16, 2007 at 10:00 PM
How is the Defense Authorization bill different than other budget bills where a filibuster is not allowed by Senate rules?
Maybe because the Defense Authorization is a special budget bill; i.e., not one necessary to keep the government functioning?
Posted by: CaseyL | July 16, 2007 at 10:04 PM
"I'm sure we're all excited to have this cleared up."
Thanks for the much-needed levity, Gary. I was starting to feel like sticking needles in my eyes over the grammatical niggling.
Posted by: xanax | July 16, 2007 at 10:48 PM
One question I do have: How is the Defense Authorization bill different than other budget bills where a filibuster is not allowed by Senate rules?
I am not any kind of authority on the rules of the Senate, so could be very wrong, but my understanding is that only the appropriations bills, not the authorization bills that precede them, are filibuster-proof. I welcome correction from those who are more familiar with the workings of the Senate.
Also, big applause for A.L. at 6:09 pm.
Posted by: Nell | July 16, 2007 at 10:56 PM
"I was starting to feel like sticking needles in my eyes over the grammatical niggling."
Me, too.
The fact that I think a comment is worth making once (which may be an error in judgment in the first place, to be sure; in this case, I meant nothing more than to be helpful) in no way means I think it's worth going back and forth about three times.
But such are the perils of conversation. It's always possible to take one wrong step, and fall like a stone into a spiral pit of mind-numbingly boring doom.
Posted by: Gary Farber | July 16, 2007 at 11:34 PM
This is all the more important since, as Josh Marshall notes, the press has not been doing a good job of making it clear what, exactly, the Republicans are doing.
Gary, the claim was that the press hasn't made it clear, and they gave an example of the NYT utterly misrepresenting it.
Do you have an example of the press making it clear? If the majority of the press does make it clear, then it wouldn't be any big deal that a few individual presses like the NYT and washington post and LA Times and such don't.
On the other hand if you were only arguing grammar, then just forget it. Life's too short to do that once, much less the fifth time.
Posted by: J Thomas | July 17, 2007 at 12:20 AM
[sigh]
Posted by: J Thomas | July 17, 2007 at 12:21 AM
Italics out.
Posted by: Gary Farber | July 17, 2007 at 12:27 AM
j T: He was arguing grammar.
Also, as a general note: the only way to shut off italics is for one of us to go in as a superuser and edit the comment where the italics were left open. Putting close italics tags in the next post doesn't work.
Posted by: hilzoy | July 17, 2007 at 12:36 AM
"Also, as a general note: the only way to shut off italics is for one of us to go in as a superuser and edit the comment where the italics were left open. Putting close italics tags in the next post doesn't work."
I don't think this is true. The problem is that typically when someone hasn't closed the tag, they tried to, but forgot to put the '/' in to signal a close instead of an open. So what happens at that point is they have put in *two* open italic tags.
So if you want to fix that in the next comment, you have to put in *two* closing tags.
Or at least when I do that, it often works.
:)
Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw | July 17, 2007 at 12:42 AM
"Putting close italics tags in the next post doesn't work."
It does on my browsers.
Posted by: Gary Farber | July 17, 2007 at 01:01 AM
Why don't the Dems support the Lugar/Warner bill? That can peel off a few more Republicans and force Bush to veto a bill written by his own party.
Posted by: Ara | July 17, 2007 at 02:35 AM
Seems like the press now requires an act of contrition/obedience/entertainment from our politicians before they'll deign to start reporting the obvious.
Mainstream Monarchs?
Posted by: alphie | July 17, 2007 at 04:10 AM
It does on my browsers.
same here. works with both FireFox and IE 7.
Posted by: cleek | July 17, 2007 at 06:55 AM
I am also using firefox, and I see no spread of unclosed tags to following posts at all.
Posted by: Hartmut | July 17, 2007 at 10:08 AM
There is no reason why entering a close tag in a subsequent comment would not work. The whole reason why the italics bleed when not closed is because the interpreter for the HTML code is waiting to see a so that it can stop rendering in italics. Once it finds one, it considers what was in between to be the contents of one big italics container, and closes the italics.
The easiest way to ensure that it gets done is to issue several in a row: . The interpreter ignores closing tags that do not have a matching opening tag. It's bad HTML, but it fixes the problem.
Posted by: Catsy | July 17, 2007 at 12:05 PM
This is a widely-read blog; a few words from our hosts to TypePad might be enough to get them to think about fixing the mismatched tag problem. The computational effort to find and close such tags at the point when the comment is submitted is trivial. The code is also small and simple.
Posted by: Michael Cain | July 17, 2007 at 12:51 PM
no computational effort needed at all, really. just change the comment template to put the text of the comments into their own little single-celled-TABLEs; the HTML parser will take care of the rest, since simple text formatting can't break out of a table cell.
Posted by: cleek | July 17, 2007 at 05:01 PM
Oh look, its the Dems that are filibustering. Who could've thought that might happen.
Posted by: Ugh | July 17, 2007 at 05:56 PM
!!!! On the way home on WTOP FM radio in DC - cots were brought in so congressmen can rest "while their fellow Democrats filibuster".
Posted by: Ugh | July 17, 2007 at 10:04 PM
"a few words from our hosts to TypePad"
Personally, I'd far rather see a) people allowed to have their e-mail addresses displayed as a rollover again; b) ObWi closing comment threads after 4-6 weeks or so, which would do far more to eliminate and discourage comment spam than anything else. (However it might disappoint the world's community of whale-fearing people: how weird is that thread?)
Posted by: Gary Farber | July 17, 2007 at 10:27 PM
"!!!! On the way home on WTOP FM radio in DC - cots were brought in so congressmen can rest 'while their fellow Democrats filibuster'."
Various right-wing blogs are denouncing the "Democratic filibuster" and "Democratic obstructionism."
Completely different worlds, indeed. And in this case, clearly and blatantly strongly encouraged and contributed to by the vast majority of the Emm-Ess-Emm's reporting, or lack thereof.
Posted by: Gary Farber | July 17, 2007 at 10:29 PM
so, no, it wasn't a filibuster. and no, the Republicans were not shown to be obstructionist. in fact, some in the media are now reporting it as Dem anti-war proposal goes down 52-47.
oh that liberal media.
Posted by: cleek | July 18, 2007 at 02:00 PM
Reid appears to have done a pretty crap job: why not actually force an actual filibuster?
Instead, we get this weak-ass crap, in which they even announce an "all-night session," and then we get Barbara Boxer's "Harry, sweetheart, how about letting us sleep from 1 a.m. to 5:30?" "Okay!"
Effing dilettantes: doesn't anyone know how to play this game?
Posted by: Gary Farber | July 18, 2007 at 02:11 PM
Gary,
"Reid appears to have done a pretty crap job: why not actually force an actual filibuster?"
The only reason I can see is that in a real filibuster, the side seeking to prevent cloture is the one doing all the talking, and Reid didn't want the coverage of the all-nighter to be limited to shots of Republicans saying the Democrats are not serious about national security and that if the Democratic proposal passes we will be surrendering to Al Qu'eda. I am not sure I entirely blame him, either.
Posted by: Dantheman | July 18, 2007 at 02:19 PM