Senate Republicans are mounting an aggressive campaign to keep their power to block nearly all of the new Democratic majority’s legislative proposals.
But while they now defend the Senate’s filibuster rule as vital for “bipartisanship,” they unanimously voted to eliminate it for Supreme Court nominations less than four years ago.
While it only takes a simple majority in the 100-member U.S. Senate to pass legislation, with few exceptions it takes a three-fifths supermajority — 60 votes — to end debate and actually hold a vote. Segregationists long used those cloture rules to block civil rights legislation and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell used them a record-breaking number of times to obstruct President Barack Obama’s agenda.
Senate rules would allow just 51 senators to change that 60-vote threshold. After Democrats retook a narrow majority in the chamber on Wednesday, McConnell (R-KY) and his colleagues began demandingDemocrats agree in advance not to do so. Continue reading.