Lindsey Graham Walks on Climate and Amnesty

Sen. Lindsey Graham has certainly been in the news this week. Republicans have been more than a little frustrated that the South Carolina senator has announced he is working with Democrats on Cap and Trade (Climate) and Immigration Reform (Amnesty for Illegal Aliens). The question has been: why would he do that, knowing that a majority of Republicans want neither?

Lindsey Graham                        John Kerry

Graham has been working behind the scenes on a Cap and Tax bill and Amnesty with Senators John Kerry and Chuck Schumer. A video made the rounds last week from ALIPAC president, William Gheen, saying that he believed Senator Graham was "compromised." His reasoning was unfortunate, but he intimates that Graham could be blackmailed (my word, not Gheens), and if that is the case, Graham needs to rethink a few things, and reassure the voters.

 Graham has walked on the bill and taken his "bipartisan" support with him. This is a real dilemma, but it just may get Graham out of a tough spot, in light of Gheen's statement. Democrats will not hold-up Immigration, so this can get Graham out of both Climate Change and Immigration, and make the South Carolina Republican Party happy (they have censured him twice in recent months) and make his fellow Republicans in the Senate ecstatic.

Graham's departure likely dooms any chance of passing a climate bill this year. He is the sole Republican working with Sens. John Kerry and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) on a compromise they had planned to unveil Monday.

Here is a portion of a letter Graham sent to the Cap and Tax Committee:

"I want to bring to your attention what appears to be a decision by the Obama Administration and Senate Democratic leadership to move immigration instead of energy. Unless their plan substantially changes this weekend, I will be unable to move forward on energy independence legislation at this time. I will not allow our hard work to be rolled out in a manner that has no chance of success." 

A curious response, but smart, because voters are increasingly unhappy with the perpetual loose-canon- ball-Senator Graham. If he scuttles back to his Party, which is desperately trying to reign-in the regime's "regulate the world" doctrine, he will do his country a huge service and probably be re-elected in 2012.

Linked by NetRightNation

Glenn Beck Secret Audio of Chuck Schumer: Changing Senate Rules

If you saw Beck today you saw a very interesting panel discussion that included Judge Napolitano. The video clip below contains "secret" audio of Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaking to a group of "progressives," and he is allegedly not aware that he is being taped. The quote I show below is at about the 2:40 mark, but the entire discussion is about Schumer's remarks.

First thing to know is Senator Tom Udall (D-NMex) introduced a resolution on January 25, 2010, that some or all rules of the Senate may be changed on the first day of the 112th Congress, January 3, 2011, and he plans to do it with a "majority vote." And he wrote a letter to Barack Obama to tell him all about it. This was actually a speech delivered from the floor of the Senate, addressed to the President.

It is to say that, at the beginning of the 112th Congress, the Senate can exercise its constitutional right to adopt its rules of procedure by a simple majority vote.

This is the quote from Schumer that you'll hear in the video:

There have some very interesting papers written that said that the constitutional right of the Senate to make its own rules supercedes the 2/3 that you can't change the rules but only when Congress writes the new rules at the beginning of each congress, when we reorganize ourselves. That's something we want to explore. 

Schumer is talking about the U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 5 which says, in part:

Each House may determine the rules of its Proceedings...

So, those few words quoted above from the U.S. Constitution do not say when the House or Senate may determine their rules by changing them.

  Senator Tom Udall's  letter to President Obama dated January 25, 2010, says the Senate body cannot get anything done because of "partisan rancor:"

Article 1, Section 5 of our Constitution states in clear language that, “each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings.” Yet at the beginning of the 111th Congress, we implicitly acquiesced to rules adopted decades, and sometimes more than a century ago. Rules that most members of this Senate have never voted to adopt. Today these rules put in place generations ago make effective legislating nearly impossible.

It seems Udall believes that rule changes can only be made at the opening of each Congress. I feel certain this is what Schumer is talking about in the video.

Udall quote the rule about a 2/3 majority change:

As adopted in 1975, Rule XXII requires two-thirds of Senators present and voting to agree to end debate on a change to the Senate rules – in most cases 67 votes.

Taken together, these two rules effectively deny the Senate the opportunity to exercise its constitutional right to determine the Rules of its Proceedings … and serve to bind this body to rules adopted by its predecessors.

Opponents of rules reform argue that the Senate is a continuing body, and therefore the rules must remain in effect from one Congress to the next. I disagree with this assertion.

Udall quotes Republican Senator Orrin Hatch in a National Review article in 2005:

“The Senate has been called a „continuing body.‟ Yet language reflecting this observation was included in Senate rules only in 1959. The more important, and much older, sense in which the Senate is a continuing body is its ongoing constitutional authority to determine its rules. Rulings by vice presidents of both parties, sitting as the President of the Senate, confirm that each Senate may make that decision for itself, either implicitly by acquiescence or explicitly by amendment. Both conservative and liberal legal scholars, including those who see no constitutional problems with the current filibuster campaign, agree that a simple majority can change Senate rules at the beginning of a new Congress.”

So Senator Udall is appealing to the President of the United States to do something about how Senators handle their business. Pathetic. Maybe not, but I suppose we will have a Senate Rules Czar who is not a Senator. Okay, this was not a letter, it was a speech, addressed to the President - but Obama would have a "Rules Change Czar" to govern the Senate if he could. We know he would. Note the use of the word "precedent." 


Update 3-17-10: In Udall's speech, he said the current language was added by Johnson: 

To appease a small group of Senators, Johnson had included new language. This language stated that the rules continued from one Congress to the next, unless they were changed under the rules. It was a move that would effectively bind all future Senates.

In a "Changing Senate Rules" (CRS) for Congress document, which was prepared in 2005 to explore the "Nuclear Options," but is pertinent to any rule change, comes the following discussion, and it all comes down to "precedent." "Precedent" is the yardstick, as Congress is considered a "continuous body" from session to session:


Opening Day5 Scenario One — Majority Rules Change (page CRS-3):

The Senate has long considered itself a continuing body. Consistent with this premise, the practice of the Senate has been not to re-adopt rules in a new Congress. There has been debate about whether the rules that govern the Senate in one Congress should continue in effect to the next Congress. Supporters of this position argue that, because only one-third of the membership of the Senate changes at any one time, and a quorum of the Senate is always in existence, the body does not need to reconstitute itself at the beginning of each Congress and, thus, the existing rules continue in effect from one Congress to the next. 

Opponents of this position, however, point out that under these conditions, any change in rules must be considered under the existing rules, which can make changing the rules extremely difficult. They contend that this “entrenchment” of the rules unconstitutionally inhibits the Senate from exercising its constitutional authority to determine its own rules.

On the same page, the analyst writing this says: "Those who would seek to amend Senate rules or end a filibuster by a majority vote might use the first day of a new Congress to advance their proposal...

The analyst also indicates that precedent is very important, and uses the example of changing cloture rules [page CRS-8]:

Because the Senate has not utilized the “nuclear” or “constitutional” option before, the consequences of doing so are unclear. The potential exists for significant repercussions. In describing the Senate, most modern congressional scholars now refer to it as a “unanimous consent body.”

When a rule is changed, it effects the harmony of the Senate and the future of other Senate rules [page CRS-9]:

Another concern would be consequences for other rules of the Senate. Because it is so difficult to change the Senate’s rules, they have remained fairly stable, and therefore the basic structure of Senate procedure has remained fairly constant.

The following is more from the "Changing Senate Rules for Congress" document. More detail, if you are interested:

The Senate is governed by the Constitution, the Standing Rules of the Senate, permanent Standing Orders of the Senate (adopted in prior Congresses), temporary Standing Orders of the Senate (adopted at the beginning of each Congress), and statutes. It is also governed by precedents, which are decisions made by the presiding officer of the Senate, or the body itself, concerning how its rules operate in practice. The precedents tend to elaborate the Senate’s understanding of its own rules.

Precedents have tremendous weight in deciding parliamentary questions in the Senate, and the presiding officer, whether the Vice President or a majority party Senator, is expected to be guided by these precedents when ruling on a pending question.

The Standing Rules of the Senate would seem to be the obvious place to start if a Senator desired to change that chamber’s procedures. If there is no substantial opposition, the Standing Rules of the Senate can be changed by a simple majority vote; there is no supermajority requirement for changing the rules. If, however, there is opposition to the proposed rules change and if opponents seek to prevent a final vote on the proposal by extended debate and amendment, known as a filibuster, a supermajority requirement does exist for invoking cloture, or ending debate, on a rules change. [Refers to Senate Rule XXII].

I think all of the above is what Schumer was talking about. Here's the video.





Glenn Beck and a "Secret" audio of Chuck Schumer (video)

Linked by DougRoss and Larwyn where you will find the best news

Linked by The Lonely Conservative - read her take on Schumer

Obama, Clinton, Schumer, Reid on Nuclear Option and Naked Power Grab (Video)

The video below stars then-Senator Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden and Harry Reid. In 2005, the Senators were piling shame on Republicans for using Reconciliation, also known as the Nuclear Option. Note that Republicans DID NOT use Reconciliation. The video follows some history on Reconciliation and the Nuclear Option.

Video pull-out quote:

I pray God when the Democrats take back control we don't make the kind of naked power grab you are asking. ~ Senator Joe Biden 2005

While researching Senate Rule XXII, cloture, filibusters and Reconciliation (nuclear option), I found a long essay which says Rule XXII is not what the Founders had in mind:

Rule twenty-two lends itself to criticism just in its very nature. The idea of a supermajority being needed in order to do the business of the country upsets a lot of reformers who wish to see what the founders pictured: a majority driven legislature. 

A vital note about Reconciliation, the Nuclear Option, comes from The Snooper Report, which reminds us that the only time Reconciliation can be used  is in passage of a budget bill. The health care bill is not a part of a budget bill...yet. Here's how that will work:

Congress includes reconciliation instructions in the budget. Those instructions direct certain committees -- say, the Finance Committee and the Health, Energy, Labor, and Pensions Committee -- to produce health-reform legislation hitting certain spending targets by a certain deadline. Once finished, the legislation is tossed back to the Budget Committee, which staples it together into an omnibus bill and sends it to the floor of the Senate for 20 hours of debate followed by an up-or-down vote.    

Senator Robert Byrd has a "rule" named after him - The Byrd Rule. The question is, will the Byrd Rule rule when it comes to Obama's health care?

The Byrd rule states that legislation is unfit for reconciliation if it "produce[s] changes in outlays or revenue which are merely incidental to the non-budgetary components of the provision." I asked Jim Horney, a budget expert at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, how you define "merely incidental." And what, exactly, is a "provision"?

He sighed. A provision, he said, is "not defined anywhere. It goes well below a title or section of a bill and even below a paragraph. But exactly what it is nobody knows." And the Senate rules offer no more clarity on the definition of "merely incidental." Asked if anyone had developed an accepted meaning, Horney seemed almost apologetic. "No," he said. "Absolutely not."

The matter is not simply academic: The Byrd rule allows senators to challenge the acceptability of any provision (undefined) of a reconciliation bill based on whether or not its effect on government revenues is "merely incidental" (undefined). Thus, if you enter reconciliation with a health-reform bill, it's not clear what's left after each and every provision -- however that is defined -- is challenged and a certain number of them are deleted altogether: the tax portions, certainly. And the government subsidies. But is regulating insurers "merely incidental" to government revenues? How about reforming hospital delivery systems? How about incentives for preventive treatment? Or the construction of a public plan? An individual mandate?  

A supermajority vote of 60 was needed until 1975, under a Republican President and a Democrat Congress holding the majority in both the House and the Senate: Source.

The liberal Senate majority, determined not to be blocked by endless argument over legislation in a period of economic crisis, last week approved a compromise that achieved the first new limitation on debate since 1959. A filibuster will be choked off if 60 Senators (three-fifths of the total membership) vote to do so. That is seven less than the number (two-thirds) that had been required under the Senate's celebrated Rule 22, assuming the entire Senate was present and voting....

The fight was led by Democratic Senators Walter Mondale of Minnesota and James Pearson of Kansas, with an invaluable assist from Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, whose partisanship as presiding officer enraged his conservative critics....

Although conservative Senators angrily assailed Rockefeller for this high-handed tactic, Rocky was technically right. The Senate rules specifically permit the presiding officer to ignore a parliamentary inquiry when he believes it is being used as a dilatory tactic.

In 2005, when Democrats threatened to filibuster Bush's judicial nominations, Senator Bill Frist suggested that a filibuster on judicial nominees was inconsistent with the constitutional grant of power, and have VP Dick Cheney rule a simple majority was all that was needed to seat the nominees. Other events intervened and what was to be known as the Nuclear Option was not used.

History of the Nuclear Option:

The Senate's rules have allowed unlimited debate, or filibusters, since 1806, when senators dropped a rule that allowed a majority of the Senate to put an end to discussion and call for a vote. For the next 111 years, there was no way to stop a filibuster once it had started. 

But in 1917, when filibusters were blocking Woodrow Wilson's plans for World War I, the Senate adopted Rule XXII, which allowed senators to end a filibuster by a two-thirds vote on a motion to cut off debate -- a procedure called "cloture." 

In 1975 the Senate amended Rule XXII so that cloture required, in most cases, the vote of not two-thirds but rather three-fifths of the senators. In today's 50-state, 100-member Senate, that means it takes 60 rather than 67 senators to put an end to most filibusters. 

The Founders did not "found" the filibuster.

There, however, is no constitutional framework that says that senators should not have the right to unlimited debate. But, the filibuster which permits a small minority and even one Senator to stop a piece of legislation, was not intended by the framers at all. In fact, it has been argued by some that because the Constitution does lay down the times when a supermajority is needed, (e.g. 2/3 vote for convicting an impeached president and for signing treaties), therefore, only a majority should be needed to pass any legislation. This is further backed up by the Supreme Court Decision in United States v. Ballin, 1892. 

In this case, Justice David Brewer, speaking for the majority says, “the general rule of all parliamentary bodies is that when a majority is present, the act of the majority of the quorum is the act of the body. This has been the rule for all time, except so far as in any given case, the terms of the organic act under which the body is assembled have prescribed specific limitations. ”

About Cloture:

What is cloture? In simple terms, it is the ability of a supermajority to shut off debate thus ending a filibuster. Any senator may file a motion of cloture providing that sixteen senators have signed it. Two days after a cloture motion is presented to the presiding officer, it is available for a vote one hour after the senate convenes. After cloture has been invoked, the Senators have thirty hours to debate, add amendments, and raise points of order . Once the thirty hours are completed, a vote on the pending legislation will be taken. Also it is important to note that once cloture is invoked, senators are only allowed to introduce germane amendments.

Cloture has not always been like this. When rule twenty-two was adopted in 1917, it took 2/3 of the Senate who was present to vote for cloture providing there was a quorum. In 1949, rule 22 was amended to state that 2/3 of the entire senate, or 67 members were required to vote to end debate. In 1959, rule 22 was amended again lowering the required number of senators to 2/3 of those who were present and voting. In 1975, cloture was lowered to 3/5 of membership or 60 members to vote for it. Since the drop in the number of members needed to invoke cloture, cloture votes were twice as successful then in the period from 1959.

The other major reform that took place in cloture was the time allotted to debate after cloture was invoked. Originally rule 22 never specified the amount of time that was permitted for debate after cloture was invoked, senators began to exploit the rule in the late 1970s. They started what became known as the post-cloture filibuster, where after debate had been supposedly ended, they would continue to tie up the floor with more debate, amendments, and points of order. For example, Senator X would have control over the floor and ask for every amendment to be read, despite relevance or necessity. This post-cloture filibuster would eat up a large amount of time. 

Thus, in 1979, the Senate amended rule 22 to state that post-cloture debate would be limited to one hundred hours or one hour per Senator. The only problem with this reform was that the one hundred hours did not include points of order or readings of amendments, so the post-cloture filibuster still worked in delaying the passage of a bill. Again in 1986, the senate voted to amend rule 22 to limit post-cloture debate to 30 hours including all points of order. This recent amendment has pretty much eliminated the post-cloture filibuster. 

This is what happens when we fool around with the original intent of the Founders.




Democrats Rail Over Nuclear Option 2005 (video)

Chuck Schumer Supreme Court Investigation on SCOTUS UnAmerican Decision on McCain-Feingold

Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) says he will investigate today's decision by the Supreme Court striking down portions of McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance laws.

So what will Senator Chuck Schumer do to the Supreme Court if his little investigation finds that McCain-Feingold is unAmerican? Today, the most "American" we can get, outside of our military, is the Supreme Court, although American justice through the Court is in peril with continuing Obama SCOTUS appointments:

I think it's an un-American decision," Schumer said at a press conference Thursday. "I think when the American people understand what this radical decision has meant they will be even more furious and concerned about special interest influence in politics than they are today.

Honestly, will any other Senators show up at this embarrassing call to punish the Supremes. Who would want to sit on that?

The Democrat machine churns on the oppression of voices that dissent their machinations. Schumer said "we will regret the day this decision has been issued," and he's probably correct about that. Democrats have no fondness for free speech when that speech gets in the way of their goals for power and manipulation. I can't wait to see how this investigation of SCOTUS goes. It must be history-making.

Chuck Schumer Scott Brown Far Right Teabagger: Foul-Mouthed Senator Schumer

Classy: Schumer Calls Scott Brown a "Far Right Teabagger
by Lonely Conservative

Chuck Schumer is an embarrassment to the State of New York. In his latest fund raising email he sunk to a whole new low.

Martha Coakley is running to fill the rest of Ted Kennedy’s term, and her opponent is a far-right tea-bagger Republican.

It would be bad enough to lose his seat — and Democrats’ sixtieth vote in the Senate — right before the final health care reform vote. But it would be even worse for the decisive “no” vote to come from Ted Kennedy’s old seat.

This is some brave new world we have here.

The best way to shut the Chuck up is to help Scott Brown win this election.

Via Hot Air

Peter DeFazio Tim Geithner: Michael Burgess Tim Geithner: Kevin Brady Tim Geithner:

Democrat Congressman Peter DeFazio (Oregon) told MSNBC that America needs a new economic team. Even Chuck Schumer says "the world economy is at stake"  Congressmen Kevin Brady (R-TX), Sam Brownback (R-KS), and Michael Burgess (R-TX) actually spoke the minds of the American people. See video below.

 

Peter DeFazio

Rep. DeFazio appeared on The Edge and was asked:

Should he [Geithner] stay in his job, Congressman?

[DeFazio] No. We need a new economic team that cares more about jobs, Main Street and the American people, than it does about Wall Street and about huge bonuses.

Rep. Kevin Brady to Tim Geithner:

"for the sake of our jobs will you step down from your post?" "This is your budget, your bailout, your act."

Geitner's only answer was a haughty "I agree with almost nothing you said."

After Geithner blamed Bush for an "economy falling off the cliff, Brady asked:

Remind me Mr. Secretary, what post were you holding when President Bush left office?

Geithner: I was the president of the Federal Reserve in New York.

Rep. Michael Burgess:

I don't think you should be fired, I thought you should have never been hired.

Republicans, especially when appearing on C-SPAN, as they did here, should be talking about what brought the economy down, just a mere two months before the election. Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and Maxine Waters should be mentioned in every conversation about the economy. We should be relentless in pointing out that, without the housing bust, brought on by Frank, Dodd and Waters, the American people and Wall Street would not be in the middle of the struggle we have today. A reminder:

Barney Franks - recipient of $40,000 from Fannie Mae since 1989: Allegedly sleeping with head of Fannie Mae, Herb Moses, probably didn't have a thing to do with his complicity in the failure of housing. Right? Franks stood on the the floor of the House and railed against all Bush proposals to rein-in the wobbly companies.

Franks said the problems of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were "exaggerated, and five years later, the "problem" was estimated to be in the hundreds of billions.

Let's talk about Maxine Waters - not as guilty as Barney Frank...she is simply one foolish woman, but you can bet her constituents received the Community Reinvestment Loans, and you can bet some couldn't afford them, and you can bet that she was well aware of the situation. See Barney and Maxine here.

Maybe you haven't thought of the criminal actions of Mary Schapiro, appointed by President Bush, the former head of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority who did not regulate, even when she had a whistleblower turning blue in the face from blowing the darn thing. What did Obama do, he promoted her - all the way to the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chief. J.C., Obama promoted her!!! All that regulating she was paid very big money to exercise, was over the SEC. You can read more on this here, and see an excellent video about the obscenities committed by "oversight."

Senator Chris Dodd: The Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee postured and puffed...and he is the biggest recipient of campaign monies from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, (and the second largest recipient of AIG donations, not to mention his wife's AIG Board of Directors income.

At this moment, the Senate and the House are in the middle of a giant cover-up for Dodd, who raise a campaign buck in his own home town.

The Community Re-Investment Act - the legislation that allows those with no credit and no money to buy homes they cannot afford, has bankrupted Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and so Franks and Dodd just moved the program to the FHA. Coming up next: a bankrupt FHA.

When I think of Geithner stepping down, I have to ask who would follow him. This president and this administration have one goal. Break the country then control it for life. I applaud these men who spoke boldly: Reps. DeFazio, Brady, and Burgess.







 Kevin Brady and Tim Geithner


Related: Tracking the Mess of Fannie and Freddie