The filibuster is a way for the current minority party in the Senate to be able to exercise a small amount of power by forcing the majority party to at least listen to their view point. It allows for a Senator, or group of Senators, to stand and talk about ANY subject they want until the majority party comes back to the table to debate the bill in question.

The only way a filibuster can immediately be broken is by invoking cloture. Cloture is achieved by 60 out of 100 Senators voting for the bill. If cloture can not be achieved; the filibuster will remain in effect and the bill will never get to the president’s desk. At this point the majority party has three choices. They can allow the bill to die, invoke reconciliation, or choose the “nuclear option.” Under reconciliation; only the main points of contention are argued so that the bill does not have to be re-written, re-submitted through the House and voted on again in the Senate. A reconciled bill will pass with a 51 out of 100 or “simple majority” vote. Last but not least is the “nuclear option” also known as the “constitutional option.” This option allows the majority party to claim majority rules, because the minority party is blocking a bill for purely political reasons. Bored yet? Let the debate begin!

President Obama and Harry Reid have been complaining that the GOP has been filibustering everything. They have. What I find extremely funny is that until the election of Scott Brown, the democrats had the “super majority” in the Senate. If all the democratic Senators would have voted for all the bills, cloture would have broken all filibusters and EVERY bill would have passed easily to the President’s desk. The GOP is getting blamed for nothing getting done in Washington. My question is, “Why aren’t the democrats voting for the Presidents proposed bills?” Why are they afraid to pass bills without republican signatures if they don’t need them? Consider this, have you noticed how many Democratic senators are not running for re-election? How was the GOP able to win three special elections this year in three historically liberal states? Seems to me that “hope” and “change” have new meanings from when the President was campaigning. Now it seems like democrats are saying, “I HOPE I can distance myself from this socialist in the White House”, and “Is it to late to CHANGE careers?”

It’s very obvious that the Republicans are abusing the filibuster and using every dirty trick to keep the President from achieving his planned agenda. It’s about time! Newt Gingrich and the “Contract with America” have become a footnote in history because the GOP did not have the spine to stand up to the Democrats when they had the majority. Hopefully the President’s crusade to force socialized medicine on us before the midterm elections will be the final nail in the coffin for the Democrats in Congress. That brings me to my final thought. Now that the Democrats were able to ram through Obama-care; if the GOP can take back the House and Senate in November, will they have the spine to repeal it?

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