Your arguments are simply unpersuasive. As you see, the folks you are discussing this with are entirely unpersuaded.

If have found that if you don’t want to see half a dozen blue lines to the left of your comment, you must measure your words carefully, reason your arguments rationally, and bring to bear all the powers of persuasion you can muster.

It really is OK if you practice here as long as you don’t take too much of our time to instruct you.

eburke,

Let me give you an example of a situation where the majority, by ignoring the Standing Rules of the Senate, forced a vote on a bill even as some Senators attempted to use dilatory tactics.

On 19 May 2005 US Senator Jon Kyl described how this was done.

In 1977, two Senators attempted to block a natural gas deregulation bill after cloture had already been invoked. They were succeeding through a strategy of “filibuster by amendment.” Post-cloture debate time had elapsed, but the obstructing Senators could still call up amendments, force quorum calls, and then force roll call votes on the amendments. Rule 22 prohibited dilatory or non-germane amendments, but Senate procedure did not provide any way to automatically rule these post-cloture amendments out of order. True, a Senator could raise a point of order against one of these dilatory amendments, but any favorable ruling could be appealed. A roll call vote could then be demanded on that appeal. And once that roll call vote began, the obstructing Senators could accomplish their slowdown in a different way — filibuster by roll call vote. To make matters worse, in 1977, before any point of order could even be made against an amendment, the amendment in question had to be read by the clerk. By objecting to the routine courtesy of waiving of the reading of the amendment, the obstructing Senators delayed Senate business even further.

Now, that all may seem complicated, but there’s one undeniable truth about what these obstructing Senators were doing. It was all completely permitted under the Standing Rules and precedents of the Senate. At the same time, however, these tactics were in violation of settled Senate norms and practices. So what was the Senate to do?

The answer came when the then-Democratic Majority Leader made the decision that these new tactics were dilatory, in violation of traditional norms and could no longer prevail. He asked then-Vice President Walter Mondale to sit in the Chair in his capacity as President of the Senate. The Democratic Majority Leader then made a point of order that “when the Senate is operating under cloture the Chair is required to take the initiative under Rule 22 to rule out of order all amendments that are dilatory or which on their face are out of order.” (Cong Rec, Oct. 3, 1977) Mondale sustained the point of order, even though it had no foundation in the rules or precedents of the Senate. Another Senator appealed the Mondale ruling, and the Democratic Majority Leader moved to table. The Senate then voted to table the appeal. In so doing, the Senate created a new precedent. But that precedent ran directly contrary to the Senate’s longstanding procedures which had required Senators to raise points of order to enforce Senate rules. Under the new precedent established by the Senate, no such point of order would be necessary.

Again, this may seem complicated, but these small changes had dramatic effects. The Democratic Majority Leader then began to call up each of the dilatory amendments so that the Chair could rule them out of order, one-by-one, and the Chair obliged. Under normal circumstances, an appeal would have been in order, but the Majority Leader exercised his right of preferential recognition to block any appeal. He quickly called up every single remaining amendment, Vice President Mondale ruled them out of order, and all the amendments were disposed of.

Nearly 20 years later, the Senator who orchestrated those events in 1977 explained to the Senate what he had done. He explained “I asked Mr. Mondale, the Vice President, to go please sit in the chair; I wanted to make some points of order and create some new precedents that would break these filibusters. And the filibuster was broken — back, neck, legs, and arms.” (Cong. Rec., Jan. 5, 1995) So there should be no confusion about what happened that day..

That was the Constitutional Option in action. The Senate faced a situation where a minority of Senators was frustrating Senate business in an untraditional way. The majority wished to proceed. The majority did not propose a formal rules change, refer the proposal to the Rules Committee, wait for its action, and then bring it to the floor under Rule 22’s cloture provisions for such rule change proposals. That procedure was not followed. Instead, the Majority Leader recognized that the Senate had the constitutional power to bypass that route –which is exactly what the Senate did.

eburke,

What say you about that?

Do you still believe that the majority doesn’t rule the US Senate?