Senate Democrats apparently are trying to scare Republicans into not filibustering every single thing, by threatening to filibuster everything the GOP tries to do if the GOP regains power. From Politico: The White House and Senate Democrats are issuing a blunt warning to Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republicans: You live by the filibuster, [...]

Senate Democrats had an opportunity to get together and make the Senate a working, majority-rule-based chamber. They could have recently used the “Constitutional Option” at the start of this new Congress to rewrite the Senate rules to either eliminate the filibuster outright or at least make staging a filibuster more difficult. Yet, due to a [...]

With their total capitulation on Senate rules reform, Sen. Tom Udall (D-MN), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), and Tom Harkin (D-IA) again remind us why no one in Washington takes liberals seriously. . . and frankly why they shouldn’t. For months, Udall has been promoting the “Constitutional Option,” which would allow the senators to declare the first [...]

This country’s subsidies for blending ethanol with gasoline is one of our government’s most wasteful and corrupting uses of taxpayer money. The subsidies distort the market, they don’t create jobs, they fail to improve the environment, and most of the funds flow to a few wealthy individuals and well-connected companies. I’m glad to see there [...]

President Obama is now asking for a modified version of the line-item veto, called the Reduce Unnecessary Spending Act of 2010 (PDF). This law would give the President the ability to force the United States Senate to take a guaranteed up-or-down vote on a set of budget cuts without amendments. This request by the President [...]

This is some completely sickening news that simply can’t be interpreted as anything else but a massive betrayal of grassroots progressives. Politico is reporting that Congressional Democrats are thinking of not even producing a non-binding budget resolution this year. Why should the fate of a non-binding budget resolution be of paramount importance to activists hoping [...]

Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is reportedly planning to hold hearing in the Senate Rules Committee to examine possible filibuster reform. This follows last month’s public endorsement by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) for a bill that would end the option to permanently kill a bill via filibuster. If current Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) loses this [...]

Senate Democrats like Kent Conrad (D-ND) and Tom Harkin (D-IA) are strongly pushing the meme that Senate rules require House Democrats to first pass the Senate health care bill unchanged, then a reconciliation measure of “fixes,” and only then can Senate Democrats do anything.That clearly does not sit well with House Democrats, who are growing [...]

Talk about bad timing. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin launched a campaign today to end the filibuster and restore the ability for a simple majority of senators to pass legislation. His efforts include an email to supporters directing them to sign a petition at fedupwiththefilibuster.com to stop the abuse of rules that prevent majority rule. [...]

“What’s the CBO score?” is one way to judge between competing health reform efforts, but hardly the best way. How about asking the questions raised by Faithful Reform in Health Care: how many lives will be saved, and how many jobs preserved?