Harry is again considering the Nuclear Option after the
senate Republicans blocked 3 Judges to the DC court. Roy Wilkins, US District
Judge was blocked last week. Carnelia Nina Pillard, Georgetown professor and Patricia Millett who
works in the office of the Solicitor General
was blocked on Oct 31, 2013. Last March, Caitlin Joan Halligen withdrew her consideration after being rejected by the senate. A deal was worked out with the minority
leader Mitch Mcconnell that would follow senate traditions and work to get
appointees to the executive and judicial branches appointed. The Republicans
has made it clear, they will not allow Obama to appoint any Judges because it
is “court packing.
The Nuclear Option is a hypothical parliamentary maneuvers
used to appoint judges by a simply majority, rather than a 60 vote margin
Nuclear
option
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This
article is about the U.S.
The nuclear
option, called the constitutional
option by some proponents, is
a generic term for a set of hypothetical parliamentary maneuvers that could be
used in the United States Senate to achieve approval of certain motions
by a majority vote, rather than the "super-majority" required by
current Senate rules and precedents. The nuclear option has arisen in reaction
to the frequent use of Senate rules by a minority of Senators to block
consideration of a nominee for an Executive Branch or judicial position (or
less frequently, a bill or resolution). Since the 1970s, threats by the
majority party to use some version of what is now known as the nuclear option
have resulted in some changes to Senate rules and practices to limit
opportunities for blocking nominations, without actually invoking the nuclear
option itself.
Current Senate rules require a three-fifths
majority (usually 60 votes) to end debate on a bill, nomination or other
proposal (or two-thirds (usually 67 votes) for a change to the Senate rules),
effectively allowing a minority of the Senate to block the measure through the
technique of the filibuster.
This has effectively resulted in a requirement that a nomination have the
support of 60 Senators to pass, rather than a majority of 51.
In most variations of the nuclear option, the presiding officer of the Senate would rule that a simple
majority vote is sufficient to end debate, and if the ruling were challenged, a
majority would be required to overturn the ruling. This would mean, for
example, that 51 Senators who favor a nomination could use their majority to
uphold the presiding officer's ruling that only 51 votes are needed to end
debate and proceed to a final vote, and once the 51 had voted to end debate,
they would then have sufficient votes to confirm the nomination. This would end
what has effectively become a 60-vote requirement for confirmation of an
executive or judicial nominee, or the passage of legislation.
Some variations of the nuclear option involve
changing the Senate rules themselves, while others would use the maneuver to
create a new precedent for particular types of measures, by having a majority
of the Senate uphold the ruling of the presiding officer that a previous rule
or precedent is no longer valid.
The metaphor of a nuclear strike refers to
the majority party unilaterally imposing a change to the filibuster rule, which
might provoke retaliation by the minority party. The alternative term
"constitutional option" is
often used with particular regard to confirmation of executive and judicial
nominations, on the rationale that the United States Constitution requires these nominations to receive
the "advice and consent" of the Senate. Proponents of this term argue
that the Constitution implies that the Senate can act by a majority vote unless
the Constitution itself requires a supermajority, as it does for certain
measures such as the ratification of treaties. By effectively requiring a
supermajority of the Senate to fulfill this function, proponents believe that
the current Senate practice prevents the body from exercising its
constitutional mandate, and that the remedy is therefore the
"constitutional option."
The history of the "nuclear"
option, though not the name, has been traced to an opinion written by then-Vice
President Richard Nixon in 1957, while he held the title President of the Senate. Nixon's opinion
stated that the Constitution grants the presiding officer of the Senate the
authority to override Senate rules by making a ruling that is then upheld by a
majority vote. Senator Trent Lott (R-Miss.) first used the term
"nuclear option" for this maneuver in March 2003.
A series of votes in 1975 have been cited as
a precedent for the nuclear option, although some of these were reconsidered
shortly thereafter.
The maneuver was brought to prominence in
2005 when Majority Leader Bill Frist (Republican of Tennessee)
threatened its use to end Democratic-led filibusters of
judicial nominees submitted by President George W. Bush.
In response to this threat, Democrats threatened to shut down the Senate and
prevent consideration of all routine and legislative Senate business. The
ultimate confrontation was prevented by the Gang of 14,
a group of seven Democratic and seven Republican Senators, all of whom agreed
to oppose the nuclear option and oppose filibusters of judicial nominees,
except in extraordinary circumstances.
The nuclear option was raised again following
the congressional elections of 2012, this time with Senate Democrats in the
majority (but short of a supermajority). The
Democrats have been the majority party in the Senate since 2007 but only
briefly did they have the 60 votes necessary to halt a filibuster. The Hill reported
that Democrats would "likely" use the nuclear option in January 2013
to affect filibuster reform, but
the two parties managed to negotiate two packages of amendments to the Rules
concerning filibusters that passed on January 24, 2013, by votes of 78 to 16
and 86 to 9, thus avoiding the
need for the nuclear option.
In July 2013, the Senate Democratic majority
came within hours of using the nuclear option to win confirmation of seven of
President Obama's long-delayed executive branch appointments. The ability of
the minority party to filibuster appointments was preserved by a last-minute
deal in which the White House withdrew two of the nominations in exchange for
the other five being brought to the floor for a vote, where they were
confirmed.
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