Capt. JG wrote:
"Dave" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:49:02 -0700, "Capt. JG"
said:

So, Clinton acted successfully, and he created a compromise that even
those
terrible democrats could tolerate... unless you think that the Republicans
had a filibuster proof majority.
Your memory is faulty again, Jon. That was back in the days when neither
party was using its minority position at the time to require that every
piece of legislation and every presidential appointment receive a 2/3
vote.


As soon as someone claims that something is "always" true or uses the term
"every" to support an argument (used twice in your reply), I'm skeptical.
Thus, I don't believe this is an accurate representation of the facts.


Actually, as far as the Senate goes, it is fair to say that "every"
piece of legislation, since the Clinton years, is subject to a
filibuster-proof margin (60 votes, not 2/3rds however) since that is
always implicit in negotiations for unanimous consent requests when the
majority party controls less than 60 (solid) votes. Just how the Senate
works. It is certainly true that the *Public* threat of filibuster
seems to be gaining great favor these days as a negotiating/PR tactic.

It is also fair to say that *we*, the public, cannot be sure how often
the filibuster threat is used to stop legislation, or judicial
appointments. And for judicial nominations, any member of the Judiciary
committee can put a hold on any nominee, effectively killing (with few
exceptions) the nomination. This happened scores of time during the
Clinton years, and during previous administrations and congresses as well.

Keith Hughes