Nuclear Option During The Obama Presidency
In 2011, with a Democratic majority in the Senate (but not a supermajority), Senators Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Tom Udall (D-N.M.) proposed "a sweeping filibuster reform package" to be implemented via the constitutional option but Majority Leader Harry Reid dissuaded them from pushing it forward. In October 2011, however, Reid triggered the nuclear option to make a more modest change in Senate precedents. In a 51-48 vote, the Senate prohibited any motion to waive the rules after a filibuster is defeated.
The nuclear option was raised again following the congressional elections of 2012. The Hill reported that Democrats will "likely" use the nuclear option in January 2013 to effect filibuster reform, although as of mid-November supporters of filibuster reform did not even have the support of 51 Senators, according to Senator Tom Udall (D-N.M.), a leading proponent of the nuclear option.
Read more about this topic: Nuclear Option
Famous quotes containing the words nuclear, option and/or presidency:
“American universities are organized on the principle of the nuclear rather than the extended family. Graduate students are grimly trained to be technicians rather than connoisseurs. The old German style of universal scholarship has gone.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“Our passional nature not only lawfully may, but must, decide an option between propositions, whenever it is a genuine option that cannot by its nature be decided on intellectual grounds; for to say, under such circumstances, “Do not decide, but leave the question open,” is itself a passional decision—just like deciding yes or no—and is attended with the same risk of losing the truth.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“Some of the offers that have come to me would never have come if I had not been President. That means these people are trying to hire not Calvin Coolidge, but a former President of the United States. I can’t make that kind of use of the office.... I can’t do anything that might take away from the Presidency any of its dignity, or any of the faith people have in it.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)