Thursday, November 02, 2023

So You Can Do That

(Correction here)

Veterans of the filibuster wars remember when it was regularly claimed that a simple majority vote couldn't remove the filibuster. That was necessary to maintain the farce without making clear that during the early Obama years there weren't just a couple rotating villains at any given moment.
The measure — spearheaded by Democratic Sens. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Sinema — is not technically a rules change. Instead, it’s a temporary process change that would only be in effect through the end of next year. It also includes an exception for members of the joint chiefs and combatant commanders, positions which typically involve individual floor votes in the Senate due to their importance.

“This is a suspension of the rules technically,” Reed, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, told NBC News. “We have to move forward," he added, noting that military personnel were being left "in limbo" amid the Ukraine war and the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Not technically a rules changes, just a "suspension of the rules technically." Whatever you have to say to get Sinema on board I guess.