Will Majority Leader Reid Trigger the Nuclear Option for Pres Obama's Nomiinees with GOP Threatening a Shutdown?

Constitution of the United States does not require a 60 vote margin to pass bills or to approve Presidential nominees.  Two-thirds of Senate votes (66) are required for treaties, impeachment, and to override a Presidential veto. 

The filibuster was never part of the Constitution.  Seems it all started with Aaron Burr in 1805 telling the Senate that the rule book was too messy:

When Aaron Burr said, get rid of the previous question motion, the Senate didn’t think twice. When they met in 1806, they dropped the motion from the Senate rule book.

Once the rule was gone, senators still did not filibuster. Deletion of the rule made possible the filibuster because the Senate no longer had a rule that could have empowered a simple majority to cut off debate. It took several decades until the minority exploited the lax limits on debate, leading to the first real-live filibuster in 1837.

Will Majority Leader Reid (D-NV) actually to forward with the nuclear option threat on appointees?  There are some Democrats who do not favor the nuclear option because of what might happen in the future if they are in the minority.  One thing is for sure in that Republicans have taken full advantage of Reid by not allowing President Obama to have all his people in place.  Can guarantee if the Democrats had done that to President Bush, we would never have heard the end of it on the various media outlets. Since it is Republicans doing it to Obama, the mainsteream media doesn't seem to mind.  Many of them have about the same ethics as Minority Leader McConnell (R-KY) which are nil to non-existent.

Threatening to shut down Government over President Obama's nominees shows how little Republicans of today care about the Country.  Senator Everett Dirkson (R-IL) fought for what he believed but he would never have been a party to the underhanded tactics of today's Republicans.  Dirkson was the face of the loyal opposition for a decade during the Civil Rights debate of the 60's:

As Senate Minority Leader for a decade, he played a highly visible and key role in the politics of the 1960s, including helping to write and pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Open Housing Act of 1968, both landmarks of civil rights legislation. He was also one of the Senate's strongest supporters of the Vietnam War and was known as "The Wizard of Ooze" for his oratorical style.

Today you could put Dirkson alongside Presidents Eisenhower, Teddy Roosevelt and Lincoln for Republicans who would be scorned by today's Republicans for their stances on Civil Rights.  Roosevelt supported the minimum wage for both men and women.  He was an early supporter of the Civil Rights movement and today he would be labeled a Progressive along with Lincoln, Ike, and Dirkson.  

It seems today's Republicans are nothing but obstructionists carrying out the orders of their major donors like the Koch Bros and Wall Street at the expensive of the American people.  They couldn't hold a candle to the early Civil Rights supporters in the Republican Party who had so much integrity and believed that "All Men are Created Equal" unlike the racism we are seeing out of a lot of Republicans today.

Now the Senate Republicans are threatening a shutdown?  Despicable, dishonorable, and dishonest sum up most of today's Senate Republicans.  Hope Senator Reid pulls the trigger to get President Obama his nominees approved.

Reid flirts with nuke option despite GOP shutdown threatsBy Alexander Bolton - 07/11/13 03:04 PM ET 

Democrats moved closer Thursday to triggering the nuclear option to change the Senate’s rules after holding a lengthy meeting to discuss President Obama’s stalled nominees. 

Democratic leaders on Thursday afternoon spoke out in favor of changing the rules and urged their colleagues to support them, according to senators who attended the meeting. 

The decision on whether to proceed with the controversial tactic depends on how votes on stalled nominees play out next week. If Republicans allow several of them to proceed with up-or-down votes, Democrats might have less rhetorical ammo to force a rules change. 

Liberal Democrats pushing for a rules change to restrict Republicans from filibustering Obama’s nominees say they are very close to having the 50 votes they need. 

Only Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and his deputies know the whip count, and they have kept it secret. 

Excerpt:  Read more at The Hill

Sarah Binder from Brookings Institute testified to the Senate on April 22, 2010 on the Filibuster going back to its origins:

In testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, Sarah Binder counters a number of conventionally held notions about the origins and history of the Senate filibuster. Chairman Schumer, Ranking Member Bennett, and members of the Committee. My name is Sarah Binder. I am a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor of political science at George Washington University. I appreciate the opportunity to testify today about the history of the filibuster.

1. Origins of the filibuster 

We have many received wisdoms about the filibuster. However, most of them are not true. The most persistent myth is that the filibuster was part of the founding fathers’ constitutional vision for the Senate: It is said that the upper chamber was designed to be a slow-moving, deliberative body that cherished minority rights. In this version of history, the filibuster was a critical part of the framers’ Senate.

However, when we dig into the history of Congress, it seems that the filibuster was created by mistake. Let me explain.

The House and Senate rulebooks in 1789 were nearly identical. Both rulebooks included what is known as the “previous question” motion. The House kept their motion, and today it empowers a simple majority to cut off debate. The Senate no longer has that rule on its books.

What happened to the Senate’s rule? In 1805, Vice President Aaron Burr was presiding over the Senate (freshly indicted for the murder of Alexander Hamilton), and he offered this advice. He said something like this. You are a great deliberative body. But a truly great Senate would have a cleaner rule book. Yours is a mess. You have lots of rules that do the same thing. And he singles out the previous question motion. Now, today, we know that a simple majority in the House can use the rule to cut off debate. But in 1805, neither chamber used the rule that way. Majorities were still experimenting with it. And so when Aaron Burr said, get rid of the previous question motion, the Senate didn’t think twice. When they met in 1806, they dropped the motion from the Senate rule book.

Why? Not because senators in 1806 sought to protect minority rights and extended debate. They got rid of the rule by mistake: Because Aaron Burr told them to.

Once the rule was gone, senators still did not filibuster. Deletion of the rule made possible the filibuster because the Senate no longer had a rule that could have empowered a simple majority to cut off debate. It took several decades until the minority exploited the lax limits on debate, leading to the first real-live filibuster in 1837.

2. The Not-So-Golden Age of the Senate 

Conventional treatments of the Senate glorify the 19th century as the “golden age” of the Senate: We say that filibusters were reserved for the great issues of the day and that all senators cherished extended debate. That view misreads history in two ways.

First, there were very few filibusters before the Civil War. Why so few filibusters? First, the Senate operated by majority rule; senators expected matters would be brought to a vote. Second, the Senate did not have a lot of work to do in those years, so there was plenty of time to wait out the opposition. Third, voting coalitions in the early Senate were not nearly as polarized as they would later become.

All that changed by mid-century. The Senate grew larger and more polarized along party lines, it had more work to do, and people started paying attention to it. By the 1880s, almost every Congress began to experience at least one bout of obstructionism: for instance, over civil rights, election law, nominations, even appointment of Senate officers—only some of these “the great issues of the day.”

There is a second reason that this was not a golden age: When filibusters did occur, leaders tried to ban them. Senate leaders tried and failed repeatedly over the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries to reinstate the previous question motion. More often than not, senators gave up their quest for reform when they saw that opponents would kill it by filibuster—putting the majority’s other priorities at risk. Unable to reform Senate rules, leaders developed other innovations such as unanimous consent agreements. These seem to have been a fallback option for managing a chamber prone to filibusters.

3. The adoption of cloture 

Why was reform possible in 1917 when it had eluded leaders for decades? And why did the Senate choose supermajority cloture rather than simple majority cloture?
  
First, the conditions for reform. After several unsuccessful efforts to create a cloture rule in the early 1900s, we saw a perfect storm in March of 1917: a pivotal issue, a president at his bully pulpit, an attentive press, and a public engaged in the fight for reform. At the outset of World War I, Republican senators successfully filibustered President Wilson’s proposal to arm merchant ships—leading Wilson in March of 1917 to famously brand the obstructionists as a “little group of willful men.” He demanded the Senate create a cloture rule, the press dubbed the rule a “war measure,” and the public burned senators in effigy around the country.

Adoption of Rule 22 occurred because Wilson and the Democrats framed the rule as a matter of national security. They fused procedure with policy, and used the bully pulpit to shame senators into reform.

Second, why did senators select a supermajority rule? A bipartisan committee was formed to negotiate the form of the rule. Five of the six Democrats supported a simple majority rule; one Republican supported a supermajority rule, and one Republican preferred no rule. Negotiators cut a deal: Cloture would require two-thirds of senators voting. Opponents promised not to block or weaken the proposal; supporters promised to drop their own proposal for simple majority cloture—a proposal supported by at least 40 senators. The cloture rule was then adopted, 76-3.

4. Conclusions 

We can draw at least three lessons from this history:

First, the history of extended debate in the Senate belies the received wisdom that the filibuster was an original, constitutional feature of the Senate. The filibuster is more accurately viewed as the unanticipated consequence of an early change to Senate rules.

Second, reform of Senate rules is possible. There are conditions that can lead a bipartisan supermajority to agree to change Senate rules. The minority has often held the upper hand in these contests, however, given the high barrier to reform imposed by inherited Senate rules.

Third, and finally, the Senate adopted a supermajority rule not because senators were uniformly committed to the filibuster. Senators chose a two-thirds rule because a minority blocked more radical reform. Short-term, pragmatic considerations almost always shape contests over reform of Senate rules.

From the Carl Albert Center on the University of Oklahoma comes this excerpt of the book, The Rise of the 60-Vote Senate, by Gregory Koger, University of Miami:

After major civil rights legislation passed in 1964 and 1965, however, senators still attempted to change the rules in 1967, 1969, 1971, and 1975 using a complex strategy to obtain a simple majority vote on rules changes.  In 1975 they finally won a key procedural vote on their strategy and, aided by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller presiding over the Senate, seemed capable of making significant reforms in the cloture rule. Instead, the reformers traded their advantage for a slight reduction in the cloture threshold from two-thirds of those voting (the 1959 rule) to three-fifths of the entire Senate. The 1975 rule essentially ended the long contest over the cloture threshold; subsequent reforms in 1979 and 1986 limited overall debate and limited dilatory amendments after cloture is in- voked, but did not alter the three-fifths threshold. A proposal by Tom Harkin (D–Iowa) to allow majority cloture was defeated by wide margins in 1995 and 2011; it appears that the 60-vote Senate is here to stay. 

In 1975 the number of votes required for cloture to end a filibuster went from 2/3's (66) to 3/5's (60).  The article by Dr. Koger gives the history and what led up to the 60-Vote Senate.  Well worth reading in order to understand what the taxpayers are facing with the obstructionist minority Republicans in the Senate who have brought the Senate to a standstill on so many issues.  Personally I would like to see the Democrats get to 60 votes in 2014 to shut up Republicans like Inhofe (R-OK) who is long passed his prime and seems pretty vindictive today, McCain (R-AZ), who falls in the Inhofe category along with many other Republicans whose sole positions today seems to be to obstruct anything that President Obama has put forward even if it is something they supported in the past.

Also learned from reading Dr. Koger's overview from his book that the Senate 3-day work week was dubbed,"Tuesday-to-Thursday Club," back in the 1940's.  

The trend accelerates in the 1940s so that by the year 2000 about 80 percent of all votes occur in the middle of the week.

The Senate holds their votes in mid-week so that Monday and Friday are travel days - maybe back in the 40's that made sense as it wasn't as easy to travel but with today's airlines there is no need for working only three days a week and allowing a full day for travel to and from the Capitol every week.  How many people get to work a 3-day work week?  The sad part is this group of Republicans hold the fate of so many in their hands with all the obstructionist tactics with little recourse after Reid capitulated to McConnell in January and found out as Majority Leader he made a deal with someone who has the integrity of a gnat.  After the deal McConnell started laughing.  Now Reid wants to finally change the rules to a majority for appointees not a super majority.  Will Reid carry through with the nuclear option on appointees or will McConnell and the obstructionist Republicans blink?

Stay tuned and pass the popcorn as this could get very interesting in the days ahead.

 

 

GOP Senators Paul, Lee, Cruz, and Rubio Want to Filibuster Any Gun Bills Before Any Debate

No debate necessary on gun control - the four member governing body of GOP Senators have spoken.

Republicans in the Senate are at it again - now want to filibuster Gun Reforms before bill is even debated on the floor of the Senate.  Rand Paul (R-KY), Mike Lee (R-UT), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Marco Rubio (R-FL) are part of what is wrong in the Senate as they have the attitude as the minority they can just filibuster what they do not want as it makes no difference as long as debate and vote is stopped.  The problem is that it is not one or two issues but almost everything a few hard right Senators decide doesn't need to come to the floor.

Majority Leader Reid should NOT have made a deal with Minority Leader McConnell on filibusters because within days the GOP started abusing filibusters again and McConnell set back and did nothing.  You cannot trust today's Republican males in the Senate not to make utter fools of themselves as they seek to stop bills.  Over 90% of the American people want tightened background checks and the four stooges don't even want a vote.  Must be getting heavy donations to their campaigns from the NRA.  Am sick and tired of Republican Senator and House members  putting big donors over the Country.  This bunch of Republicans in Congress for the most part cannot be trusted as evidenced by what we are seeing on Gun Reform.  There are some Dems in the same category in the Senate who want nothing to do with gun control - afraid of reelection?  How about if both sides work for the American people not the NRA?

Reid’s Office Denounces ‘Outrageous’ GOP Filibuster Threat On Gun Reforms

Sahil Kapur 4:14 PM EDT, Thursday March 28, 2013 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-NV) office on Thursday lambasted a threat by a handful of Republican senators to filibuster gun legislation, after President Obama urged Congress to act in a televised speech. 

"While this threat is entirely unsurprising, it's outrageous that these senators are unwilling to even engage in a debate over gun violence in America," Reid's spokesman Adam Jentleson said in a statement to TPM. "No matter your opinion on this issue, we should all be able to agree with President Obama when he said that the children and teachers of Newtown, along with all other Americans who have been victims of gun violence, at least deserve a vote." 

The threat to vote against a motion to begin debating the bill was made in a letter by Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY), Mike Lee (R-UT) and Ted Cruz (R-TX), which was cosigned by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) on Thursday.

With parents who lost children to gun violence along with some of their teachers standing behind the President Obama, he is once again pushing Congress for action on gun control measures -- are they listening?

President Obama: We Have Not Forgotten What Happened in Newtown

Today, President Obama promised the American people that he had not forgotten the 20 innocent chidlren and six brave educators who lost their lives at Sandy Hook Elementary more than 100 days ago. Standing with parents and teachers of gun violence victims, he urged Congress to take action that will protect other children and families from the pain and grief these families have experienced. 

“As I said when I visited Newtown just over three months ago, if there is a step we can take that will save just one child, just one parent, just another town from experiencing the same grief that some of the moms and dads who are here have endured, then we should be doing it,” President Obama said. “We have an obligation to try.” 

In January, the President put forward a series of common-sense proposals to reduce the epidemic of gun violence and keep our kids safe, and in his State of the Union address, the President called on Congress to give these proposals a vote.  “And in just a couple of weeks, they will,” he said.

Excerpt:  Read More at White House website

No one is coming to take anyone's legitimate guns away from them but you would never know it from the hysterics from the NRA and those on the right.  Have never understood why increasing background checks to include all guns sold at gun shows is wrong.  Don't get the mentality of today's gun crowd which is nothing like my Dad when he owned guns to hunt animals not people.  IMHO I still think parents who leave a loaded gun around their house that a child gets access and kills themselves or someone else should be charged with child endangerment.  Put that on a website and see attacks start.  If your child is not in the proper car seat and dies in a wreck, you are held responsible so why not with guns.

Please contact your members of Congress and tell them to support reasonable gun control laws and to stop any idea of a filibuster in the Senate.  Tired of grand standers and this is what these Senators are doing with two of them Paul and Rubio hoping to run for President.  Not getting my vote but then my votes for the GOP are not happening with the crazy GOP of today.

Republican Party out of Control on Hagel Nomination

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Inhofe Leads "Filibuster" Against Secretary of Defense Hagel - Cloture Vote on Friday Morning

"It is tragic that they have decided to filibuster this qualified nominee," said Reid. "It is really unfortunate."

There is no better example of Republicans in the Senate putting Party over Country then the fact at noon tomorrow, Secretary of Defense Panetta officially leaves office which means the Department of Defense will not have a permanent Secretary of Defense, but acting.  Republicans should be ashamed with their attacks on Hagel especially on Benghazi which he had nothing to do with but they are trying to score political points against President Obama.  This group of cowards who are afraid of a Tea Party primary challenge don't deserve to be reelected to the Senate ever again if they vote to continue the filibuster when you read the following:

NATO is hosting Defense Minister meetings next week in Brussels where the allies will discuss the ongoing war in Afghanistan.

A meeting of NATO on Afghanistan and we have no permanent Secretary of Defense thanks to the obstructionist Republicans who keep opposing Obama on everything.  This is one more obstruction in a long list that has a lot of Republicans saying they will not support or vote for a Republican in 2014 including this one.

Majority Leader Reid weighs in on the GOP Filibuster of Chuck Hagel showing the hypocrisy of Senate Republicans once again:

Senate Majority Leader Says ‘It’s Tragic’ GOP Is Filibustering Hagel

By Ben Armbruster on Feb 14, 2013 at 12:30 pm
Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced today that he has scheduled a cloture vote for Chuck Hagel’s nomination as Defense Secretary for Friday morning. 

In an impassioned speech on the Senate floor, Reid lambasted Republicans for their “unprecedented” obstruction on Hagel (this is the first time in the history of the United States that a president’s nominee for Defense Secretary has been filibustered). “It’s shocking,” Reid said, “that my Republican colleagues would leave the country without a fully empowered Secretary of Defense during all the things that we have going on in the world including a war”: 

REID: I have heard speeches from the other side a lot saying, “you know the president should have the right to choose whoever he wants.” He has the support of this body, a majority vote in this body in this democracy. We are a nation, Mr. President, at war. We are whether we like it or not the world’s indispensable leader. We’re it. For the sake of our national security it’s time to put aside this political theatre and that’s what it is. 

People are worried about primary elections. We know how the Tea Party goes after Republicans when they aren’t conservative enough. Is that something they need to have on their resume? “I filibustered one of the president’s nominees.” Is that what they want? The filibuster of Senator Hagel’s confirmation is unprecedented. I repeat. Not a single nominee for Secretary of Defense ever in the history of our country has been filibustered. Never, ever!

“We need a Secretary of Defense,” Reid said later. “It’s tragic that they’ve decided to filibuster this qualified nominee. It is really unfortunate.” Watch the clip: 

Senate Democratic aides are reportedly saying they may not have enough votes to break the filibuster while some are reporting that there are enough votes for cloture, but the actual vote on Hagel’s nomination won’t take place until after the recess.

However, NATO is hosting Defense Minister meetings next week in Brussels where the allies will discuss the ongoing war in Afghanistan. “We need our new defense secretary to be there,” a White House spokesperson said today, calling the GOP obstruction “unconscionable” and adding, “It does not send a favorable signal for the Republicans of the U.S. senate to delay a vote. …It’s difficult to explain to our allies why that’s happening.”

Congress is going on a week's recess next week for President's Day which is one day.  They have been back in DC for six weeks and already need a week off?  Sequestration coming up on March 1st and they take next week off?  The 112th Congress was the most do nothing Congress in modern times but the 113th is starting out worse.  The House GOP may be the laziest group of Representatives ever as they were on vacation last year more than they worked.  Guess a week's recess is more important then confirming a Secretary of Defense or working to avoid Sequestration?

Why are GOP Senators filibustering Chuck Hagel when it makes the Republican Party look nastier and spoiled sports after they lost the election.  The way this group of GOP in the Senate is going, they will never win the White House unless they move back to the center right after all of their lies and innuendos against President Obama and now his cabinet picks.  Inhofe has gone so far as to say he doesn't think Obama should be picking the Defense Secretary.  Talk about stupid - it sounded like he was inferring that Obama was not smart enough to pick his own cabinet.  Obama won the Presidency by 5 million votes but Republicans refuse to acknowledge with winning elections comes being able to choose your own people which Inhofe and other Republicans refuse to acknowledge.

Majority Leader Reid weighs in on the GOP Filibuster of Chuck Hagel showing the hypocrisy of Republicans once again:

Senate Majority Leader Says ‘It’s Tragic’ GOP Is Filibustering Hagel

By Ben Armbruster on Feb 14, 2013 at 12:30 pm
Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced today that he has scheduled a cloture vote for Chuck Hagel’s nomination as Defense Secretary for Friday morning. 

In an impassioned speech on the Senate floor, Reid lambasted Republicans for their “unprecedented” obstruction on Hagel (this is the first time in the history of the United States that a president’s nominee for Defense Secretary has been filibustered). “It’s shocking,” Reid said, “that my Republican colleagues would leave the country without a fully empowered Secretary of Defense during all the things that we have going on in the world including a war”: 

REID: I have heard speeches from the other side a lot saying, “you know the president should have the right to choose whoever he wants.” He has the support of this body, a majority vote in this body in this democracy. We are a nation, Mr. President, at war. We are whether we like it or not the world’s indispensable leader. We’re it. For the sake of our national security it’s time to put aside this political theatre and that’s what it is. 

People are worried about primary elections. We know how the Tea Party goes after Republicans when they aren’t conservative enough. Is that something they need to have on their resume? “I filibustered one of the president’s nominees.” Is that what they want? The filibuster of Senator Hagel’s confirmation is unprecedented. I repeat. Not a single nominee for Secretary of Defense ever in the history of our country has been filibustered. Never, ever!

“We need a Secretary of Defense,” Reid said later. “It’s tragic that they’ve decided to filibuster this qualified nominee. It is really unfortunate.” Watch the clip: 

Senate Democratic aides are reportedly saying they may not have enough votes to break the filibuster while some are reporting that there are enough votes for cloture, but the actual vote on Hagel’s nomination won’t take place until after the recess.

However, NATO is hosting Defense Minister meetings next week in Brussels where the allies will discuss the ongoing war in Afghanistan. “We need our new defense secretary to be there,” a White House spokesperson said today, calling the GOP obstruction “unconscionable” and adding, “It does not send a favorable signal for the Republicans of the U.S. senate to delay a vote. …It’s difficult to explain to our allies why that’s happening.”

From James Fallows at The Atlantic comes more information about the filibuster of Chuck Hagel:

As has been evident for some time, Hagel has majority support in the Senate for his confirmation as secretary of defense. As has become increasingly evident these past few days, much of the opposition to Hagel has become a parody of itself. Former Republican Senator and foreign-policy grandee Richard Lugar, himself the victim of a Tea Party challenge, said yesterday that the attack on Hagel was "unfortunate and unfair." Meanwhile the publisher of the Omaha World Herald answered allegations that Hagel (who represented Nebraska) was anti-Semitic with an article headlined, "Impressive Omaha Jewish Support for Chuck Hagel," and Aryeh Azriel, the rabbi at Temple Israel in Omaha, said that accusations that Hagel was anti-Israel were "extremely stupid." 

The new development is reported by Josh Rogin on Foreign Policy's The Cable blog, which says that several Republicans intend to filibuster Hagel's nomination -- but are looking for some way to weasel around the word "filibuster." They don't like that word (a) because they have tried to normalize the idea that a 60-vote super-majority threshold, which is the margin required to break a filibuster, should be seen as the routine requirement for Senate action of any sort; (b) because several prominent Republicans, including John McCain, have already said that they don't want to filibuster Hagel; and (c) because in the long history of Cabinet-level nominations, outright filibusters are either unknown or exceedingly rare. You can get all the details on their extreme rarity from the Congressional Research Service.

Rogin points out the machinations through which the Republican opponents of Hagel (a Republican) are trying to insist on a 60-vote threshold without calling it a filibuster. For instance, he quotes our old friend Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, plus Sen. John Cornyn of Texas:

Inhofe's demand for 60 votes is related to his overall objection to Hagel becoming defense secretary, which is based on Hagel's past record on issues ranging from Iran, Israel, Hamas, and cuts to the defense budget. Inhofe also wants Hagel to further disclose financial records related to his past speeches.

"We're going to require a 60-vote threshold," Inhofe told The Cable. 

Cornyn told The Cable, "There is a 60-vote threshold for every nomination." 

Cornyn may think that, but it is not so. As a matter of history, it has obviously not been the case for Cabinet nominations; and as a matter of legality, it is true only if the opposition is willing to transform the balance of American politics by filibustering every nominee. 

Turn to Rogin for more, including curlicues like this (emphasis added):

Inhofe insisted that his demand for a 60-vote threshold is not a "filibuster." Inhofe said he will object to unanimous consent for a simple majority vote, which will prevent Reid from bringing the Hagel nomination to the floor without first filing for cloture, which requires 60 votes to proceed to a final vote.

"It's not a filibuster. I don't want to use that word," Inhofe said. 

(snip)

But I am anything but agnostic about the tactics being used against Hagel. They started with personal smears, and they've led to this new version of Congressional obstructionism. It will be a shame all around if these tactics "work." This is a fight the administration should take on, and be sure it wins.

Read More at The Atlantic

Now Inhofe doesn't want to use the word filibuster but wants to require sixty votes when only 51 votes are required?

This is it for me when it comes to the Republican Party unless there is a huge change in the future.  For 2014 and 2016, I wouldn't vote for any Republican for Congress or President after what we have been witnessing.  These Senators are so afraid of being primaried they won't stand up to the Tea Party or should we say Koch Brothers?  How about grow a spine and do what is best for the Country and not worry if you are going to be primaried.  Selling out the Country to keep a job as a member of Congress shows a great lack of integrity and a willingness to see the Country go down because some Republican doesn't want to be tea partied in the primary.  Vote 'em out in '14!

Time for term limits?