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Obama 2005: Condemns Reconciliation Use as “Absolute Power” and “Not What the Founders Intended.”

February 24th, 2010 by AHFF Geoff

President Barack Obama and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Had a Very Different View the Use of Reconciliation in 2005

Explosive new video has surfaced today that shows President Barack Obama, and many other prominent Democrats condemning the Bush Administration in 2005 for Bush’s attempt to use reconciliation to push through judicial nominees.  These 2005 quotes are particularly jarring when compared to the 2010 quotes from the same folks about Obama’s attempt to use reconciliation to pass Obamacare. Senator Barack Obama, on 4/26/05, in response to a question on the “nuclear option” (how Democrats in 2005 characterized then-President Bush’s attempts to use reconciliation):

“He hasn’t gotten his way…uh…and that is now prompting a change in the Senate rules that really I think would change the character of the Senate uh forever and uh what I worry about would be that you essentially have still two chambers the House and the Senate but you have simply majoritarian uh absolute power on on either side and that’s just not what the Founders intended.”

Present Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid weighs in as well back on 5/18/2005, noting that

“The right to extend a debate is never more important than when one party controls both Congress and the White House. The filibuster serves as a check, on power, preserve our limited government.”

Considering Leader Reid’s comments yesterday that the Republicans should “stop crying” about Obama’s planned use of reconciliation to push through Obamacare, Reid’s comments in 2005 are particularly explosive in terms of today’s health care debate. Present Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also chimed in with a verbal barrage on 5/23/2005 against then President Bush about controlling himself and calling upon her GOP collegues to go to Bush and tell him reconciliation is “a bridge to far” and that “you have to restrain yourself Mr. President.” One could argue, in aftermath of the shocking GOP upset win in the Massachusetts Senate race in January 2010 by a candidate, Scott Brown, who explicitly campaigned against passing Obamacare, that a Senator from the Democratic side should have the type of conversation with the President as suggested by Secretary Clinton back in 2005.

Vice President Joe Biden weighed in with his familiar bombastic rhetoric in 2005 as well, stating that “this nuclear option is ultimately an example of the arrogance of power…it is a fundamental power grab” and further opining in prayer that “”I pray God when the Democrats take back control we don’t make the kind of naked power grab you are doing.” Of course, Biden now supports the Obama Administration’s plan to use reconciliation to push Obamacare through the Senate with only 50 votes (and his tie breaking vote).

A common theme of all of the Democratic Senators remarks in 2005 revolves around the destruction of the “Republic” and the elimination of the “checks and balances” intended by the Founders that would ensue should President Bush succeed in his effort to use reconciliation. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who is now leading the Senate effort to pass a public option through reconciliation, had this to say on 5/18/2005 about Bush’s attempt to use reconciliation:

“We are on the precipice of a crisis, a constitutional crisis. The checks and balances which have been at the core of this Republic are about to be evaporated by the nuclear option. The checks and balances which say if you get 51% of the vote, you dont get your way 100% of the time. It is amazing its almost a temper tantrum.”

Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Ca.) also condemned Bush for attempting to use reconciliation, stating if used reconciliation would mean “the Senate becomes ipso facto, the House of Representatives” while also showing her more dire concern is the use of reconciliation for substantive legislation, not judicial nominees, by stating Bush will start with reconciliation for judicial nominees but then move on to its use in legislation. Perhaps most bombastic of all in 2005 regarding Bush’s attempted use of reconciliation is Democratic Senator Max Baucus (D-ND), who solemnly stated that “[t]his is the way that Democracy ends not with a bomb, but with a gavel”. Of course, Bush did not actually use reconciliation to get his nominees through the Senate as a bipartisan deal was reached.

Incredibly, each and every one of the above-quoted then-Democratic Senators, Obama, Reid, Biden, Clinton, Schumer, Baucus and Feinstein, are in favor of the use of reconciliation to pass Obamacare, with many of those same folks actively leading the effort, including now-President Obama. Perhaps an enterprising reporter could ask Harry Reid to explain if this comment also applies to Democratic Administrations like Obama’s: “No, we’re not going to follow the Senate rules…no…because of the arrogance of power of this Republican Administration.” Finally, Harry Reid posts in April 2005 on his Senate website an explanation as to why the improper use of reconciliation must be rejected and the claim to entitlement to an “up or down vote” is suspect:

For the past several months, the Senate has operated under a nuclear cloud. As a result of the Senate’s decision to reject a small number of President Bush’s judicial nominees, the Republican majority has threatened to break the Senate rules, violate over 200 years of Senate tradition and impair the ability of Democrats and Republicans to work together on issues of real concern to the American people.

It is astounding that Republicans would precipitate this destructive confrontation, especially since this President has a better confirmation rate than any of his recent predecessors. The Senate has confirmed 205 of President Bush’s judicial candidates and turned back only ten, a 95% confirmation rate. Ten rejected judges – only seven of whom are currently before the Senate – does not seem reason enough for Republicans to break the Senate rules.

My Republican colleagues claim that nominees are entitled to an up-down vote. That claim ignores history, including recent history.

UPDATE: ABC’s Jake Tapper adds another Obama 2005 quote on reconciliation and the Framers of the Constitution:

At the National Press Club on April 26, 2005, then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was asked about a move being discussed by Senate Republicans, then in control, to change the Senate rules so as to require a mere majority vote rather than the 60 votes necessary to end a potential filibuster.

“You know, the Founders designed this system, as frustrating it is, to make sure that there’s a broad consensus before the country moves forward,” then-Sen. Obama told the audience.

His remarks have garnered some attention in recent days given the current likelihood that Senate Democrats will next week use “reconciliation” rules, which require only a 51-vote majority, to pass health care reform legislation, bypassing the current Senate rules of requiring 60 votes to cut off a potential filibuster and proceed to a final vote.

The White House has been in recent days setting the table for use of reconciliation rules for health care reform.

UPDATE #2: American Spectator’s blog reprints the 2005 comments by the various Democratic Senators in full.

UPDATE #3: Thanks for the link, Memeorandum.com. Welcome to Memeorandum readers, please take a look around and stay a while. A quick flashback to early February 2010, when President Obama and the new media left were in full attack mode about the evils of the filibuster. This excerpt supplies a stark contrast to the comments made by the left-leaning Democratic Senators quoted above in 2005 when Bush was trying to circumvent the Senate filibuster with Obama’s comments in bold:

The Filibuster Was Never a Good Idea

Yesterday, talking to Democratic Senators, the president offered some thoughts on the filibuster:

So the problem here you’ve got is an institution that increasingly is not adapted to the demands of a hugely competitive 21st century economy. I think the Senate in particular, the challenge that I gave to Republicans and I will continue to issue to Republicans is if you want to govern then you can’t just say no. It can’t just be about scoring points. There are multiple examples during the course of this year in which that’s been the case.

Look, I mentioned the filibuster record. We’ve had scores of pieces of legislation in which there was a filibuster, cloture had to be invoked, and then ended up passing 90 to 10, or 80 to 15. And what that indicates is a degree to which we’re just trying to gum up the works instead of getting business done.

I appreciate what the President is trying to do here and I agree with the spirit of his comments, but the history here is bad. There was no point in time when supermajority voting in the Senate was well-suited to the challenges of the time. Indeed, as David Mayhew has demonstrated it’s simply not the case that there was routine supermajority voting until the recent past. When FDR’s opponents were seeking to block court-packing and when LBJ was lining up support for Medicare, vote-counters assumed that a majority was needed to block initiatives.

The authentic tradition is of using the filibuster as an extraordinary technique for the specific purpose of maintaining white supremacy in the South. A Harding administration anti-lynching initiative fell prey to the filibuster back in the 20s. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 and the Civil Rights Act of 1960 both had to be largely gutted in order to surmount filibusters. And it was recollection of the filibuster’s specific role as a bastion of white supremacy that led to the bipartisan effort to reform the filibuster in 1975 when northern liberal Democrats teamed up with the Ford administration and many Republicans to cut the cloture threshold to 60.

The institution has always been pernicious, just as the malapportionment of the Senate has always been the result of a hardball political negotiation rather than expressing some underlying good idea about the design of political institutions. Part of what makes the filibuster a bad idea is that it’s viability depends on minority party restraint. But the nature of human psychology is to create a procedural downward spiral in which each time there’s a change of partisan control, the new minority steps-up its obstruction.

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50 Responses to “Obama 2005: Condemns Reconciliation Use as “Absolute Power” and “Not What the Founders Intended.””

  1. Not Likely says:

    Are you actually this stupid? You do realize there’s a difference between reconcilitation and the nuclear option, right?

  2. AHFF Geoff says:

    Did you read the comments of the Dem Senators? They are universally focused on the issue of using 51 votes instead of the normal 60 for both nominees and legislative issues, and how the filibuster is key to our checks and balances system.

  3. Not Likely says:

    No, they’re universally saying they’re opposed to the nuclear option. Which is not reconciliation. They are two different things. The video is dishonest. But I suspect most people posting it realize that.

  4. Bilby says:

    This “Not Likely” person is going around to every site posting on this leaving the same dumb comment. My guess is he/she was inspired by the Media Matters piece.

    Look, the issue in both situations is getting something done with 51 votes instead of 60. The Democrats who argued that 60 was necessary back then are now saying Republicans should “stop whining” about 60 being necessary.

  5. AHFF Geoff says:

    @Bilby

    Well said, well spoken.

    The bottom line is that the Dem main arg was that prserving the 60 vote requirement is necessary to avoid authoritarian “tyranny” and “power grabs” – that main arg has to apply to Obamacare now.

    The Left is going nuts over this tho, Rachel Maddow just spent five minutes calling anyone who dares compare these 2005 Dem comments to the 2010 Dem comments on Obamacare is evil and lying.

    Unbelievable.

  6. Not Likely says:

    The bottom line is that the Nuclear Option in abolishing the filibuster. Flat out getting rid of it. Reconciliation, on the other hand, is an existing procedure, used by both parties at various times. They are two different things. You can’t construct a video of people disagreeing with one thing and represent it as hypocrisy when they defend an entirely different thing.

  7. Not Likely says:

    *is* abolishing

  8. Bilby says:

    “The bottom line is that the Nuclear Option in abolishing the filibuster. Flat out getting rid of it. Reconciliation, on the other hand, is an existing procedure, used by both parties at various times. They are two different things.”

    No, they are not. They’re both means to get around a filibuster. Democrats were comfortable calling reconciliation the “nuclear option” until Media Matters started this silly talking point that you feel the need to spread far and wide.

    From Wiki: “Beyond the specific context of U.S. federal judicial appointments, the term “nuclear option” has come to be used generically for a procedural maneuver with potentially serious consequences, to be used as a last resort to overcome political opposition. ”

    That’s what the reconciliation process is. Also: nuclear option
    n. especially in politics, an action of last resort; in recent years in the U.S., an extreme method of overcoming a filibuster related to the confirmation of judicial nominees. See here: http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/nuclear_option/

    Do you get it?

  9. AHFF Geoff says:

    Woah, nice takedown there Bilby. Beyond your substantive smackdown of Not Likely, also consider the actual quotes from the Dems – many, including Hillary, specifically mention the filibuster and how important the filibuster is to avoiding majoritarian tyranny, which Obama specifically mentions.

    Media matters = cover story and spin.

  10. Bilby says:

    Yes, Media Matters, Maddow, etc. are simply trying to muddy the waters with the semantics BS.

  11. Chuck says:

    Ah, yes, I remember when President Bush threatened to have his judicial nominees confirmed by the budget reconciliation process. It reminds me of just this morning when I brushed my teeth with some Twitter.

    Bilby, it’s impressive that you found that little passage about generic uses of the term “nuclear option”, tucked away at the bottom of a 6000-word article about the 2005 threat to declare the filibuster unconstitutional. I think anyone with half a brain can see how that’s the same as reconciling the points of difference between two bills that passed their respective houses of Congress in 2009. And when you’ve got half a brain to share between several people, it’s even more clear.

    Potato, tomato! Semantics!

  12. AHFF Geoff says:

    Chuck, your comment is appreciated, however, you’re not addressing the basis for the Democratic 2005 claims, that getting around the filibuster would wreck our system of checks and balances and be a threat to the Republic…according to Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. So, lets not pretend the Dems are not being hypocritical now.

  13. Kathleen says:

    “So, lets not pretend the Dems are not being hypocritical now.”

    Geoff, if the Dems were being hypocritical, they would do everything they could to remove the power of the filibuster by changing the Senate rules NOW, because it certainly has been used by the Republicans–more than any time in our history–to slow things down to a crawl in the Senate.

    The reason they haven’t done that is because they believe–passionately–what they are saying in that video. And they know that one day, perhaps soon, they’ll be in the minority again.

    They are speaking out against the “nuclear option” as it was defined at that time by Trent Lott, who along with his fellow Republicans, threatened to change the Senate rule that requires a three-fifths super majority to invoke cloture and end a filibuster.

    The Dems were not talking about “reconciliation,” as that video would have you believe. Reconciliation is authorized by statute. It is law. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/2/641.html

    The “nuclear option”–in that video–is about changing the Senate rule.

    Big difference.

    The video is meant to deceive.

  14. AHFF Geoff says:

    @kathleen

    I appreciate your fervent defense of the Democrats in this matter, but hypocrisy is hypocrisy and Dems referred to bypassing the filibuster, either for judicial nominees or legislation, as the “nuclear option” in 2005 and thereafter, right up until recently when the plan by laid out by Obama to avoid the filibuster by using reconciliation on Obamacare. Now, the “nuclear option” has been redefined as solely what Bush wanted to do with nominees. I’m sorry, but that’s too convenient for revisionist Democratic history. Look at the quotes themselves, the Dems, including Obama, are upset that the Senate could turn into a 50 votes only place which would destroy the “balance” and “minority rights” forever.

    I’m not saying there are not good arguments for using reconciliation here, but the Dems and lefties should stop complaining charges of hypocrisy and answer substantively instead.

  15. […] Obama '05-Reconciliation as"Not What the Founders Intended … […]

  16. […] Obama '05-Reconciliation as"Not What the Founders Intended … […]

  17. Chuck says:

    Beautiful. Love how you deleted my comment, presumably because you have no answer about — how to put this politely? — how not-well-informed this post is, referring to “reconciliation” (a purely legislative procedure) in reference to quotes about the Senate’s advice and consent duties with respect to judicial nominations.

    But SEO comment spammers? No problem!

    As for the rest of my deleted comment, it was sarcastic, but not profane. Deleting dissent is a sign of a very weak position.

    To repeat myself, without the more-inflammatory middle section:
    The quotes are about what they’re about; they’re not about the superclass, as you would suggest.

    That doesn’t mean I’ve ever been against majority rule through well-established procedures.

  18. AHFF Geoff says:

    Your comment was deleted because of the racist speech contained therein, Mr. Chuck. Your comments in your new comment about hating black people are also inappropriate, and i have removed them from the above post by editing your comment this time instead of deleting it.

    Your argumentation remains weak, as your argument fails to account for Obama, Clinton, Reid and others specifically pointing out that the filibuster is a key check on the abuse and tyranny of the majority in the Senate and the important role the filibuster plays in “slowing things down” with much highlighting of the importance of such minority rights in the SEnate, and how the filibuster is critical to the continued existence of the Senate as a separate institution from the House, i.e. not ruled by majority alone.

    If you stop your racist speech, please feel free to continue posting comments. If you cannot, please do not post on my site again. Thanks.

  19. E. Skyhawk says:

    I researched the 2005 articles. The “nuclear option” was a reference to Bush wanting to change the rules of the Senate mid-way during a session of Congress because he couldn’t get his way. Attempting to eliminate the rules set at the beginning of the Congress, during the middle of the session is the “Nuclear Option”. Not removing the Filibuster, per se, and not using Reconciliation. The “Nuclear Option” referred to changing the agreed to rules of that session of Congress, mid-way during that session. The arguments at the time were in reference to eliminating the Filibuster SPECIFICALLY for judicial nominations only, which would have been a very cynical and authoritarian act and abuse of power. Reconciliation, on the other hand, is a LAW in the constitution, and used regularly, and most often by Republicans in the past. Reconciliation and “the nuclear option” are two entirely different things!

  20. AHFF Geoff says:

    Skyhawk, while I appreciate you are trying your best to put a good face on terrible facts, your assertion that the 2005 Dems were somehow not referring to the risk of majoritarian tyranny in their comments, and specifically referring to the filibuster as the only was to save our Republic from this majoritarian tyranny, is simply false.

    Re-read the comments in full. Look at what Obama and the Dems are saying. For instance, look at Obama’s comment below – is this referring to only the judicial nominee dispute?

    At the National Press Club on April 26, 2005, then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was asked about a move being discussed by Senate Republicans, then in control, to change the Senate rules so as to require a mere majority vote rather than the 60 votes necessary to end a potential filibuster.

    “You know, the Founders designed this system, as frustrating it is, to make sure that there’s a broad consensus before the country moves forward,” then-Sen. Obama told the audience.

    You really think that Obama is not saying that circumventing the filibuster is bad? Really? Obama specifically states that the “Founders” of this country intended the use of the filibuster to “make sure that there’s a broad consensus before the country moves forward”

    How, in your opinion, is this Obama commentary not directly applicable to the health care reform debate? 16% of the US economy will be overhauled completely if Obamacare passed – does this kind of legislation not also need a filibuster protection to “make sure that there’s a broad consensus before the country moves forward”???

    The semantic quibble about judicial nominees v. legislation is pure misdirection.

  21. E. Skyhawk says:

    Actually Geoff, the entire context of the 2005 “debacle” is about the “Nuclear Option” of changing the rules mid-session of Congress. That IS the nuclear option. The result would have been to have a 51 vote majority ON JUDICIAL NOMINATIONS. Whatever persuasive arguments were made to avoid that were in fact in response to the Bush threat of changing the rules of the Senate to target judicial nominations. Did you find any other change that was going to be made?
    In any case, the Reconciliation process, as I stated, is LAW and is constitutional. It is not what Obama was arguing about as what the framers did not intend, as this IS the constitutional directive of majority rule. Obama may not have made the best argument for the change, but this is what the debate was about.
    Did you find any other change that the Bush administration was threatening at that time?
    Reconciliation is not “a change” …. as the record shows, it is used regularly, by every Congress, and most often by Republicans… the last 17 out of 20 times, in fact.

  22. E. Skyhawk says:

    ps. Geoff,
    No, I do think Obama was arguing “saying that circumventing the filibuster is bad” but it was BAD because it was an agreed to rule , set by Republicans, at the beginning of that session of Congress. Changing the rules mid-session because you don’t like how they work is UNPRECEDENTED and doing that would have been the “Nuclear Option.” That is the abuse of power that was being argued, albeit poorly by the Democrats at that time.

  23. E. Skyhawk says:

    pps. The “Bills” in question have already passed the House and Senate by a 60 vote majority. What is being decided on now are the changes to them…. which may be done in Reconciliation. Standard Operating Procedures of the Senate. NOT a “nuclear option.”

  24. AHFF Geoff says:

    Skyhawk:

    Well, you’ve managed to ignore the actual quote i listed from Obama to instead push the hard left Media Matters talking points on this issue.

    Folks who come to the post can decide for themselves, but the evidence is very clear that Obama, clinton, Reid and the Dems all stated in 2005 that circumventing the filibuster was the nuclear option and further that circumventing the filibuster would destroy the “republic”. It is only now, 2010, when Obama wants to push through a health care plan that has only 25% of the public behind it (see CNN post above), that hard left wingers like yourself say the filibuster is bad for democracy and America. I leave you again to read again two Obama quotes from 2005 with leave no doubt that Obama’s position then was that circumventing the filibuster via reconciliation was very bad for America and the separation of powers and against the Founders intent:

    At the National Press Club on April 26, 2005, then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was asked about a move being discussed by Senate Republicans, then in control, to change the Senate rules so as to require a mere majority vote rather than the 60 votes necessary to end a potential filibuster.

    “You know, the Founders designed this system, as frustrating it is, to make sure that there’s a broad consensus before the country moves forward,” then-Sen. Obama told the audience.

    Second quote:

    Senator Barack Obama, on 4/26/05, in response to a question on the “nuclear option” (how Democrats in 2005 characterized then-President Bush’s attempts to use reconciliation):

    “He hasn’t gotten his way…uh…and that is now prompting a change in the Senate rules that really I think would change the character of the Senate uh forever and uh what I worry about would be that you essentially have still two chambers the House and the Senate but you have simply majoritarian uh absolute power on on either side and that’s just not what the Founders intended.”

    AND, a little Harry Reid total hypocrisy on top:

    Present Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid weighs in as well back on 5/18/2005, noting that

    “The right to extend a debate is never more important than when one party controls both Congress and the White House. The filibuster serves as a check, on power, preserve our limited government.”

  25. E. Skyhawk says:

    Geoff,
    I am not ignoring your quote. In fact I have no problem with it. I agree with it… in context:
    “the evidence is very clear that Obama, clinton, Reid and the Dems all stated in 2005 that circumventing the filibuster was the nuclear option and further that circumventing the filibuster would destroy the “republic”.”
    You are choosing to ignore the facts of what the entire 2005 controversy was about. You can have your opinion, but you can’t rewrite history and invent your own facts. Whatever they said, however they argued (poorly as I’ve stated) the fact is that attempting to change the rules of the Senate in mid-session …. thus eliminating the filibuster, was the “nuclear option.”
    End of story.
    Unless Republicans just want to live in a fantasy where then President Obama, who back then was a constitutional scholar, was actually arguing that Reconciliation is not a standard voting method of the Senate. You are arguing that the framers of the Constitution wrote a law that was against the framers’ intent and that Obama and the others were saying this LAW is a nuclear option? That argument borders on insanity.

  26. AHFF Geoff says:

    Okay Skyhawk, you’ve convinced me. (NOT!)

    Sorry for the 1990’s reference, but, seriously, saying the same thing over and over again, that the 2005 fight was about judiicial nominees not legislation, doesn’t blunt the force of the argument regarding Obama and the Dems’ 2010 hypocrisy on the filibuster.

    The Dems bemoaned the end of democracy unless as Reid put it the right of the minority party to “extend a debate is never more important than when one party controls both Congress and the White House. The filibuster serves as a check, on power, preserve our limited government.”

    Who’s in charge of the White House and Congress right now?
    Democrats.

    Reid argument applies just as well to the judicial nominees issue as it does to the present efforts to ram thru Obamacare over the filibuster using reconciliation, if not better!

    In fact, Diane Feinstein’s quotes make this point exactly when she stated first Bush would circumvent the filibuster for judicial nominees, than executive appointments and THEN legislation – meaning the circumvention of the filibuster regarding legislation is the WORST harm, beyond doing so with judicial nominees, and that Bush’s first act in 2005 on nominees would snowball into avoiding the filibuster on legislation.

    That’s her words, that’s Harry’s words, that hillary’s words, and that’s Barack’s words.

    What kind of policy does Obama’s quote below apply to, if not an overhaul by federal regulation of 16% of the US economy? Seriously, what policies, if not Obamacare, are relevant to obama’s statement below about “broad consensus” being required and the filibuster being the key to that in the American system of government as envisioned by the Founders? No policies, and only judicial nominees? That makes no sense, and that is why the force of the 2005 Dem arguments about the nuclear optoin and nominees applies at least as well, if not moreso, to Obamacare. Obamacare could be the most far reaching governmental intervention in decades and decades, so wouldn’t that kind of policy change “broad consensus” be EXACTLY what Obama is referring to here:

    At the National Press Club on April 26, 2005, then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was asked about a move being discussed by Senate Republicans, then in control, to change the Senate rules so as to require a mere majority vote rather than the 60 votes necessary to end a potential filibuster.

    “You know, the Founders designed this system, as frustrating it is, to make sure that there’s a broad consensus before the country moves forward,” then-Sen. Obama told the audience.

  27. Michelle says:

    Reconcilliation and the “nuclear option” are siimply different means to the same end- that of by-passing the Constitutional requirement for a broad consensus. Reconcilliation may be law, Kathleen, but it was intended to be limited to budget-related bills, not the creation of expansive new government regulations, programs, and commissions. If the Democrats push this through via reconcilliation they will have to do it in a piecemeal fashion and it won’t be pretty.

    It’s really such a shame. The Founders worked so hard to guard against the “tyranny of the majority” as Sen. Dodd called it.

  28. AHFF Geoff says:

    Good point Michelle. We’ll just have to see if the center holds against the far left comprehensive health care reform plan.

  29. […] in mind that as recently as 2005, even Barack Obama was complaining that the Republican threat to use the “nuclear option” to shut down Democratic […]

  30. Matt says:

    As I’m sure has already been noted, reconciliation is not the same as the proposed “nuclear option.” Epic. Fail.

  31. Matt says:

    Actually, NOT a great point, Michelle.

    Know why? Because the senate ALREADY PASSED the health care bill. With 60 votes.

    Reconciliation would only be used to make relatively minor changes around the margins. You’ve bought into the Republican lie hook, line, and sinker.

  32. Matt says:

    Bilby: “No, they are not. They’re both means to get around a filibuster. Democrats were comfortable calling reconciliation the “nuclear option” until Media Matters started this silly talking point that you feel the need to spread far and wide.”

    This statement alone demonstrates that the poster simply does not have a grasp of what is being discussed here. The Democrats were not “calling reconciliation the ‘nuclear option.'” The term “nuclear option” described something completely different than reconciliation.

    I get the feeling many here were not aware that reconciliation, a process authorized by statute, existed prior to a few months ago. The Democrats at the time knew exactly what it was, had used it previously, and were NOT referring to it. They were discussing a completely different proposition, not authorized by statute, that would have abolished the filibuster for a specific purpose (judicial nominations).

  33. John says:

    All of the conservatives commenting on this site are making a fatal error: they are attempting to argue with idiots.

    I wonder when conservatives will learn that they cannot argue with a liberal, because a liberal does not have the time to be pestered with facts.

    For liberals, it’s all about party loyalty to a herd of mindless followers as they stampede towards the mirage of societal utopia.

    It’s time for conservatives to spend their time & efforts on getting conservatives elected, rather than trying to convince mindless liberals of the very facts for which they have no use or concern.

  34. Demosthenes says:

    John, that’s truly hysterically funny stuff. CentristNet remains committed to informing all Americans, notwithstanding ideology, of objective facts for their review and consideration. 🙂

  35. bbunk says:

    Of course, any serious follower of politics would know the truth (and difference) about the “nuclear option” and reconciliation.

    That you don’t know the simple facts on these marks you as a simple repeater of what others tell you, not bright enough to discover things out for yourself.

    To prove my point, if you choose to reply, and you may want to consider that carefully, you will disregard what I’ve said and attack me personally. At no time will you attempt to look into this and determine your mistake.

    After all, facts are too tricky a thing to use when making a point. Talking points and opinions are much easier to write, and disprove.

    Regards.

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  42. […] both the House and Senate, democrats didn’t have enough votes to pass Obamacare; so they used reconciliation to pass it. Many of us watched in horror as the media described this, much the same way they did […]

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