Filibuster split
by digby
The filibuster is fundamentally illiberal. But it's also useful. And the Republicans just don't know what to do about it:
An internal divide is sharpening among Republican presidential candidates over whether to eliminate the Senate's 60-vote threshold in order to fight Obamacare if they win the White House.
On Tuesday, Carly Fiorina and former Texas Governor Rick Perry told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt they would support using the "Reid Rule"—otherwise known as the "nuclear option"—to scrap the filibuster in order to try and repeal the Affordable Care Act.
"I would," Fiorina said. "And in this case, while I would be very reluctant to do so, the truth is that’s how this thing was passed in the first place." She added, "Obamacare is a tangled web that is becoming worse, clearly, day by day."
"I don’t have a problem at all with breaking the filibuster."
Perry also answered in the affirmative.
"I'm for using the Reid Rule on—to break the filibuster," he said, explaining that he wants to get rid of it both to repeal Obamacare and to confirm Supreme Court justices with a simple majority vote. "I support using the Reid Rule to appoint these Constitutional conservatives as well. So I don’t have a problem at all with breaking the filibuster."
Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush has said he'd "certainly consider" the idea; Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker said he would "absolutely" support it.
On the other side of the divide, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas has rejected the proposition even if it paves the way for repealing Obamacare, arguing that "ending the legislative filibuster would ultimately undermine conservative principles." On his side are Tea Party groups Club For Growth, Senate Conservatives Fund and Heritage Action, who want to preserve the legislative tool for blocking legislation in the future.
Basically this comes down to whether or not you think it's more important to block the other side from doing things you hate or removing all obstacles to doing what you love. It makes some sense that presidential candidates would be in favor of getting rid of it because if they win, they will want to pass legislation. After all, if a Democrat is in the White House that won't happen anyway.
I think this split shows that the conservative groups are aware that they are unlikely to win the presidency and see their role in the future to be obstruction. Nothing they want will get through if a Democrat is in the White House --- and they know that's the likely outcome. They want to preserve their ability to filibuster just in case there are some coattails and Democrats take back the Senate. And hey, they might just want to filibuster a Republican majority too --- they aren't exactly what you'd call team players these days.
It's likely they are going to hold the House regardless so they can probably stop anything anyway. But with the Tea Party being such unreliable allies on issues like trade, groups like Club for Growth probably would like to have another check. And the Tea Party/Heritage action folks are all about obstruction (also known as hostage taking/political terrorism) as their preferred weapon, Cruz being their primary practitioner. They just want to be able to do it, period.
Democrats have the same split, it's just not as acute. Many Senators don't want to get rid of the filibuster because they're afraid of a GOP president and a GOP congressional majority --- and for good reason. But it's purely instrumental for them, they haven't ever used obstruction as a tactic for its own sake. At this point the country looks as though it's going to be splitting the power between the two parties for a while. But if it's close enough to steal it, you know the Republicans will do it. They've proved that already ...
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