Senator Nathan Hanlon, Senate Majority Leader wrote:
My fellow Senators, we indeed live in interesting times. A group of Senators, purporting to be "moderates" have attempted to hijack the legislative process to turn the Senate into a circus and use it as a campaigning platform in hopes of sparking a red scare, as well as a green one. That the increasingly powerful right wing of the Republican Party is so beholden to special interests that it is incapable of responding to moderate, if in-depth tax reform with anything more than character assassination and long-winded rants against some imagined socialist conspiracy is disgusting and a disservice to American democracy. I will not stand idly by as ranting crackpots hold American democracy hostage, and so I hereby propose a revision to current Senate rules on cloture, reducing the amount of votes to end a filibuster from a two-thirds supermajority, to three-fifths of the Senate.
Sentor Vernon Baker wrote:If we should be talking about hijacking the democratic process, we would like to draw the Progressive senators' eyes towards their own party's doing. You, nor your colleagues, have not sought to mediate any bills or any proposals that worry your democratically elected opposition. Instead, the Coalition has done nothing but push their own proposals through both House and Senate without actually changing anything. While yes, you have stopped to argue our concerns, no changes were made at all.
This change of law will only secure the domination of the Coalition over the Senate and House and in turn result in the extinguishing of the democratic process. This is something we cannot allow. IF Senator Hanlon indeed plans to push this change of law, I will have no other option then using my rights in the Senate to filibuster this as well. Because under the provisions of Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Ballin (1892), we have the right to filibuster the Cloture Rule Change just like any other rule change .
Please do not make us do that. Thank you Senator Hanlon.
Senator Nathan Hanlon, Senate Majority Leader wrote:
Perhaps if the Republican Party were willing to actually propose changes to legislation instead of simply screaming about socialism and making incessantly vague demands that legislation be changed without actually proposing solutions, we wouldn't be at this point, Senator Baker. Neither I, nor the Progressive party, nor even the Socialist congressmen you see fit to slander on the Senate floor have made you do anything, Senator. We have not made your colleagues do anything.
Changes have not been made to the Progressive-introduced bills you allude to because no changes were even proposed by your fellow Republicans: all that was put forward were confused diatribes about how "anti-market" those putting the legislation forward supposedly are. The Conservative and so-called "Moderate" wings of your party have engaged in the least constructive possible manner of "debating" bills, and when the Progressive and Socialist members of Congress refuse to bend to a clear refusal to actually debate the content of bills, you accuse us of "ignoring" you. Now you have begun a filibuster of a bill and in doing so block any chance to debate or propose amendments. The hypocrisy is palpable.
If you were a fraction of the upright public servant a Mountain States Senator should be, if you actually cared about mediation and debate, you would actually propose solutions to the problem you see, instead of perpetuating the naked obstructionism your party has become notorious for in these halls as of late, and thus do exactly what you accuse us of.
Senator Allan Clayton, R-WY wrote:Senator Baker's measured response to what is nothing short of an attempt to bully the Senate is to his credit.
I, and I trust the great majority here, shall resist any attempts to alter the working of the Mountain States Senate purely to suit one side of Congress. Checks and balances, senators, are there for a reason, and no matter our party colours, we must remember our greater duty to the consitution.
