Can anyone address this-and still call it a victory? [View All]

[CWebster]

The filibuster is dead

Edited on Tue May-24-05 01:37 PM by Internut
The Democratic senators in the group agreed that they would only support filibusters of "extreme" candidates. But, in order for the agreement to hold, the Republican senators in the group have to agree with the Democratic senators that the candidate is, in fact, "extreme". But - if these 7 Republicans agree that the candidate is "extreme", they would not vote for him/her, so the filibuster is not needed anyway. Conclusion: the Democrats hold no cards at all.

On the other hand, if the Republican senators in the group think the candidate is not "extreme", they either veto the filibuster or open up the "nuclear" option again. They hold ALL the cards.

Net effect: same thing as before, except now, instead of Democrats having the right to decide to filibuster, the seven Republican senators have the veto power over it.