Can anyone name Republican Senators who have publicly threatened to filibuster a healthcare bill?

[Better Believe It]

Name them and links please.

Thanks for your help.

[Enrique]

1. has any republican senator threatened not to filibuster it?

links please.

[Better Believe It]

4. How clever you are! Has any Senator threatened not to commit suicide if it passes?

Links please.

That question was just as dumb as yours.

I think your answer really means that you can't find any Senator, Republican or Democratic, that has actually threatened to filibuster any health care legislation.

However, if you can't find any credible links in response to my original question don't bother responding to this post.

I'm not going to play word games with you.

Understand?

[rufus dog]

5. the point of the OP is

why not make them make a bet and play their hand before the dems just fold.

[marshall]

2. The names of the Democrats threatening this are more important

Who cares if Republicans rant about it--they don't have the numbers so it doesn't mean jack--unless they can lure over some Democrats. THOSE are the names we should be concerned about. The Republicans, as far as power is concerned, don't exist.

[Better Believe It]

7. OK I'll bite. So what Democrats and Republicans have threatened to filibuster?

[marshall]

11. None that I know of

But the only ones that matter, even on a longshot, would be turncoat Democrats. Who gives a damn about the Republicans?

I'm just saying it for the sake of argument--not that it would happen in a million years.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

3. It's Star Wars part 12 "The Phantom Filibuster". nt

[Better Believe It]

6. Phantom is right. The MSM and most Dems continue to falsely insist that 60 votes are needed to pass

health care legislation.

In fact, only 50 votes (tie-breaker cast by V-P Biden if needed) are needed to pass health care legislation. Period. Not 60.

Sometimes, but not most of the time, some Democrats suggest that the 60 votes are merely needed to end a Republican filibuster.

What filibuster? What Republican Senators have threatened a filibuster and if they have, so what???

What's the big fricken deal?

Let them.

So some Democrats suggest they can't get 60 votes to eventually end a mythical Republican filibuster, and that's their excuse for watering down health care legislation until it becomes acceptable to conservative Democrats and perhaps even a Republican Senator or two to obtain the magical 60 votes needed to end a filibuster which will never start!

These Democrats simply are unwilling to challenge the special health insurance/drug industry special interests and their political whores in Congress and the 60 vote bull shit gives them a credible excuse to surrender to those interests.

That's what the 60 votes nonsense is really all about. It's political cover for capitulation to the demands of the health care industry lobbyists.

[AlinPA]

8. I can't name any, but I can't see why it is not a given that the R's will filibuster. They are

opposed to any bill on healthcare and don't want any progress on the reform. Why wouldn't they filibuster?

[Better Believe It]

9. They may not filibuster, certainly not for very long, if they are required to filibuster on .....

the Senate floor.

A "phone it in" phantom filibuster should not be allowed. The Democrats decide Senate rules and they can prohibit "call in" filibusters and require Senators to stay on the Senate floor.

[Better Believe It]

13. I find it interesting that none of them have actually threatened to filibuster.

One explanation may be that they expect the Democrats to fold and make more concessions without challenging the Republicans to filibuster.

So far that possible Republican strategy has worked.

[Better Believe It]

10. Time to End the Filibuster By Making It Real

Time to End the Filibuster By Making It Real
By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
U.S. News and World Report
March 2, 2009

Is it time to eliminate the filibuster? Definitely not. But David RePass, an emeritus professor of political science at the University of Connecticut, has an interesting suggestion in today's New York Times along those lines but distinctly short of it.

RePass bemoans the fact that the filibuster has given the senate's minority party a functional veto over legislation in that chamber by requiring at least 60 votes to pass something. But, he points out, real filibusters never actually happen these days: the modern "filibuster" is more threat than action.

Which is where RePass' solution comes in:

... fixing the problem would not require any change in Senate rules. The phantom filibuster could be done away with overnight by the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid. All he needs to do is call the minority's bluff by bringing a challenged measure to the floor and letting the debate begin.

In other words, don't get rid of the filibuster. Instead make it real: Force Republicans to actually get up and tie up Senate business and explain why they're doing it. If the GOP (or the Democrats, in time, when they are back in the minority), want to filibuster they should be able to—but they should have to actually do it.

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/robert-schlesinger/2009/03/02/-time-to-end-the-filibuster-by-making-it-real.html

[DearAbby]

12. That could be why we are seeing cracks

in the resistance...think about it, you are going to be up for election, and who wants to have an ad saying: This man/woman voted against your healthcare?

edit: The Bluff is over, now its time to lay the cards on the table.