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4 years agoon
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Ron RichterU.S. Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming spoke on the Senate floor Tuesday about the Senate Democrats’ desire to get rid of the filibuster, which he said would destroy bipartisanship and hurt America. Sheridan Media’s Ron Richter has the details.
Senator Barrasso said that in the 2020 elections, Americans chose an evenly divided Senate: half Republicans half Democrats, evenly divided, and since the Vice President is able to break a tie, when it comes to specifically organizing the Senate, Democrats have the majority. Barrasso went on to say that some Democrats want to lower the threshold for all the votes so that, to pass anything, all they would need to do, in case of a tie vote, would be to have the Vice President be the tie breaker. That is the way that a majority works when there is a tie and the Vice President is of one party. They get to of course break the tie in that direction.
Barrasso said this is a big, diverse country, and we don’t need 50 percent of the country plus one, to run roughshod over all the others.
Senator Barrasso urged his Democratic colleagues to reject a blatant power grab, and to come to the center, reach across the aisle, and find common ground. He said Senate Republicans are ready to work together to help the American people – to get people back to work, to get our kids safely back to school so they don’t fall further behind, and to get the coronavirus behind us.
Fred Osborn
January 27, 2021 at 7:46 am
Term limits needed in a big way for Senators and Congress.
ray olson
January 27, 2021 at 8:55 am
Since its creation by Arron Burr in 1805, the primary use of the filibuster has been to cripple attempts to advance civil rights. Along with the electoral college foisted on the people by Alexander Hamilton it remains one of the few bastions of Jim Crow that are still with us. {How much more democratic would our country be if these 2 elitists had fought their duel earlier and it had ended in a tie?) It’s time to admit that we live in the 21st century and all votes matter and the majority should rule.
Charles Cole
January 27, 2021 at 10:43 am
You and your pal Mitch McConnell should have thought of this after y’all saw the Dems pilfer FOUR congressional seats in California (of all places) in the 2018 midterm election when they updated their old “scheme” which LBJ used in 1948 to steal his senate seat in Texas. But, no, our “wonderful” Republican leadership dozed and now they’re afraid they’re going to get hosed. Had they “trued up” the election standards regarding these ridiculous “mail-in ballots” which, as LBJ did in 1948, they manipulated the system in several swing state to permit them to keep counting, and counting, and counting until they got the “required” number of “votes,” then they wouldn’t have lost the Arizona senate seat, the Republican challenger in Michigan would have defeated the Democrat incumbent, and they would have been able to retain both senate seats in Georgia. But, again, no, no, no. Let’s don’t be proactive. Let’s wait until we’re in a situation where the Dems are in the driver’s seat and HOPE they’ll “do the right thing.” That’s been the problem with the feckless Republican Party for decades now. IMHO, it’s time to replace these incompetent boobs with young, energetic, forward-thinking constitutional conservatives. Then perhaps the current moth-eaten GOP can be reformed from within just as Abraham Lincoln and the fledgling Republicans did when they replaced the do-nothing, worthless Whig Party in the 1850s. So, good luck, Mr. Barrasso. Now you can perhaps get an understanding of what the German army troops felt like as the Russians closed in on them in Stalingrad in 1942 when, as history records, “their fate was in the hands of the enemy.” And now, the fate of the filibuster rule is in the hands of the “merciful” Chuck E. Schumer.
Fred Osborn
January 28, 2021 at 8:07 am
You left out the right’s love of voter suppression and gerrymandering.o