No more filibustering in the Senate? Do you see that as a positive or negative change?

It almost guarantees the rapid appointment of 18 vacant positions among appeals court judges nationwide and 75 vacant posts in the district courts—appointments that stalled due to GOP hostility toward President Obama—and that’s good. O is the sitting president and deserves to have the qualified candidates he chooses fill the positions he wants them for. But… like almost any action that either Dems or Repubs take, this one increases partisanship and thus will add to D.C. dysfunction.

I agree, @Pachyderm_In_The_Room, with both statements.

The shame of it is that the change can never be undone. That would require the party in power to cede to the common good.

It’s positive in the short run; it could open up a can of worms in the long run.

There will still be lots of filibustering in the Senate. It’s only on the appointments to executive branches and the lower federal courts. You can still filibuster legislation and Supreme Court nominees.

The Republicans wanted this eight years ago when they were in power in the Senate. And having matched the number of blocked appointments equal to the previous 218 years of the Republic, they brought this on themselves.

Totally positive, even though the change is only for appointments not legislation.

True, @zenvelo. Although a good rule change in my opinion, it’s really a very limited one. The filibuster is far from dead, the animus between parties is surely ramping up. Still, kudos to Harry Reid.

Thanks, @zenvelo. I heard about the change on the radio news and didn’t realized that the scope was so narrow.

Which is why, @ibstubro, it makes me so angry and pessimistic that anything one party does, no matter how limited, the other party turns it into another battle. I shudder to think about the next budget-debt limit fight coming up soon.

A good article

Do we need the ability to filibuster? What do we gain by requiring a super-majority to get anything done? The Republicans acting as obstructionists make it impossible to pass major legislation. Their goal appears to be to cripple government.

Should the Democrats lose the majority, expect a push back by the Republicans, removing ALL filibusters.
Pay back is a bitch.

My thoughts, @filmfann. I think that’s exactly why it’s never been done prior to this. Instead of fixing the problem, you change it.

Negative.

Liberals have their panties in a bunch because a rule worked against them this time.

Let’s change everything about government as soon as possible.

We’ll have our own Politburo in no time.

What’s so nuclear about majority rule. The real mistake was messing with the original filibuster rules and taking away the requirement that a Senator who wanted to filibuster stand up and speak. With the recently enacted rules, any Senator could just say I don’t want a vote on that bill of confirmation, and nobody could even find out who held it up. It made obstruction painless. You could obstruct everything then blame the rival party for getting nothing done.

Let’s look at what actually happened. Look at the number of filibusters per year from 1917 to 2012; 2013 was on track to be even worse. The Senate was gridlocked. The GOP priority was not doing the business of the nation, but thwarting Obama on everything he tried to do, then claiming that inaction was his fault. Mitch McConnell cut a deal with Harry Reid that he’d not do that this legislative session. He lied. Something had to be done.

Appointments should be an up or down vote. Otherwise an obstructionist party like the GOP has been, can make sure a new president can’t even appoint a staff, or replace a cabinet member who isn’t up to the job.

All other filibusters should go back to the Mr. Smith Goes to Washington style where the obstructionist has to publicly identify themselves and state why they think the minority should prevail on a particular piece of legislation. If they don’t have the guts to even identify themselves, they shouldn’t be able to gum up the works.

Good riddance to that bit of stupid obstructionist-enabler and too bad they didn’t roll back the whole change that @ETpro mentions, back to the original requirement to stand and deliver if you’re going to filibuster.

Anyone who thinks this will backfire on the Democratic party forgets that that side of the Senate never tried to hold up EVERYTHING the opposing party tried to do and probably won’t want to do that in the future.
It’s only the tea-bagging-wingnut faction of the Republicans, backed by their corporate masters (Adelson, Koch), who have cudgelled their own party into being a stupid nay-saying robot.

Does anyone know why rolling back the filibuster procedures, as @ETpro suggested, wasn’t a consideration?

That would have been more in line with the Senate’s penchant for operating by precedent, rather than creating new precedent.

@bossob I’m going to guess they didn’t roll back the whole filibuster rigging is that there would be more objection to that, vs. just rolling it back for only appointments. They might not have got enough support even from Dems for that.

That would have been more in line with sensible government, too. But sensible doesn’t work at all for the radical wingnut types.

What’s been lost in a lot of the fingerprinting in this national discussion is that Presidents generally get the appointments they want as long as 51 Senators agree. Appointments aren’t turned down unless the majority party has a big problem, like they did with Robert Bork. Hell, the Dems even approved Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. Before last week the current Senate couldn’t have approved anyone that controversial.