Harry Reid’s Democrats Pass the “Nuclear Option” in the Senate: What It Means

Share

The U.S. Senate differs from the House of Representatives mostly in that the individual counts for more than his or her counterpart in the House.  Senators are elected to 6 year terms while Representatives serve only 2 years at a time.  The House is considered more “populist” and closer the the people than the Senate.  When the individual has more power it means compromise becomes the method by which objectives are met.

Harry Reid led the charge to end this “compromise” when the so-called “nuclear option” became law.  Essentially, instead of needing 60 votes to approve an Executive Branch appointment (excluding Supreme Court nominations).

George Bush had proposed this back in 2005 as Democrats blocked appointment after appointment.  At the time, Reid had this to say:

The threat to change Senate rules is a raw abuse of power and will destroy the very checks and balances our founding fathers put in place to prevent absolute power by any one branch of government.

Here’s analysis from 2005 regarding Republicans’ proposal to pass the nuclear option:

Democrats argue that Republicans are threatening the balance of powers by diluting the Senate’s check on presidential appointments, and they have threatened to halt virtually all Senate business if the Republicans change the rules. They cited comments Mr. Bush made about Mr. DeLay’s calls for Congressional oversight of judicial decisions in an effort to bolster their case.

So, in 2005 Democrats were against it but yesterday they passed it.

Why?

Even though Democrats will lose out if Republicans re-take the Senate, they are not taking the long view of things and are only concerned with the situation today.

And today the Democrats are losing.

Badly.

Obamacare has sucked the wind out of the Democrats and weakened them and they are hoping to use raw political power to muscle through the next year and recoup their lost standing.

But in killing off a rule that has been in force since 1806 the Democrats have set themselves up for failure when they lose the Senate, one day… and that’s bound to happen and you can be sure they’ll whine about it when it does.

Share