Steny Hoyer criticizes the Senate

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) blasted Kentucky GOP Sen. Jim Bunning’s filibuster of federal unemployment benefits this morning, but he also used Bunning’s one-man filibuster as an example of what’s wrong with the Senate.

“The Senate has got to come to a place where the Senate has the ability to function,” Hoyer said.

“We have one United States senator who has decided he’s going to block. A hundred thousand workers lost their unemployment benefits immediately,” Hoyer said. “Four hundred thousand workers will lose benefits within one to two weeks. That increases to 1.5 million for the month of March, if we can’t get this done, and 3 million within two months. So that one senator is impacting the lives of hundreds of thousands and prospectively millions.”

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine was the first Republican to publicly ask Bunning to abandon his one-man protest Tuesday morning. Other Republicans followed suit.

“The processes of the United States Senate, where they have one of 100 stopping legislation, shows why it is necessary to go back to the process, tried and true, of having majorities have the ability to act,” Hoyer said.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/...l#ixzz0h3bsSgIF

A key goal of the Framers was to create a Senate differently constituted from the House so it would be less subject to popular passions and impulses. "The use of the Senate," wrote James Madison in Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787, "is to consist in its proceedings with more coolness, with more system and with more wisdom, than the popular branch." An oft-quoted story about the "coolness" of the Senate involves George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who was in France during the Constitutional Convention. Upon his return, Jefferson visited Washington and asked why the Convention delegates had created a Senate. "Why did you pour that coffee into your saucer?" asked Washington. "To cool it," said Jefferson. "Even so," responded Washington, "we pour legislation into the senatorial saucer to cool it."

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/common/b...ive_process.htm

[Obama 2012 1,714]

The Senate's job got tossed out the window with the 17th amendment.

There really is no real difference in the two houses other than sheer numbers now.

[Peikko 1,575]

Something is badly wrong when the process of government is more important than enacting legislation. I don't know how much government intervention is the 'right amount', but electing people to argue the ideological toss and acheiving nothing is not my idea of how it should work.

[Pooky 3,791]

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine was the first Republican to publicly ask Bunning to abandon his one-man protest Tuesday morning. Other Republicans followed suit.

“The processes of the United States Senate, where they have one of 100 stopping legislation, shows why it is necessary to go back to the process, tried and true, of having majorities have the ability to act,” Hoyer said.

OK, now I'm confused. I thought there had to be 41 in opposition to filibuster legislation.

How can only one Republican't manage it by himself?

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

OK, now I'm confused. I thought there had to be 41 in opposition to filibuster legislation.

How can only one Republican't manage it by himself?

Look up unanimous consent.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

OK, now I'm confused. I thought there had to be 41 in opposition to filibuster legislation.

How can only one Republican't manage it by himself?

Happens when the Majority Leader brings up legislation outside the regular order. The Senate cannot proceed outside the regular order without every senator's consent. It only take one senator to force the Senate to follow its own rules.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Happens when the Majority Leader brings up legislation outside the regular order. The Senate cannot proceed outside the regular order without every senator's consent. It only take one senator to force the Senate to follow its own rules.

Not just procedural rules, but to pay for the bill before passing it (Pay Go).