McCain: Democrats will “pay a heavy, heavy price” for what the just did.
What’s your reaction to the filibuster changes pushed through by Senate Democrats?
About time? Beware what you wish for? More democracy all around? Other thoughts?
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Mitch McConnell is taking one more bite at the apple, having the Senate vote again on whether it really, really wants to change the Senate filibuster rules. But it should mirror the first vote a few minutes ago. The Senate filibuster rules undergo their first major change since 1975. Sahil Kapur explains how it all came down.
I don’t know what I expected. Maybe the phrase “nuclear option” conjured some cataclysmic moment on the Senate floor when Harry Reid presses a cartoonish red button and Mitch McConnell, tie askew and hair mussed, shouts an anguished “Noooooo” while lunging to stop him.
But there’s no such dramatics on the Senate floor. Not even anyone raising a cane.
The key vote in the sequence of procedural steps to undo the current filibuster rules is underway.
You don’t want to miss the historic proceedings underway in the Senate. Watch.
Filibuster reform is a way to distract from the problems of the Obamacare rollout. That’s what Mitch McConnell said on the floor responding to Harry Reid’s move. It’s what Speaker John Boeher said, too, in his weekly press conference as things were unfolding in the Senate.
Mitch McConnell threw one last — or at least it appears to be the last — procedural monkey wrench in Harry Reid’s works, moving to adjourn the Senate. That’s forced a roll call vote on whether to adjourn and delayed the vote on Reid’s filibuster rules change.
Late Update: The motion to adjourn fails.
Later Update: The Senate is now voting to reconsider the Millett nomination. That will presumably also fail to muster the necessary 60 votes, at which point Reid will move to change the rules.
In case you weren’t able to watch, here’s the floor speech Harry Reid gave a little after 10 a.m. ET before setting in motion the rules change to the filibuster: