SALON

Friday, Feb 15, 2013 8:46 AM UTC

Filibuster or not? GOP slow-walks Hagel nomination

By

Topics: From the Wires, ,

Filibuster or not? GOP slow-walks Hagel nomination(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) (Credit: AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Immediately after blocking Chuck Hagel’s nomination to be secretary of defense, top Republicans took to the Senate floor to claim that, no, they were not filibustering. They just needed more time.

A filibuster occurs when a minority of the Senate declines to vote to invoke what’s called “cloture,” which sets a deadline to complete debate on a nomination or bill and forces an up or down vote. It takes 60 votes in the 100-member Senate to obtain cloture.

But to Democrats, the vote Thursday to deny cloture on Hagel’s nomination was a historic, first-ever successful filibuster of a Cabinet nominee and the first time the party in the Senate’s minority had ever even tried the move against a defense secretary nominee.

“If this is not a filibuster, I’d like to see what a filibuster was,” an angry Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said.

But Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., shot back that it was Reid who provoked Republicans into the vote by scheduling it too soon. The Armed Services Committee had just approved the nomination two days before and Republicans were still seeking information from Hagel.

“This is a vote by Republicans to say, ‘We want more than two days after this nomination comes to the floor to carefully consider it because we have questions,’” Alexander said.

It’s in the eye of the beholder as to whether what’s going on with the Hagel nomination is a filibuster. It seems likely the former Republican senator from Nebraska will be confirmed when the Senate returns to Washington the week of Feb. 25. And several Republicans took to the floor to deny that Thursday’s vote was a filibuster and to predict that Hagel ultimately will be confirmed.

In the Senate, it can take just one senator to force a cloture vote, even if there’s clear sentiment for an up-or-down vote. That’s part of the reason why Republicans say that just because there’s a cloture vote it doesn’t mean there’s been a filibuster.

On the other hand, several Republicans, like Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, say they want to require Hagel to cross the 60-vote threshold. That’s an argument for calling it a filibuster.

Either way, it’s a rare set of circumstances. According to the Senate’s historian, Donald Ritchie, just 5 percent of Cabinet nominees have been killed by the Senate or withdrawn when confirmation appeared impossible. And only twice has a Cabinet-level nominee been subject to a cloture vote. It’s far more common to filibuster judicial nominees.

Ritchie says that’s partly because “judicial appointments are for life and Cabinet appointments rarely last the full length of a presidential administration.”

More By Andrew Taylor.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations