I'm just wondering what stupid parliamentary trick is going to get pulled out this time in order to ignore the eventual filibusters. Can the nuclear option and budget reconciliation be used multiple times, or are they each a one time thing and they have to come up with something else?

Fifty-two Senate Democrats and independents voted to weaken the power of the filibuster. The change reduces the threshold from 60 votes to 51 votes for Senate approval of executive and judicial nominees against unanimous GOP opposition. Three Democrats — Sens. Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Carl Levin of Michigan — opposed the change.

The rule change does not apply to Supreme Court nominees, who are still subject to a 60-vote filibuster threshold, or to legislation.

I'm just wondering what stupid parliamentary trick is going to get pulled out this time in order to ignore the eventual filibusters. Can the nuclear option and budget reconciliation be used multiple times, or are they each a one time thing and they have to come up with something else?

Senate Rule 22 was changed for nominations outside of the Supreme Court, effectively rescinding Rule 22.

You should really pay more attention, since this was discussed on these very forums.

I'm surprised this just passed now. Didn't Republicans already use this to break a Democratic filibuster of Bush's nominees during his term?

REID: “The American people, in effect, reject the nuclear option because they see it for what it is–an abuse of power, arrogance of power. Lord Acton said power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. … That is what is going on. The rules are being changed in the middle of the game. They are breaking the rules to change the rules. Regardless of one’s political affiliation, Americans understand this is a partisan political grab.” (Sen. Reid, Congressional Record, S.4238, 4/26/05)

"What they do not expect is for one party, be it Republican or Democrat, to change the rules in the middle of the game so they can make all the decisions while the other party is told to sit down and keep quiet.” “I sense that talk of the nuclear option is more about power than about fairness.”

“I think the president is entitled to an up-or-down--that is simple majority--vote on nominations, both to his Cabinet and to the executive branch and also to the judiciary. The filibuster was not used for 200 years. The country did just fine. Sometimes the court would jag off to the left, and sometimes it would slide over to the right. Presidents trying to mold the Supreme Court is nothing new. It's not inappropriate. And we need to get back to tradition, and the tradition is a majority is enough to confirm a judge.”

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/11/21/harry-reid-nuclear-senate/3662445/

Senate Rule 22 was changed for nominations outside of the Supreme Court, effectively rescinding Rule 22.

You should really pay more attention, since this was discussed on these very forums.

You've missed the point DE which is the dems don't have a leg to stand on while whining about what the reps might do

Except both sides don't agree, at least not simultaneously

unless of course one side uses/abuses the rules disproportionally.

How many nominees have been filibustered by the republicans in this presidency? Most of them were mostly just for spite.

This matters because some of the nominations resulted in multiple cloture efforts. By our calculation, there were actually 68 individual nominees blocked prior to Obama taking office and 79 (so far) during Obama’s term, for a total of 147.