Filibuster threat makes ENDA unlikely in 2010

[Shana A]

Filibuster threat makes ENDA unlikely in 2010

Posted on 27 January 2010 by Lou Chibbaro Jr.

http://dcagenda.com/2010/01/filibuster-threat-makes-enda-unlikely-in-2010/

A small corps of LGBT political insiders, speaking on condition that they not be identified, believe the Employment Non-Discrimination Act is headed for almost certain defeat this year because supporters can't line up the 60 votes in the Senate needed to overcome a filibuster.

Breaking what some have called an informal code of silence adopted by mainline LGBT political organizations, at least four sources familiar with the gay and transgender civil rights bill said the lack of Senate votes became clear long before Republican Scott Brown won his upset victory last week in Massachusetts.

"What we're hearing is there is just no clear path to pass ENDA in the Senate," said one activist familiar with the bill's lobbying effort. "They don't think they have 60 votes to pass it."

[tekla]

I'm so tired of this 60 votes crap.  They are going to rue the day they started this.  If you really needed 60 votes, then why, pray tell, does the VP get to cast a tie breaking vote?

[Robyn]

I'm so tired of this 60 votes crap.  They are going to rue the day they started this.  If you really needed 60 votes, then why, pray tell, does the VP get to cast a tie breaking vote?

I agree with Tekla. The only way to get the USA's legislative process working again is for the Senate to change its rules to eliminate the filibuster. Will it happen? Over their dead bodies. 

Still, could we get MoveOn.org and others to take up the battlecry?

Robyn
sick to death with the Senate

[tekla]

I'd put this in nicer terms, but since we're talking about the American Political System, there are, in fact, no nice ways to describe it.  But, the 60 vote majority is the political equivalent of stripping yourself naked, bending over a chair, smearing the crack with KY in the horniest of horny gay bars and thinking your not going to get ->-bleeped-<-ed up the Hersey Highway all the way to oblivion.  California has this system for raising taxes, as a result, a floating turd in the bowl has less crap in it then the system of taxing people in this state, and Traci Lords is about 110% less ->-bleeped-<-ed then the the taxation system - and the resulting revenue stream - of the State of California.

This must end.  I doubt that it will.  But that's about how messed up we are, and for you fans of Traci Lords, remember her film Traci in Tokyo and the octopus scene, and that's pretty much were we are.  A super-minority will only lead to civil war.

[Keroppi]

It will never end, because both sides benefit from it at different time. They don't like it when it's used against them, but they are in turn quite happy to use it themselves.