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Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) has reportedly been floating the idea of a “nuclear option” in the tug-of-war currently raging in the U.S. Senate over a controversial “voting rights” bill.
According to CNN reporter Manu Raju, Durbin is looking at an option that would force Senators to use a “talking filibuster,” which means that Senators would have to physically stand there speaking, instead of the current rules, under which a Senator simply announces their intention to mount a filibuster without having to actually stand at the podium talking.
Raju took to Twitter to report the issue and point out the glaring issue with any attempt by Democrats to use this particular “nuclear option:”
Durbin tells us Ds are looking at using nuke option to force senators to mount a talking filibuster if they want to block bill.
And once they stop talking, Senate could advance elections bill with just 51 votes.
But they need 50 Dems to change rules, which they don’t have
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 18, 2022
However, as Raju pointed out in his original tweet – the Senate Democrats don’t actually have the 50 votes needed to change the rules (and if they did, they wouldn’t need to change them anyway), which was widely mocked as a totally empty, implausible threat:
Dems could do this NUCLEAR MOVE to pass the bill, or this SUPER DOPE JUKE to pass the bill, or even this TOTALLY BOSS MANEUVER to pass the bill with only 51 votes!*
*“But they need 50 Dems to change rules, which they don’t have”
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) January 18, 2022
Others pointed out that the Democratic “control” of the Senate is so flimsy and threadbare that the Republicans would be able to hold them off with much greater ease, and much-reduced effort, compared to what Democrats would need to do to take advantage of any weakening of Republican resolve:
Hopefully they won’t be able to weaken the filibuster whatsoever — but the best part of this would be that a single R could hold up all business in the senate for days and then pass it to the next R while all 50 Dems would have to be there should they stop talking. https://t.co/Mxbb3rfbuF
— David Harsanyi (@davidharsanyi) January 18, 2022
In fairness to Raju and Durbin, Raju noted that Durbin did not actually promise that this was the intended course of action, and it was simply one idea being tossed around in preparation for a Democratic strategy meeting on Tuesday night, with no final verdict or consensus on what approach to take.
Regardless, Democratic hopes for the bill are looking dim, especially since the filibuster is supported by some of their own, such as Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ). Combined with complete Republican unity against the bill, as well as changes in the filibuster and voting rules, not even “nuclear” options seem to have any teeth.
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