Filibuster fight erupts at the Senate
By Bill Schneider
CNN Political Unit
 | |
| |
| RELATED |
What's behind the filibuster flap?
• Senate heads for showdown
• McCain urges compromise
• Frist warns on showdown
• Hagel calls for filibuster solution
• Time.com: Filibuster face-off
|
|
(CNN) -- Mavericks have rights in the United States Senate. This week, they got something else -- the political Play of the Week.
Democracy means majority rule -- and something else.
"The promise of democracy is fulfilled by minority rights," said Bush during a RIGA speech on May 7.
In American politics, the House of Representatives enshrines majority rule. The Senate has a different tradition.
"It is the forum for minorities, where we can have dissent on the part of a minority," said Sen. Robert Byrd, D-West Virginia, on Thursday.
Byrd, the dean of the Senate, lectured Senate majority leader Bill Frist about Senate traditions -- specifically, the filibuster.
Byrd: [To Frist] "I have the floor. I have the floor."
Frist: [Laughing] "Yes, sir."
Byrd: "Over here, a man or a woman may stand on his or her feet as long as their lungs -- their brass lungs - will carry their voice and they can object."
The maverick tradition was also in operation on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the same day, where a Republican senator voiced opposition to President Bush's United Nations nominee.
"It is my opinion that John Bolton is the poster child of what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be," said Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio.
He persuaded his fellow Republicans to send the nomination to the Senate floor without committee approval.
Voinovich's colleagues were dumbfounded and respectful.
"We don't have them every single day around here," said Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Connecticut. "We had one this morning. We had a senatorial moment."
Later that day, Sen. Barbara Boxer of California exercised her prerogative to put a hold on the Bolton nomination until the State Department releases more information about the nominee's record.
Three Senate mavericks in one day!
The minority had a message for the majority: Tamper with this Senate tradition at your peril.
"The leader and his party may some day be on the same gallows that we on the minority find ourselves on today," Byrd said.
Senate mavericks don't rule, but they do get rights -- and they get the political Play of the Week.
Brutal majority rule is for the House of Representatives. Republicans suffered under it for 40 years, and now it's the Democrats' turn.
A lot of senators on both sides are worried about the Senate turning into another House.
