The Democratic-led US Senate, in a historic rule change, has stripped Republicans of their ability to block President Barack Obama’s judicial and executive branch nominees.
On a nearly party-line vote of 52-48, Democrats changed the Senate’s balance of power by reducing from 60 to 51 the number of votes needed to end procedural roadblocks known as filibusters against presidential nominees, except those for the US Supreme Court.
The action underscored the bitter partisan divide in Congress, which has produced unprecedented gridlock and an approval rating of less than 10 percent for the institution.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, led the charge on the rules change, accusing Republicans of obstructionism and saying the American public is right to believe that «Congress is broken.»
Reid said of the 168 filibusters against presidential nominees in US history, half were held against Obama’s picks.
«It’s time to change,» Reid said.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell insisted that there was no reason for a rule change, saying Republicans had confirmed the vast majority of Obama’s judicial nominees.
McConnell also accused Democrats of taking the action to divert attention from the botched launch of Obama’s new healthcare law known as Obamacare.
«On this point, the similarities between the Obamacare debate and the Democrat threat» to change Senate rules «are inescapable,» McConnell said just before the vote.
«They muscled through Obamacare on a party-line vote and didn’t care about the views of the minority. And that’s just what they’re doing here, too,» McConnell said.
Source: Buenos Aires Herald