Senator filibusters Obama’s nominee for CIA director

Daily News Article   —   Posted on March 7, 2013

NOTE:  A filibuster is an informal term used in the Senate to describe an attempt to block or delay action on a bill or other matter by lengthy debate, numerous procedural motions or other obstructive actions. It can be stopped only by a three-fifths cloture vote of the senators present and voting [60 senators must be present and vote to end the filibuster].  (from america.gov)

  • image742(by Stephen Dinan, The Washington Times) – Sen. Rand Paul took to the floor of the U.S. Senate just before noon Wednesday and vowed to stay there “at length” in order to filibuster John Brennan, whom President Obama has nominated to be the next CIA director. [Paul began the filibuster to prevent Senate Democrats from ending debate on Brennan and moving to a final vote.]

    Sen. Paul, Kentucky Republican, has said he will hold up the nomination until he gets more information about the U.S. drone execution program, which has become a major sore point for many lawmakers on Capitol Hill. [Brennan played a key role in administering the Obama administration’s drone program as White House counterterrorism chief.]

    “I will speak today until the president responds and says, ‘No, we won’t kill Americans in cafes. No, we won’t kill you at home at night,'” Mr. Paul said early on in the filibuster, which began at 11:47 a.m. and by early afternoon showed no signs of slowing down.

    Speaking from his corner desk, Mr. Paul, in red tie and gray suit and with a glass of ice water at the reach, spoke about political history and the origins of key constitutional precepts.

    He was armed with binders full of information but rarely glanced at them as he rattled off important Supreme Court cases and names of lawyers involved in landmark race relations lawsuits.

    The old-style, hold-the-floor filibuster is likely to heighten attention on Mr. Paul, who is thought to be mulling a presidential bid in 2016.

    He has staked out a stance as a defender of constitutional rights and has not been shy about demanding votes on his priorities. But the single-handed filibuster is a more dramatic tactic, and he is using it to force attention to [concerns about] the U.S. drone program.

    Just hours before Mr. Paul began his filibuster, Attorney General Eric Holder testified to a Senate committee that he believed it would be illegal for the government to kill an American who was not actively engaged in an imminent threat to security.

    But he could not rule out the use of drones on American soil altogether, saying only that he doubted it would happen because it’s easier to capture people here.

    The U.S. extrajudicial execution program has come under increasing scrutiny this year after some of the administration’s legal justification for the executions – most often carried out by drone strikes on targets overseas – leaked to the press.

    Members of both parties on Capitol Hill have raised concerns about the program, which started under President George W. Bush and which Mr. Obama has greatly expanded.

    Mr. Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Mr. Obama will deliver a speech in the near future laying out the issues at stake and asking for a public debate on the underlying principles.

    Mr. Holder also said, though, that he is not sure Congress could ban the president from using drones to kill Americans on U.S. soil.

    He said that would likely run afoul of the Constitution’s grant of powers to the president in Article II.

    Sen. Paul described the legal situation as one in which one person – the president – holds the power to be the accuser, the judge and the executioner, since terrorist-designation proceedings are all contained within the executive branch and done generally in secret.

    “Are we so afraid of terrorism, are we so afraid of terrorists that we’re willing to just throw out our rights and freedom?” he said.

    But Mr. Holder disputed Mr. Paul’s warning of executions of those sitting in cafes or at home, saying that the government cannot use lethal force against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil unless that person is deemed to be an imminent threat to security. He said that goes for normal law enforcement and the military, even in time of war.

    Copyright 2013 The Washington Times, LLC.  Reprinted from the Washington Times for educational purposes only. May not be reproduced on other websites without permission from washingtontimes.com.



    Background

    FILIBUSTER:

    The Senate has the ability to bring things to a standstill with a filibuster. Historically, a filibuster would take the form of a group of Senators agreeing to prevent a bill from passing by preventing it from ever coming up for a vote. They would prevent the vote from taking place by talking about the bill. ...if enough Senators have agreed to continue to filibuster, they could prevent the vote from taking place indefinitely by reading from the phone book and yielding the floor only to one another. … The only way to stop the endless proposal and debate of amendments to a particular bill and bring it to an immediate vote is with a successful vote of cloture. For such a vote to be successful, it must be supported by three fifths of the seated Senators which would be 60. (from wiki answers)

    • The Senate currently uses a “silent” filibuster system where a member threatens to filibuster. A cloture vote is then required, with a 60-vote majority, to override the filibuster and limit debate time.
    • The last major talking filibuster in the Senate was in December 2010, when Senator Bernard Sanders spoke for more than eight hours, to protest a tax law. That was the longest talking filibuster since 1992.
    • The website Politico said the Paul had seized on a technicality that could allow him to keep the floor as long as he can speak. It said Senate majority leader Harry Reid didn’t file paperwork that would allow him to break into Paul’s filibuster for a vote to end it.
    • The House of Representatives doesn’t use filibusters anymore. When the House got bigger, it moved away from filibusters in 1842.
    • In its original form, which Paul is using, a senator can “grab” the Senate floor and stall a bill by speaking for as long as he or she could stay awake.

    On Wednesday, Paul, with help from fellow Republican Senators Mike Lee of Utah, Jerry Moran of Kansas and Ted Cruz of Texas, was attempting to block John Brennan’s nomination as CIA director [and get clear answers to questions over the use of drones against American citizens on U.S. soil].

    The inclusion of Lee, Moran and Cruz...as “guest answerers” of questions could give the filibuster some staying power. One Democrat, Ron Wyden of Oregon, also joined the filibuster, to protest domestic use of attack drones.

    The Washington Post reported that at 1 p.m., when Paul entered the second hour of his filibuster, only 30 people were in the Senate gallery. But the filibuster had picked up a sizable audience on Twitter, as people were able to watch Paul on C-SPAN2’s live feed on TV and the Internet.

    The scene with Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is a famous example of a talking filibuster, where Smith’s character collapses after a 24-hour filibuster in the 1939 film.

    A famous real-life filibuster involved Democratic Senator Strom Thurmond (who later became a Republican), who held the Senate floor for 24 hours in an attempt to block the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

    According to the Senate website, a group of Democratic senators [and one Republican] also staged a tag-team 57-day filibuster to protest the Civil Rights Act of 1964, until a successful cloture vote shut down the filibuster.  (from the National Constitution Center)