Defcon One UPDATE: Reid Moves To ‘Nuke’ Filibuster Today

UPDATE 11:30amEST: Harry Reid moved to change the rules to end obstruction of federal court judges by Senate Democrats using the “60 vote” procedural filibuster. Parliamentary maneuvering  is likely to continue for possibly several hours.

Hey, politics junkies: better put on those hazmat suits and lead-lined underoos. A number of Senate Democrats have been outspoken in calling for filibuster reform, in particular the elimination of procedural obstruction of the President’s judicial nominees — the so-called “nuclear option.” There’s a good chance that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is about to “drop the big one”:

[A]fter Senate Republican filibustered President Obama’s nominees to sit on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals — not on concerns about ideology or qualifications, but over the president’s ability to appoint ANYONE to these vacancies — Senate Democrats are poised to change the rules via the so-called “nuclear option.” And while this may seem like a threat you’ve heard before, this time it seems as if there isn’t any deal that will derail this likely action. Senate Democratic aides confirm to First Read that they’re expected to vote today to change the rules to eliminate the 60-vote threshold for all executive appointments, except to the U.S. Supreme Court. Such a move requires just a 51-vote majority, so Democrats could lose four of their colleagues and still win the vote. Senate Republicans counter that if Democrats go through with this change, they’ll reciprocate the next time they control the White House and the Senate — including for Supreme Court picks. “If [Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid] changes the rules for some judicial nominees, he is effectively changing them for all judicial nominees, including the Supreme Court,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said yesterday, per the Washington Post. But Harry Reid believes he does have 51 votes, especially since he convinced Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) to climb on board this nuke-option train. She had been an influential holdout in the past.

WaPo explains how it is likely to play out:

The Senate is on the verge of striking down the long-standing filibuster rules for most presidential nominations, potentially doing so on a party-line vote that would alter nearly 225 years of precedent.

Democrats, infuriated by what they see as a pattern of obstruction and delay over President Obama’s nominees, expect to trigger the showdown by bringing up one of the recent judicial nominees whom Republicans blocked by a filibuster. According to senior Democratic aides, Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) will set in motion a complicated parliamentary process that ends with a simple-majority vote setting a new rule that will allow for swift confirmation of executive branch nominees and most selections for the federal judiciary without having to clear a 60-vote hurdle.

By: dave-dr-gonzo

David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.

* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.