After threatening to veto a $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill before a midnight government shutdown deadline Friday morning, President Donald Trump ultimately signed the measure, citing national security concerns.
Editor's note: It has been our great privilege to publish dozens of articles over the years by Jeffrey Bell, and it was with great sadness that we learned of his death over the weekend. You can read a tribute to Jeff by his colleague Rich Danker elsewhere on this page (as well as other tributes,…
President Trump thinks the Gorsuch appointment to the Supreme Court is one of his biggest achievements of his presidency. Another major success may await him: the redirection of the lower federal courts, such that there will be more Republican than Democratic appointees, and thus a more…
President Trump urged the Senate to eliminate its 60-vote threshold for ending debate on most legislative matters Tuesday morning, though his reasoning appears to be garbled.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday panned President Trump's Twitter suggestion to do away with the 60-vote filibuster rule in the Senate.
One of the most tedious aspects of our politics is partisan battles over legislative procedure. To hear each side tell it, the opposition never hesitates to employ unprecedented tactics to further narrow political goals at great cost to the republic. Such arguments are almost always disingenuous.…
One of the most tedious aspects of our politics is partisan battles over legislative procedure. To hear each side tell it, the opposition never hesitates to employ unprecedented tactics to further narrow political goals at great cost to the republic. Such arguments are almost always disingenuous.…
The DAILY STANDARD Podcast with legal expert and Hoover Institution research fellow Adam J. White on the end of of the judicial filibuster.
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell was asked at his weekly press conference on Tuesday if he was confident Republicans had the votes necessary to confirm Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court by eliminating the Senate minority's ability to filibuster Supreme Court nominees.
Oregon senator Jeff Merkley, who spoke on the Senate floor for 15 hours Tuesday night and Wednesday morning in opposition to the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, said in an interview three years ago that he supported eliminating the 60-vote procedural threshold for High Court…
Literary editor Philip Terzian recounts the modern history of SCOTUS fights and concludes that, while it may be Republicans who finally end the filibuster tradition for Supreme Court nominees, the end was engineered by the Democrats.
Less than two weeks before the 2016 elections, Virginia senator and Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine said that he would support eliminating the 60-vote hurdle to confirm Supreme Court nominees in order to get Judge Merrick Garland on the court.
The impending filibuster of Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch continues apace, but one Democrat is on record questioning whether Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer's plan to return the favor after the Senate GOP stymied Merrick Garland's nomination will backfire.
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer announced Thursday morning that he will try to lead fellow Senate Democrats to block an up-or-down vote on the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. The Democratic leader demanded a new nominee (who takes a liberal approach to constitutional…
The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with legal expert and Hoover Institution research fellow Adam J. White on the Gorsuch nomination, the forthcoming Democratic filibuster, and a potential deal to restore the filibuster for other judicial nominees as a trade for a Gorsuch confirmation.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced his expected plans to vote "no" on Judge Neil Gorsuch's nomination to the Supreme Court and promised that Republicans would have to overcome a Democratic filibuster in order to seat him.
The politics of Democratic opposition to Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito were twofold. One, 2006 was an election year, and senators in the minority were hearing about it from their base. Two, partisanship, a vessel for the Senate filibuster, had dropped anchor inside the confirmation process.…
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer isn’t a happy warrior. He loves the spotlight, but everyone's paying more attention to his colleagues Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. He hoped to be majority leader, but Republicans surprised most observers by holding the Senate on Election Day. He…
West Virginia senator Joe Manchin said he won't block President Donald Trump's choice to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, who is scheduled to be announced Tuesday evening.
In this episode of THE WEEKLY STANDARD Confab, Fred Barnes joins host Eric Felten to talk about Donald Trump's prospects for having his way with the Senate when it comes to Obamacare; John McCormack tells us whether the Senate is going to nuke the filibuster; and Ethan Epstein shows how a minor…
In what is apparently a first, the Dallas police department used a bomb-toting kamikaze drone robot to kill Micah Xavier Johnson, the suspect in the killing of five police officers working parade detail during a Black Lives Matter protest.
Texas senator Ted Cruz put his opposition to the president's pending Supreme Court nominee in the starkest terms yet, saying he would filibuster any name the White House submitted.
We hear endlessly these days from the left and the right that our political system is “broken.” The left’s principal complaint is that it is too hard to pass their desired legislation. Liberals pine for a parliamentary system, where the majority party in the legislature controls public policy. Our…
Rather than continue to battle with the relatively new House "Freedom Caucus," John Boehner decided to announce the end of his tenure as Speaker, leaving the door open for somebody else to take the reins. Kevin McCarthy, thought by many to be a certain successor, dropped out, citing an inability to…
With Republicans in control of the Senate for the first time since Barack Obama took office, the president may find it harder to appoint left-wing lawyers to judgeships. Whether he compromises on some of his nominees, including any to the Supreme Court, may depend on the willingness of the new…
With little fanfare, President Obama has enjoyed remarkable success in his project to remake the federal courts in his own ideological image. How much more he achieves during his final two years in office depends in large part on whether Republicans win control of the Senate this November.
President Obama and Senate Democrats have gone to great lengths to secure the appointment of executive-branch officers and judges and thus help advance his policies and programs. Obama has made recess appointments in a way no president before him did, an action now being challenged in National…
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on Ted Cruz's day-long speech on the Senate floor opposing Harry Reid's efforts to add Obamacare funding language to the House-passed Continuing Resolution.
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with staff writer John McCormack on his recent pieces on Obamacare and Ted Cruz's efforts to stop the Senate from amending the House-passsed Continuing Resolution that defunds parts of Obamacare.
On Sunday, Nevada’s Democratic senator Harry Reid said that taking away the Senate minority’s right to filibuster would be outrageous, and even criminal. “That contempt for the rule of law and the law of rules,” Reid said, “will set a new precedent—an illegal precedent—that will always remain on…
The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on race relations, Filibuster reform, and the House GOP.
In 2005, Harry Reid said, “I would never, ever consider breaking the rules to change the rules. I never suggested that at all. I say to my friend, I want to work something out. I repeat that for probably the fifth time here today, but in the process we cannot give up the basic rights this country…
Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus reiterated that he believes Rand Paul’s 13-hour filibuster over the Obama administration’s drone policy was a “unifying moment” for the GOP and that the party is "totally on board" with the libertarian senator.
What to make of Rand Paul’s 12 hours and 52 minutes of fame? Was his filibuster on the floor of the Senate last Wednesday, as Charles Krauthammer said on Fox’s Special Report, though substantively misguided, “a stroke of political genius”? Was it, as Seth Lipsky suggested in a column in the New…
Before Rand Paul even arrived at the Gaylord National Harbor convention center in Maryland for his Thursday afternoon CPAC address, the stage was set for his raucous reception. Outside the convention hall, a team of eager young volunteers began passing out t-shirts, stickers, and posters emblazoned…
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Bill Kristol, hosted by Michael Graham.
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast, hosted by Michael Graham, with Stephen Hayes:
Senator Ted Cruz, joining Rand Paul's filibuster on the floor of the Senate:
Senator Ted Cruz, joining in support of Rand Paul's filibuster, said today was the first day he had the chance to speak on the Senate floor. "It don't get no better than this," Cruz said, quoting a beer commercial:
The White House will not comment on Rand Paul's ongoing filibuster on the Senate floor of President Obama's nominee to be the next CIA director. A Huffington Post reporter remarks on Twitter:
Senator Ted Cruz praised Senator Rand Paul on the Senate floor today for his filibuster. "Your standing here today like a modern Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," said Cruz, referencing the famous film, "must surely be making Jimmy Stewart smile."
Rand Paul, who is currently on the Senate floor filibustering President Obama's pick to be the next CIA director, invoked Hitler:
Senate leaders in both parties are brokering a deal to avert the so-called nuclear option Senate majority leader Harry Reid has threatened with regard to changing the body's filibuster rules. A Senate Republican aide confirms that the negotiated proposal between Reid and the GOP is well under way…
Senate majority leader Harry Reid reiterated on Tuesday his plan to reform the rules of the Senate to weaken the filibuster and strengthen the majority party's power to move legislative debate forward. The Huffington Post reports:
For years, liberal pundits and Senate Democrats have talked about altering the filibuster, the procedural rule that requires a 60-vote supermajority to end debate in the U.S. Senate. The device has been a burden for majority leaders for generations, and it dogged Majority Leader Harry Reid and…
The Senate Republican Conference has released this video, showing that Senate majority leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, was against filibuster reform before being for it:
Harry Reid was against the filibuster rule change before coming out for it. In 2005, when Republicans threatened to change the rules to weaken Senate Democrats, Reid was a vocal opponent.
Earlier this month, Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein made quite a splash with a lengthy piece that, when boiled down to essentials, blamed the Republican party for what’s gone wrong in Washington, D.C. This weekend, they were back with a list of reforms to fix the problem.