Caller thanks for taking my call. Thats going to be thats something fouled that one that was just on there. The filibuster change theyre talking about is just for president ial appointments. The advise and consent that bob spoke about, both sides play politics with that, and the politics of which president is that the republicans are not going to give him anything because he is a black man. We have to deal with race in this country. And its deepseated and i dont understand whoa he cant have his people, by a simple majority, let the republicans have their guys by a simple majority, take it out of the politics, and harry reid knows the constitution. It says in there, the president should have his people by a majority vote. Host sharon, home state of mitchell mcconnell, kentucky. Youre take on all of this. Caller good evening. Thank you for taking the call. I was raised a democrat in this wonderful state, basically youre putty much told that as a child, you need to be a democrat. I recently changed to the republicans due to the actions of the republicans since 2008. In the way theyve handled everything. And when i had deep concerns about the company i worked for, i wrote nancy pelosi. I wrote the president. I wrote the Vice President. I wrote everyone. The only person to respond to me was Mitch Mcconnell, with honest concern and he actually met and spoke with me about the middle sized company. What they are doing, taking away the rights of the average american, it appalls me. Theyre out of touch. I think they all need to come back and speak to the people, and remember where they come from and who theyre supposed to represent, and follow the laws written. Host okay, sharon. Katy has this point, what are you up to tonight . Im glued to cspan2 and my twitter feed. Set the stage with whats been happening in the u. S. Senate today, lawmakers came in at 2 00 this afternoon for regular business, and then recessed just before 6 00, as the vote was taking place to have the senators move from the Senate Chamber to the old Senate Chamber. They have recessed for the evening so wont be back tonight. Theyre scheduled to be back tomorrow morning. And the Senate Democratic leader, according to ed okeefe, remind defiant in his attempt to change the senate rules. He spoke today in an event that we cord. We covered, and the debate between senators reid and mcconnell as what is now referred to as the Nuclear Option, changing the Senate Filibuster rules. Were waiting for senators to come out of the meeting. Matt is on the independent line, good evening, pennsylvania. This is just a classic example of how both parties are to blame, and i would like to address mr. Reids comments. I think that i didnt catch his whole speech but he says this is about the constitution, and id like to know where the in the constitution it talks about filibusters in article one or article one section a, and parliamentary procedures is roberts results of order. Id like no know why there is not threefourth of the vote when the minoritys rights are going to be taken away, you knee 3 4 of a 0 vote. Both parties for play. Both parties need to know and thats the only way to save our country. Host you can china in on the conversation. The filibuster is not a rule of debate. It blocks debate and gives a veto to 41 senators over the entire legislative process. Carl, good evening from kansas city. Democrats line. Go ahead, place. Caller hello, is this me . Host if youre carl go ahead. Caller great. Heres what want to point out. Were throwing around a lot of rhetoric about minorities and majorities and tyrannies and the like, but the 13 colonies were more or less equal, even though there were littler and bigger one. The senate is two votes per state. Now, utah, wyoming, mt. , north dakota, cannot out california, illinois, new york, and pennsylvania. So, listen, my fellow americans, stop talking about democracy in the senate, okay . Thank you. Host senator brasso will be joining us tomorrow morning, and norm ornstein who as coauthored a number of books on congress, including broken branch, and what if anything is resolved tonight and to give us a sense of what to expect tomorrow when the senate reconvenes. Jim is joining us from arizona. Independent line. Thanks for taking my call. I think i thought this through a little bit and might be a compromise they might want to consider, and that is if the nominee is a member of the treasury department, which is a Financial Management thing, or the department of defense, heat go with the 60 votes. All others are 51 . Thats way you get the compromise, the serious guys with an opportunity to have the filibuster if necessary, and a little more due diligence, and the ones that arent quite so important, main they can go to a 51 vote. Just a suggestion. I dont know if anybody will take it. Thanks for taking my call. Host thank you. You can see reports keeping a close gaze another whan is happening behind the doors of the old Senate Chamber. A handful of senators have left the session, including senator paul, and senator graham, and senator menendez of new jersey. Were awading other staffers who might be approaching the doors, which may be a sign that the session is beginning to wrap up. Well keep an eye on that. Kathy, your question. Caller why does anyone in congress get to have secret meetings or closed meetings . The public votes them in office. They work for the public. They work for us, the people. Nothing should be secret. Talk to us. Talk to the people. Be transparent. They say transparent all the time. Talk to us. Let us know whats going on. Let us have a say in it. Thank you. Host thank you, cathy. Wayne has this point again, the hash tag cspan chat. En invoking the Nuclear Option does not get knock nieces appointed. They uget a vote. Ken, democrats line, good evening to you. Caller good afternoon. First of all id like too say people need to read the constitution before they decide to uphold it. The simple majority means 51. This senate, under the democrats, have tried for two terms of the president to get something done. Rich much mcconnell said, im not going to do anything the president wants done and he has stuck to his word. Thats why congress is at a stand stihl and why we need this. Otherwise he would never get his cabinet. Thank you. Ill listen for the response. Host ken, thanks for the call. From michigan, the republican line in florida. Joe. Caller im calling i am a republican and im more of a social conservative republican in ft. Meyers. I dont really think this is an issue about changing filibuster rules. If i understand if the constitution is corrects simple majority all thats needed to vote on a president ial nomination. Its not changing a filibuster rule. Its trying to prevent parliamentary intervention to putting nominees to a vote. And i also would remind that this is about the first recess appointment. If we recall the ambassador to the u. N. , under president george w. Bush, was recess appointment and has spoken on the fox network, and so now basically what this course is ruled, pretty much if my understanding is correct, the federal court in washington is that recess appointments are unconstitutional. It finally came to a head under these particular nominations and thats the problem here. The majority has been actually railroaded to have these up our down votes for any nomination, and it needs to change. This happens on both sides. So, this is going equally benefit both parties when they are the majority in the senate, and i think thats fair. Host you know the Supreme Court is going to be taking up the issue of one of the questions, when is the senate in recess . Going back to your earlier point about recess appointments. Something to keep an eye on in the next term of the u. S. Supreme court. Caller exactly. And like i said, just by extension, extend that to john bolton who was recessappointed and i was a big gw fan so this is nothing against george w. Basically done to try to circumvent the blocking process and thats what both president s have done and they but this group wants to make him look good and its been equally bad on both sides. Host jay from pennsylvania. Independent line. Caller how are you doing. Host senators leaving the session. Go ahead, jay. Caller two quick points for you. One, its kind of ironic that watching this i remember watching this eight years ago in 2005, when the republicans and the democrats were taking exactly opposite positions what theyre taking now. I find it interesting im a fairly conservative independent but i actually rarely find myself agreeing with hari reid. It should be 51 votes to get an pint. For the president. One of your callers said, where does this start . Its true that the full buster rules have been been changed since 1986. 2005 was the first time the rules were applied on a president ial nomination. The democrats blocked the nomination of george w. Bush. So, for harry reid to look this is disingenuous. The second thing related to those, for those who remember the debates from eight years ago, what brought that debate to an sentenced quite frankly it was the group that got together and basically decided that as long as they stuck together, then they could keep the senate from changing the filibuster rules. People like john mccain and lindsey graham. I fine it interesting they were so vocal on this issue eight years ago when a republican majority leader was looking to do it. But now that the democratic leader is going basically silence them both. So with that ill hang up. Host appreciate the call, jay. We 0 go to mark, madison heights, michigan. Democratic line. Caller steve . Host go ahead. Caller the with a i see it is the democrats are looking to change the filibuster rule on executive appointments. Correct . Host correct. Caller okay. Not the judicial or legislation. Host it i will not impact according to senator reid will not impact any judicial appointments, Lifetime Appointments or legislation. I dont see why the president shouldnt be able to appoint his own cabinet. I dont know why the republicans feel that they must go on the floor and say if harry reid does this, then maybe the aca and other things could be overturned. Its almost like theyre blackmailing the democrats, saying if you do this, this could get out of control. And i dont think that the democrats are taking it that far, and the republicans why would they automatically assume that if they do this just for this appointments, that all of a sudden theyre going to change the legislation with a simple majority and we havent done that in how many years . Host okay. Ill leave it there. Mark, thanks for the call. The cloture rule was first put in place in 1917. And some senators leave the old Senate Chamber, you can see ed okeefe in the center of the screen, and were also getting your comments on twitter, one viewer says a simple majority for president ial appointment. Sounds great. About time. Next call is mark, joining us from mason heights, michigan. Go ahead, please. Caller thank you. The next two virginia, republican line. Caller good evening. Thank you for taking my call. A couple of things i want to say here. As one of your callers said earlier, when this was tried with republicans, democrats screamed at the top of their lungs how this was going to violate every ethical rule in the world. Now, its really funny that harry reid now says i have to do this now in order to get his appointment through. Heres my one question for every american listening tonight. Theres the word illegal appointments, to our congress and to the people of this country. Immigration apparently doesnt mean anything to harry reid doesnt mean anything, to schumer doesnt mean anything. Democrats have forgotten what the term illegal means. When the Supreme Court ruled that the appointments are illegal, they should not even be up for a vote. They should be plain and simple. There should be no argument about this. The process was put in place to make things correct, to get everybodys sayso. Harry reid has no right to stand here and complain. Its hypocritical of this party to continue to say things like this. Thank you for taking my call. Host can i. Joe, next, from maryland heights, missouri, independent line. Caller thank you. This argument starts in 1917, the constitution wall was written in 1700. None of this has anything to do with the constitution. It has to do with the rules the congress has been making on themselves to control the program. But the people need to find out is we dont have a constitution anymore. It was changed in 1934 by Franklin Roosevelt when they went in and made constitutional law, when the lawyers all got involved and changed everything. The constitution says that the war is supposed to only last for two years. Never supposed to have had an army made. All kinds of stuff in the little book those people carry around, but its not what this country going by now. Host okay, joe, thanks for the call. The session in the old Senate Chamber began just shortly after 6 00 eastern time, at about 6 15, and now also we approach two hours and 37 minutes into the session, well show you the scene not only inside the u. S. Senate the area known as the ohio clock but also as dusk begins to settle in, an outside view of the u. S. Capitol. Some of the senators may depart from the infamous steps on the front steps of the senate side of the capitol. Well keep an eye on that. We talk to zachary, stockton, california, democrats line. Caller i think the fill buster is wrong. Nothing constitutional about it. Its basically saying that senators that want to vote for something, their votes can be silenced because one senator has a problem with it. Nothing has been done in washington for the past several years. Nothing. And i am sick and tired of nothing being done. We vote these people to go up there and work for the people, and instead they take special interests and vote against things that will help this country and mask Everything Else with problems that have nothing to do with the economy. The economy is what is hurting this country. Thank you for taking my call. Host zachary, thanks for the call, shreveport, louisiana, greg is on the phone, democrats line. Caller i was calling about the filibuster, one of your earlier callers came in and said she was her goal to be a senator and to she filibustered, and thats the problem with the filibuster. People want to play games with it. She just wants to get notoriety and thats what our present senators want to do, too, and the whole time theyre doing nothing but slowing down progress that we could be making. The president should have an opportunity to get who he wants in office, and remember, he they answer to him. He going to be up for election, they dont have any type of real power because the president is the one that has power. Thanks. Thanks for the call. Host pete from washington state, as we see a little bit more activity as reporters try to get information from senators who may be departing. So well keep a close eye on that as we listen to your comments on the republican line. Caller yes. I like this filibuster. And without it, this democrats would run rampant. We need to get this country under control and we are doing it little by little. Were going to stop this government from operating, and the next election were going to have all the money we need and we will run the democrats right out of office. Thank you for taking my call. Host thank you. Linda has this point. The constitution requires a simple majority for approval of president ial republican or democratic appointments and offers a pertinent point. You can share your thoughts at cspan chat. Dodd is one of the Senate Parliamentarians and talked about the issue the senators are dealing with tonight. Now, it is true that right now, senator reid does not have 60 votes in his caucus. And he is supposedly going to use, quote, the Nuclear Option. To change all of that. Now, this is not the first time this issue has come up. When senator bill frist was the Senate Majority leader, and was being frustrated by votes on judicial nominations. He proposed the Nuclear Option. And the result was that a gang of 14, seven republicans and seven democrats, worked together and came to the floor and said, no, were not going down that road. And that was enough to stop senator frist. I would hope that as a result of the caucus on monday night, there might be a Similar Group that would come to the floor and say, do not go down this road. I can tell you, having seen what happened in 1975, when the senate did go down that road, the repercussions lasted for years. And the bitterness lasted for years. Its not something i would ever wish for the United States senate. The senate is an institution that i love. I worked there for 35 years. I now teach about how Congress Works at George Washington university, and i honor the senate. I can remember, frankly, that when this was proposed, by senator frist, i went on the cbs evening news, and suggested that as a group of senators would come to the floor and say, stop the madness, we could stop it. And that is exactly what happened. And that is what established senator frist. I sincerely hope that is what happens after that caucus on monday night, and a group comes to the floor and says, stop the madness. Robert dove, the coauthor of a book, defending the filibuster. An event at the Heritage Foundation here in washington. Youre looking live. Thats the moon in the for ground on a clear night here in washington, dc, as the senate has recessed its official business. But the important business of what is happening behind closed doors in the old Senate Chamber as lawmakers are debating whether or not to invoke whats called the Nuclear Option, which would change the Senate Filibuster rules. Were awaiting senators to come to the podium, if they do so, to tell reporters exactly what happened in that meeting, which is now close to approaching the threehour mark. The session began shortly after 6 00 eastern time. Its now five minutes to 9 00 here in washington. Well go to your calls and get your thoughts about what the senat