"Landmark Senate Vote Limits Filibusters," is the New York Times report by Jeremy W. Peters.
The Senate voted on Thursday to eliminate the use of the filibuster against most presidential nominees, a move that will break the Republican blockade of President Obama’s picks to cabinet posts and the federal judiciary. The change is the most fundamental shift in the way the Senate functions in more than a generation.
The vote was one that members of both parties had threatened for the better part of a decade, but had always stopped short of carrying out. This time, with little left of the bipartisan spirit that helped seal compromises on filibuster rule changes in the past, there was no last-minute deal to be struck.
The vote was 52 to 48.
AP coverage is, "Democrats vote to curb filibusters on appointees," by Alan Fram.
Senate Democrats eased the way for swift approval of President Barack Obama's current and future nominees on Thursday, voting unilaterally to overturn decades of Senate precedent and undermine Republicans' ability to block final votes.
The 52-48 vote to undercut venerable filibuster rules on presidential appointees capped more than a decade of struggle in which presidents of both parties complained about delays in confirming appointees, particularly to the federal courts.
"Reid, Democrats trigger ‘nuclear’ option; eliminate most filibusters on nominees," by Paul Kane in the Washington Post.
The partisan battles that have paralyzed Washington in recent years took a historic turn on Thursday, when Senate Democrats eliminated filibusters for most presidential nominations, severely curtailing the political leverage of the Republican minority in the Senate and assuring an escalation of partisan warfare.
The rule change means federal judge nominees and executive-office appointments can be confirmed by a simple majority of senators, rather than the 60-vote super majority that has been required for more than two centuries.
The change does not apply to Supreme Court nominations. But the vote, mostly along party lines, reverses nearly 225 years of precedent and dramatically alters the landscape for both Democratic and Republican presidents, especially if their own political party holds a majority of, but fewer than 60, Senate seats.
"Senate goes for ‘nuclear option’," by Burgess Everett and Seung Min Kim at Politico.
Both parties threatened to change the rules in recent years, but Reid said he felt compelled to finally pull the trigger after what he described as unprecedented use of the filibuster on Obama’s judicial picks — namely three blocked judges to the powerful D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“It’s time to change the Senate before this institution becomes obsolete,” Reid said in a lengthy floor speech on Thursday morning.
The changes get rid of filibusters on most presidential nominees, but preserve the filibuster for Supreme Court picks and legislation. The Senate’s vote to push the button on the “nuclear option” is unprecedented and is likely to lead to a further erosion of the filibuster in the future.
To get the wheels in motion, Reid called up the nomination of Patricia Millett to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals for another vote, one of three previously blocked judges in the last month, including Nina Pillard and Robert Wilkins.
Earlier coverage of federal judicial nominations and confirmations begins at the link.
There's much more on the topic at the Judicial Nominations and Judicial Selection Project websites.
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