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Comment by r00fus | Hacker News Reader

The Senate is giving up NO power. The Senate is deciding to act democratically now, on a simply majority vote, instead of being hobbled by a super-minority, and only for presidential nominations.

Truly inappropriate nominations (ie, Harriet Myers) can still be blocked by majority vote.

The entire filibuster was never laid out in the constitution, it's a convention adopted by the Senate itself and was used ruthlessly by southern racist senators (both Dem and GOP) to block progressive legislation despite being popular and wanted by the majority.

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It's also been used (by both sides) to block all kinds of other things, from tax cuts to tax hikes, debt ceiling increases, defense authorizations, New Deal legislation, and judicial appointees. As a Senator, President Obama even voted to filibuster John Roberts appointment, who was fairly universally seen as a highly competent, qualified nominee as Chief Justice. In short, the filibuster has been used for the purpose it was designed for (a check on majority power in the Senate, which was designed to be much more conservative than the house - whether you like it or not, it's reality), as well as a tool for partisans and racists to get what they want. So basically, like every rule or regulation ever formulated.

The cloture rules have changed many times over the years. A quick summary can be found on the US Senate webpage. However, Originally the filibuster was not unique to the Senate, House members could also filibuster, and there was no means of voting to end debate. Obviously this had to change if the House was to accomplish anything as it grew. One could well argue that it is time for the rules in the Senate to change again if it is to get anything done.

[1]: http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/...

The cloture rules have only had significant changes twice in history. Once in the 1910s when they were instituted and later in the 1970s. The fact that the senate requires unanimous consent has nothing to do with any purpose but is basically a quirk of history that the senate never got rid of the unanimous consent requirement. What we call a filibuster today is just a use of withholding unanimous consent to block a motion that would otherwise pass with a majority vote and isn't related to the use of the filibuster in the 19th century.

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