Only 59 Votes Required for Cloture in the Senate
Bill Holmes
Only 59 Votes Required for Cloture in the Senate
Link to this post:
http://urlet.com/console.deviations
http://highboldtage.wordpress.com/2009/06/18/only-59-votes-required-for-cloture-in-the-senate/
Since the Democratic-Republican Party has refused to seat Senator Al Franken, they are using the fact that they don’t have 60 votes in the Senate as an excuse to not give us the health care that we need. The current rules call for a 3/5 majority to invoke cloture. 3/5 of 99 is 59.4.
Only 59 votes are needed to invoke cloture when there are only 99 senators. The emperor has not a stitch. This is just a charade. When will you get angry?
have a peaceful day,
Bill
In 1975, the Democratic Senate majority, having achieved a net gain of four seats in the 1974 Senate elections to a strength of 61 (with an additional Independent caucusing with them for a total of 62), reduced the necessary supermajority to three-fifths (60 out of 100). However, as a compromise to those who were against the revision, the new rule also changed the requirement for determining the number of votes needed for a cloture motion’s passage from those Senators “present and voting” to those Senators “duly chosen and sworn”. Thus, 60 votes for cloture would be necessary regardless of whether every Senator voted. The only time a lesser number would become acceptable is when a Senate seat is vacant. (For example, if there were two vacancies in the Senate, thereby making 98 Senators “duly chosen and sworn”, it would only take 59 votes for a cloture motion to pass.) [6]