- In recent weeks, President Obama has chosen Sen. John Kerry as his next secretary of state; former Sen. Chuck Hagel to head the Pentagon; counterterrorism adviser John Brennan to be CIA director; and his chief of staff, Jack Lew, to be the next Treasury secretary.
Each nomination will have to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. And they all could be stopped by a Senate filibuster — that is, the refusal by any one of 100 senators to let a matter come to a final vote.
Y'know, I definitely see Sen. McCain's argument: But what that means in practice is that people like Sen. McCain are reluctant to have to have to sit in that sauna (dehydration lets you go longer before having to pee) and get up there and read the dictionary for what they believe in. Arguably the best reason to make the filibuster a spectacle again is the simple fact that most people don't understand how the filibuster works, so you get people saying things like, "Democrats controlled the Senate, House, and Executive for two years (2009 and 2010), and they couldn't even pass their own agenda?" like it's the democrats' fault.Most of [the people arguing for tightening the filibuster], in all due candor and honesty, have never been in the minority. Those who have been in both majority and minority are the most reluctant to see this.