Gov'ment

I usually don't like to blog about politics, and that's mostly because usually I have no idea what's going on. But, I must say since taking Federal Government here at UTA, I feel incredibly smart (ha!) because I feel as if I know what's going on...unlike, say high school, when one, I couldn't understand the teacher, and "b", I didn't care.

So, today in class we talked about this wonderful thing called "filibustering." I do remember this from high school because the teacher said Senators will get up there and read out of the phone book just to keep talking. What I didn't know, though, was when a Senator filibusters the goal is to stop certain legislation, and that there is a motion called a cloture motion that will stop the filibustering. The catch is 60 Senators have to agree on the motion, so like everything else in politics it falls into a division between parties.

This is what's interesting. When Ted Kennedy died the Democrats no longer had 60 Senators in order to stop a Republican filibuster, and about the same time he died Obama's Health Care Plan was headed into the Senate. So my question was, why didn't the Republicans, who were against his Health Care Plan, filibuster and just stop the legislation? The Democrats couldn't call for a cloture motion, so why didn't this happen? As it turns out, Obama talked a couple of Republicans into changing sides about his Health Care Plan, so when a cloture motion was called 60 Senators would agree and it would stop the Republican filibuster and legislation about the Health Care Plan could move through the Senate.

I will say upfront, I'm for health care reform, but I don't agree with Obama's health care reform. I just thought it was interesting that Republican Senators were talked into changing sides so the filibuster could stop, and now everyday American citizen Republicans (including me!) are complaining about Obama's Health Care Plan when it was the very Republicans they elected who allowed the legislation to get through the Senate.

Just a thought!