Democrat opposes Reid 'nuclear option' on nominees, At least one senior Democratic senator opposes Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's planned effort today to change Senate rules to make it easier to approve executive branch nominees.
"I cannot support this," Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., told reporters at a breakfast roundtable hosted by The Christian Science Monitor. Levin, who is retiring, is the third most senior Democrat and the fifth most senior senator serving in the chamber.
"Do I favor changing the rule about executive nominations getting a vote? You betcha," Levin said. But he said that he could not support changing the Senate rules with a simple majority vote — which Reid, D-Nevada, intends to do — instead of the two-thirds majority that many senators believe is required.
The full Senate huddled late Monday in an effort to avert the so-called "nuclear option" — changing filibuster rules to lower the threshold from 61 to 51 votes required to approve presidential executive nominations for the Cabinet and other agencies. The meeting concluded with no deal, but some senators continue to advocate for an alternative to Reid's plan.
It is called the "nuclear" option because it is highly divisive and threatens to shut down progress in the Senate for the rest of the session. It was previously considered in 2005 when Republicans ran the chamber and considered invoking it to approve President Bush's stalled judicial nominees. A compromise was reached in time to avert it.
Levin noted that he opposed it then, as did Vice President Joe Biden and Reid at the time. "I can't just now say, 'OK, (Democrats) are in the majority.' "
The Senate is scheduled to vote to move forward Tuesday with seven nominations to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the National Labor Relations Board. If Republicans block Democrats from moving forward with the nominations, Reid can use parliamentary tools to then change the rules.
Republicans are starkly opposed to the effort, but Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has not outlined how the GOP will respond if Reid is successful.
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., told reporters late Monday that the nuclear option would effectively shut down the Senate and give the GOP an issue to campaign on in the 2014 elections. Assuming a Democrat wins a special election in New Jersey this fall to replace the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg, Republicans will need to gain six seats to take control of the Senate in 2014.
"There are too many senators who don't understand the danger of the precedent of a Senate that can change the majority anytime it wants to, to do anything it wants to. Imagine what we Republicans would do in a year and a half if we were in the majority," Alexander said.
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