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- Feb 26, 2012
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WASHINGTON (AP) Immediately after blocking Chuck Hagel's nomination to be secretary of defense, top Republicans took to the Senate floor Thursday to claim that, no, they were not filibustering. They just needed more time.
A filibuster occurs when a minority of the Senate declines to vote to invoke what's called "cloture," which sets a deadline to complete debate on a nomination or bill and forces an up or down vote. It takes 60 votes in the 100-member Senate to obtain cloture.
Filibuster or not? GOP slow-walks Hagel nomination - MyVerizon.com
But to Democrats, the vote to deny cloture on Hagel's nomination was a historic, first-ever successful filibuster of a Cabinet nominee and the first time the party in the Senate's minority had ever even tried the move against a defense secretary nominee.
"If this is not a filibuster, I'd like to see what a filibuster was," an angry Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said.
But Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., shot back that it was Reid who provoked Republicans into the vote by scheduling it too soon. After all, the Armed Services Committee had just approved the nomination two days before and Republicans were still seeking information from Hagel.
"This is a vote by Republicans to say, `We want more than two days after this nomination comes to the floor to carefully consider it because we have questions,'" Alexander said.
A filibuster occurs when a minority of the Senate declines to vote to invoke what's called "cloture," which sets a deadline to complete debate on a nomination or bill and forces an up or down vote. It takes 60 votes in the 100-member Senate to obtain cloture.
Filibuster or not? GOP slow-walks Hagel nomination - MyVerizon.com
But to Democrats, the vote to deny cloture on Hagel's nomination was a historic, first-ever successful filibuster of a Cabinet nominee and the first time the party in the Senate's minority had ever even tried the move against a defense secretary nominee.
"If this is not a filibuster, I'd like to see what a filibuster was," an angry Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said.
But Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., shot back that it was Reid who provoked Republicans into the vote by scheduling it too soon. After all, the Armed Services Committee had just approved the nomination two days before and Republicans were still seeking information from Hagel.
"This is a vote by Republicans to say, `We want more than two days after this nomination comes to the floor to carefully consider it because we have questions,'" Alexander said.