User Clip: Senator Jeff Sessions: How the Nuclear Option Broke Senate Rules

Thursday, December 12, 2013 remained the Legislative Day of December 11, 2013, because the Senate did not adjourn or recess overnight. As excerpted here, late Thursday evening Senator Sessions gave a clear explanation of exactly how - to quote the Congressional Research Service - the Senate majority "re-interpreted" the unambiguous language of Senate Rule XXII's cloture process, by using the Nuclear Option to create a new Senate "precedent" that selectively ignores that cloture rule. The language of Senate Rule 22, as quoted here by Sessions, remains unchanged, post-Nuclear Option, but is now being violated by the Senate majority. This Democratic majority routinely signs motions to invoke optional ("debate"-ending) Rule 22 cloture, in lieu of using the original, default, simple-majority (51-vote) Senate rules. Senators Carl Levin (MI), Joe Manchin (WV), and Mark Pryor (AR) were the only majority Party Senators who voted against Harry Reid's Nuclear Option rule-breaking scheme. close