Article: The "Nuclear Option" Is A Bluff. They Cannot Really Do It!

The Senate must follow its own rules, or else anything it does in violation of its own rules could be nullified by the Supreme Court. And under these Senate Rules, debate on this nomination, or debate on any other similar motion, cannot be cut off unless three fifths of all Senators (duly chosen and sworn) agree to it, or unless the Rules are amended. And it takes a two-thirds vote of the Senators (present and voting) to amend the Rules.

The exact text from Rule 22 is shown below: . . .

"Is it the sense of the Senate that the debate shall be brought to a close?" And if that question shall be decided in the affirmative by three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn -- except on a measure or motion to amend the Senate rules, in which case the necessary affirmative vote shall be two-thirds of the Senators present and voting -- then said measure, motion, or other matter pending before the Senate, or the unfinished business, shall be the unfinished business to the exclusion of all other business until disposed of.

Source: http://rules.senate.gov/senaterules/rule22.php

Therefore there is no such thing as any "Nuclear Option," by which the Chair could simply rule that further debate is out of order, thereby stopping it. Any such talk is pure nonsense, because that would be a clear violation of the Senate's own Rules, which require three-fifths to cut off debate, or two thirds to amend. And if the honorable Members of the Senate were to go along with such an obvious charade, I would expect that the Supreme Court would rule that the Senate's "Consent" was null and void because the Senate had failed to follow its own Rules of Procedure. So the so-called "Nuclear Option" is a big bluff. And if the President and his agents in the Senate try to do it anyway, they will have violated their oath to support the Constitution.

Rev. Bill McGinnis, Director
www.LoveAllPeople.org