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The Power of One Get Off the Couch! Do More Share Your Stories Post-Exchange Timely News
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This section includes links to websites of organizations not affiliated with the
Freedom Project. The Freedom Project is not responsible for the content of these linked sites
and the views they express do not necessarily represent the views of the Freedom
Project.
Keep up with the news:
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Understand the importance of compromise.
"All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every
prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter."
--Edmund Burke, British political writer and statesman
Engage in a political discussion:
U.S. Politics Online
Gang of 14: To avert the so-called "nuclear option," where the historic Senate filibuster
would be repealed during the judicial confirmation process, while at the same time
addressing the issues of presidential nominees denied an up or down vote, seven
Republican and seven Democratic Senators united in a bi-partisan compromise. They
acted to push through a few of the more acceptable nominees, use the filibuster
only in "extraordinary circumstances," and sustain filibusters for some of the president's
most controversial nominees. The filibuster is employed to delay or avert a vote
altogether in the Senate by an individual member. It can be offset with a vote of
cloture, but this requires sixty votes, and the current Republican majority consists
of a mere fifty-five seats. The so-called Gang of 14, with an equal number of members
from both parties and representatives of the middle of the political spectrum, holds
the balance of power in the judicial nomination process. They can band together
to defeat or sustain a filibuster, and also to avert a ban of the process altogether.
To employ the nuclear option, the Republican leadership would need a majority of
fifty-one votes, impossible without the support of the seven party members represented
in the Gang of 14. (Source: "Text of Senate Compromise on Nominations of Judges."
New York Times. May 24, 2005. Page A18.)
McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Law of
2002.
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