I’m Cliff Ribner, and I’m going to talk about the abomination which is called the filibuster. And what the filibuster is: it’s a rule of the Senate—a rule they are not allowed to pass. And it is literally the eight billion pound gorilla in the room, hiding in plain sight, that nobody is talking about directly. But I am. I’m telling you, it has to be repealed. It’s unconstitutional. And if it doesn’t get repealed, President Trump is not going to be able to drain the swamp, because that swamp is created by legislation and regulations passed by administrative agencies (since, in 19 oh 6, basically all those administered alphabet 8 administrative agencies in Washington that do nothing but prey on the American people, unconstitutionally—by the way, cut—and they pass what are called regulations). They call them that because they can’t qualify as laws. Article I of the Constitution has very specific procedures for what’s required for something to be a law, and they don’t qualify. Congress passed what they call the Administrative Procedure Act in to try to justify what they’re doing—basically to legalize what is illegal—and it tries to turn those things into things that have the force of law, even though they can’t call them laws. But the Constitution is very clear: all legislative power is vested in the Congress, and they can’t delegate that. And that’s what they’ve done with those agencies. So all that delegation is unconstitutional.

The Filibuster and Supermajority Requirements

Anyway, the filibuster requires a sixty-vote majority—supermajority—in the Senate for the Senate to do anything except for the things in the Constitution which require even bigger supermajorities. And that’s not the way the Constitution is supposed to operate. We are a republic. That’s what the founders had in mind when they formed this country, and in a republic almost everything is passed by majority rule from the elected representatives—not supermajority. Supermajorities are the exception to the rule, not the rule. And what the Senate did in 18 oh 6 is they passed a rule. They were tricked into doing it by a traitor, Aaron Burr, and it was part of the treason that he was committing—that he wanted them to do this because it would harm the republic. And that’s why he wanted them to do it. And the senators have kept that all these years because they corruptly benefit from it by making all those deals they make among themselves for pork, buying each other’s votes with our money. Because what the filibuster, requiring a supermajority, does is it requires 60 votes—even 59 won’t work. And we all know how hard it is to get 60 votes in the Senate for anything. And what it is is that it requires the minority to go along with the majority so that the minority is in a position to veto the majority rule of the country. And that’s what happens with the filibuster: it makes the minority rule. It gives more vote—more power—to the voting of minority members than to the majority, because the majority can’t pass anything or repeal anything without getting the minority to go along with it. And they have to get a big chunk of them to do that, and they have to make massive payoffs—and they love that fact, the senators themselves, because that’s the source of all of their own power, power they get at our expense. Anytime you have a government, every bit of its power is taken, drop for drop, from the citizens. And the senators have stolen that power from the people by having that unconstitutional filibuster in there.

Constitutional Provisions and Senate Rule-Making

And I’m going to read you provisions of the Constitution that show that it’s unconstitutional. First, the Constitution already has a bunch of requirements for certain types of votes to be by supermajority. It wouldn’t need to specify those if supermajorities were the rule—those are the exceptions, very specific things. And in the Federalist Papers the founders went to great lengths to justify having any supermajorities at all—anyway, there’s a few of those things: overriding presidential vetoes, convicting a president in an impeachment, passing a treaty—those require supermajorities. But everything else is supposed to be by majority rule. But that’s not what the senators have done. By passing the filibuster rule, they make it so that 60 votes are needed for everything.

Constitutional Amendments and the Senate’s Power

Now, the Constitution is very specific about procedures that are required to amend it. It’s in Article V of the Constitution, and none of those procedures permit the senators—or even all 3 branches of the government acting together—to amend the Constitution. It takes more than that. And here the Senate has done it on its own in a rule. And I’m going to read you what it is. In Section 5 of Article One, there’s a provision—and I’m going to quote it: “Each house may determine the rules of its proceedings.” That’s the constitutional basis that the Senate claims gives it the power to pass this rule. They claim it’s just nothing but a rule of its proceedings, when it’s obviously a major constitutional feature of the republic, since nothing can be done without satisfying that ridiculous supermajority rule. And we know that the general rule—aside from the specific instances in the Constitution where it says there has to be a 2/3 vote—the Constitution is, very as I said, it doesn’t just say the general rule is majority rule except as we provide. It doesn’t say that, but it didn’t need to because everybody knew that’s what it was until they passed the filibuster rule. They knew they had to pass a rule to do it, and they knew that rule was unconstitutional.

Further Constitutional Evidence

For one thing, as I told you, they’re claiming it qualifies as just a rule of the proceedings, but it’s obviously not—it’s a major feature of the republic. And also, in the Constitution it says as follows: “The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote unless they be equally divided. Unless they be equally divided.” So the Vice President does get a vote, but only when they’re equally divided. And what that tells you is that, alone, tells you that majority rule—simple majority—was all that was permitted, except as otherwise provided in those special parts of the Constitution that say there has to be 2/3 votes for certain things. Anyway, that provision alone is all the text they needed to make it clear, because the Vice President does get a vote but only when they’re equally divided. He can’t vote; he can’t give an extra vote for the supermajority for anything—it’s only in that one instance. And it also says, “Each senator shall have one vote.” But the effect of the filibuster is to give minority voters more than one vote, because their vote—even though they’re in the minority—they have more power than the majority, because they can veto the majority and they can extract extortionate payments, all made at our expense, in order to get anything passed or, even more importantly, to get anything repealed—any laws or regulations. And until that gets—until the Senate does what it needs to do constitutionally and repeals that filibuster, we are stuck with the existing laws of this nation and all those hundreds of thousands of pages of regulations by those administrative agencies that no one could possibly read—and violation of which is considered a crime. Isn’t that amazing? It’s criminal to violate regulations that shouldn’t have been passed in the first place. And all of that stuff needs to get repealed, or we will not be a republic again.

Conclusion

Thank you. I’m Cliff Ribner, and if you like listening to what I have to say, follow me and read my articles at my website.