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American politician (1939–2021)
Harry Reid used the so‑called “nuclear option” on November 21–22, 2013 to change Senate precedent so that most presidential nominations — executive-branch and federal judicial nominees below the Supre...
The Senate’s “nuclear option” was invoked multiple times before 2025 to lower the cloture threshold for certain nominations: the most consequential changes occurred in (Democrats, Harry Reid), (Republ...
Harry Reid led a change in Senate practice in November 2013 that , allowing executive-branch and most judicial nominees to be advanced and confirmed with 51 votes rather than the prior supermajority r...
In 2017 Senate Republicans led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell invoked the so-called to eliminate the 60-vote threshold for cloture on Supreme Court nominations, allowing Neil Gorsuch to be confirm...
The contested origin of the U.S. Senate’s “nuclear option” has two separate but related claims: the was coined by Senator Trent Lott in 2003, while the came from Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who...
The procedural “nuclear option” has been used in the Senate and has affected Supreme Court confirmations: Democrats first invoked it for most nominations in November 2013, and Republicans extended the...
The 2013 and 2017 Senate rule changes known as the '' altered the Senate’s confirmation-vote landscape: , and . These moves removed the standard 60-vote filibuster cloture hurdle for nearly all nomina...
There have been numerous legislative attempts to repeal or modify the 22nd Amendment since its 1951 ratification, but ; repeal proposals have repeatedly failed to clear congressional hurdles or state ...
Congress reacted to the 2011 Libya intervention with a mix of oversight, contested votes, and proposals both to authorize and to constrain the operation — but it did not enact an explicit authorizatio...
Senate Democrats led by Majority Leader Harry Reid invoked the so‑called “nuclear option” on November 21, 2013, cutting the 60‑vote cloture threshold to a simple majority for most executive and judici...
Republicans in the Senate invoked the so‑called “nuclear option” on April 6, 2017, voting 52–48 along party lines to change Senate precedent so Supreme Court nominations could be clotured and then con...
Harry Reid invoked the Senate “nuclear option” on November 21, 2013, by raising a point of order and successfully forcing a ruling that reduced the cloture threshold for most executive and judicial no...
The U.S. Senate has a long, documented record of changing its rules and precedents to resolve procedural deadlocks, with major inflection points in 1917, 1975, 2013, and 2017 that altered how cloture ...
The 2013 and 2017 actions are the two Senate precedents commonly cited for changing filibuster-related rules by majority vote: in Senate Democrats led by Majority Leader Harry Reid invoked what was ca...
Harry Reid used the Senate’s so‑called “nuclear option” in November 2013 to change cloture enforcement for most presidential nominations, lowering the threshold from 60 votes to a simple majority and ...
The core difference is scope: the 2013 change narrowed the filibuster’s reach by eliminating the 60-vote threshold for ending debate on most presidential nominees—executive-branch appointees and lower...
The 2013 and 2017 Senate “nuclear option” moves both eliminated the 60-vote cloture threshold for ending debate on nominations, but they differed in : the 2013 change reduced the threshold for executi...
The core claims are that the Senate’s 2013 and 2017 invocations of the “nuclear option” , and that these changes . The immediate effects were faster confirmations and a shift toward majoritarian confi...
The 2013 “nuclear option” changed Senate precedent so most presidential nominations — broadly — could be advanced to confirmation by a simple majority rather than the 60‑vote cloture threshold, while ...
The 2013 shutdown deal was primarily negotiated by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell in partnership with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, with House leaders John Boehner and Paul Ryan playing...