Word: ruled
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Inserted into Rule XXII almost unnoticed during the 1949 battle was a gimmick written by Georgia's Democratic Senator Richard Russell. It provides that Rule XXII's cloture provisions "shall not apply to any motion to proceed to the consideration of any motion, resolution, or proposal to change any of the Standing Rules of the Senate." Translation: there can be no cloture on any debate about changing Senate rules, including Rule XXII. It is the Russell Amendment that shapes the strategy of the attack against Rule XXII...
...Attack. The strategy of 1959 revolves around the question of whether the Senate, with two-thirds of its membership holding over from election to election, is a "continuing body." If not, then its rules cannot go over from Congress to Congress. Along that line of reasoning, the opponents of Rule XXII worked out the following steps...
...backers of Rule XXII, still headed by Georgia Democrat Russell, can counter with either a motion to table (i.e., kill) the rules-changing motion, or a point of order. A motion to table is decided by a simple majority vote. A point of order is decided by the Senate's presiding officer-Vice President Nixon. Once he rules, the defeated side can appeal to the Senate, which can approve or reject the Vice President's decision by a simple majority vote...
...anti-filibuster forces win the crucial majority vote, the Senate presumably operates for a time without its old rules and under general parliamentary procedure-where debate can be ended by a simple majority. The anti-filibuster group simply submits its set of rules with Rule XXII rewritten to make cloture easier. The vote on adoption would be by simple majority...
...great advantage to such strategy is that it bypasses the Russell Amendment to Rule XXII. The major drawback is that it forces the issue not on the question of the filibuster, but on whether the Senate is a continuing body. In the past, the appeal of sitting in the selfsame, continuing Senate as Webster. Clay and Calhoun has been too compelling for many a Senator otherwise sympathetic to civil rights causes...