us-supreme-court us-senate
Why can&#39;t we go back to the required supermajority for things in the Senate if they abolished it once in the past?
<p>I read in the news that the Senate had abolished the required supermajority to confirm Supreme Court justices.</p>
<p>Why can't the Senate vote to re-instate the required supermajority?  I understand it is the minority party who would want to re-instate the requirement but if we think about cycles, one day, the majority party might be in the minority and would want to have the supermajority requirement on their back pocket to oppose or block Justices.</p>

<h2>They Can</h2>
<p>The Senate re-adopts its rules every two years, often with minor changes, sometimes with major changes. But the Senate can, by vote, change its rules at any time. This could include a change back to a previous rule.</p>
<p>I should mention that the previous rule did not strictly <strong>require</strong> a super-majority  vote. The senate has a rule that any senator who wishes to do so may hold up a vote on any measure by stating that s/he intends to continue debate on it. It then takes a super-majority of 60 votes to &quot;close debate&quot;. But there is no requirement that any senator do this, and if none does, a simple majority will prevail. Holding things up in this way is known as a &quot;filibuster&quot; for historical reasons.</p>
<p>The Senate rules do not permit some measures to be filibustered. A few years ago, a then Republican majority changed the rules so that Supreme Court nominations could not be filibustered. Some are now suggesting that the rules should be changed further to eliminate or significantly modify the filibuster. If this was done, any future Senate could choose to change them back. Whether they <strong>would</strong> do so, is a political question.</p>

<p>A simple majority of the Senate always has, and always has had, the power to suspend or abolish the supermajority cloture rule (so-called &quot;nuclear option&quot;).  It was only tradition, and a sort of &quot;mutual assured destruction&quot;, that formerly kept the rule intact.</p>
<p>That tradition has now been broken, at least with regard to Supreme Court confirmations.  So even if your party did reinstate the supermajority, it gains you nothing; as soon as the other party may gain a simple majority, they can, and probably will, vote to re-abolish the supermajority cloture rule and then confirm their nominee.</p>
