Senate Filibuster Process in Jeopardy

 An interesting procedural situation has developed in the Senate.
    According to the Constitution, presidential appointments to various government agencies require the "advice and consent" of the Senate
    The President has recently proposed seven appointments. Some Senate members are opposed to one of more of these individuals for the proposed appointment. The Senate must resolve as a group whether to accept the president's nomination of each of these nominations.
    In the process of resolving the issue in the Senate, each senator has the right to filibuster, which means to give an extended speech for or against a proposed law, or in this case a nominated person. An example of filibustering is clearly shown in an old movie entitled, "Mr. Smith goes to Washington", with Jimmy Stewart and Jean Arthur. It should be noted that the process of filibustering only delays calling for a Senate vote, although the filibustering process may also change the minds of some of the senators and thus affect the outcome of the vote.
    Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said that he wants the Senate to approve all of Pres. Obama's seven nominees. He also says that if the Senate does not approve the seven nominees, he will call for a Senate vote to eliminate the process of filibustering, and that is likely to pass the Senate, because only 51 votes are needed, and he has the probability of 54 votes.
    Filibustering is a tool primarily used in the Senate by the minority party, in this case Republicans. With Senate Majority Leader Reid's ultimatum, the Republicans will be forced to give up their right to filibuster, unless they immediately accept the president's seven nominees.
    I consider filibustering a valuable part of congressional procedure, because it tends to bring out complete facts on a controversial issue, as opposed to some rote passage of a proposed law or person nomination for an agency position. However, it is a communication device and is still not an integral part of the voting procedure. For example, if the Obamacare law had been filibustered, it might not have passed muster, and we might not now have been burdened with that law.
    Conversely for the specific situation at hand, agreement to approve all of the seven presidential nominees is an automatic loss to the objectors. Even if the objectors were allowed to filibuster, they still might lose the vote on all seven.
    The bottom line is that the Senate could now pass an anti-filibustering rule, which would be disadvantageous to the minority Republicans. However, in subsequent elections, the Democrats may find themselves as a minority in the Senate and would be denied the right to filibuster. The likelihood is that Harry Reid is looking for the banning of filibuster as an immediate aid to his program. However, other Democratic members of the Senate may have a more forward looking interest and might vote against the proposal to ban filibustering.    I suggest that Senate Republicans call Harry Reid's hand and force him into a decision on whether he wants to call for a Senate vote on banning filibustering.