Joe Biden says every Senate decision now requires 60 votes

"As long as I have served . . . This is the first time every single solitary decision has required 60 senators."
Joe Biden on Sunday, January 17th, 2010 in a fundraiser in Florida

Condensed story from 2009 Pulitzer prize winner, Politifact.com Click here for Full Story.

Biden says every Senate decision now requires 60 votes

Senate History.

In 1917, new rules allowed Senate leadership to end debate so long as it had support from two-thirds of the Senate. In 1975, the Senate reduced that to three-fifths, or 60 of the current 100 senators. With only 60 votes needed to prevent a filibuster, the majority party would simply file cloture motions -- the technical term to set up a vote to stop debate.

The minority can unify and oppose a cloture motion, effectively stalling a bill. And the majority, knowing it has no chance of winning on a vote, can file a cloture motion and then blame the opposition for holding things up.

Biden won his Senate seat in 1973, just two years before the Senate adopted its new cloture rules, and served until Jan. 15, 2009, shortly before he was sworn in as vice president.

Biden said "every single solitary decision has required 60 senators," which is an exaggeration. In 2009, for example, there were 397 roll call votes. According to the Senate Historian's office, only 39 of them were cloture votes. Indeed, we found plenty of major bills that did not require 60 votes to start or end debate, including a bill meant to give more children health insurance and a bill to prevent mortgage foreclosures. Furthermore, the Senate frequently passes noncontroversial bills unanimously, so there are countless pieces of legislation such as post office namings and resolutions that don't require 60 votes. If Biden had said every "major" decision requires 60 votes, he would have been on more solid ground.

So Joe Biden --- Are you Kidding?