Acronyms that contain the term nuclear option 

Nuclear option

In U.S. politics, the nuclear option, also called the constitutional option, is when the Presiding Officer of the United States Senate disregards a rule or precedent. This allows the Senate to end a filibuster by majority vote, even though the rules of the Senate specify that ending a filibuster requires the consent of 60 senators for legislation, 67 for amending a Senate rule. An opinion written by Vice President Richard Nixon in 1957 concluded that the U.S. Constitution grants the presiding officer the authority to override Senate rules in this way. If a majority vote to uphold the presiding officer, his interpretation of the rules becomes a precedent. In practice, the issue rarely arises as presiding officers generally follow established precedent, as interpreted by the Senate's parliamentarian. Senator Trent Lott first called the option "nuclear" in March 2003; the metaphor of a nuclear strike refers to the majority party unilaterally imposing a change to the filibuster rule, which might provoke retaliation by the minority party. Although it is not provided for in the formal rules of the Senate, the threat of the nuclear option has played a key role in filibuster reform historically. A series of votes in 1975 have been cited as a precedent, although some of these were reconsidered shortly thereafter. Proponents have referred to it as the constitutional option, especially when applied to filibusters on judicial nominees, on the rationale that the United States Constitution implies that the Senate can act by a majority vote unless the Constitution itself requires a supermajority.

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