flown-the-coop said:javajaws said:Bazooka Joe said:
The filibuster halts government….I'm all for it.
Just like I'm okay with this shutdown and shortening sessions and limiting their occurrence.
I'm for less government, not more.
The result of the filibuster is a more inept congress that sits on its ass all day. The result of that is more judicial activism and executive orders.
Which do you want?
The original Senate rules only required a simple majority to stop debate. Why require a super majority to end debate when the vote itself only needs to be a majority? Its an abomination that both sides like to utilize so they can blame the other side.
No, if they just sat on their butts we would not have $35 trillion in debt.
Compromise aka pork-barrel spending depends heavily on the filibuster. That is why it has not been ended. Has less to do with power and much more to do with spending on pet projects in the name of working together.
flown-the-coop said:aTmAg said:
Yeah. You are completely wrong on this entire topic. This is the best way to hand the dem's the reigns. There is a reason it hasn't been done long ago.
Irrelevant to the point or whatever the heck you mean by that.
Pretty lazy to excuse anything you do not find convenient to your OPINION as "irrelevant to the point".
Quote:
You foolishly believe the Dems will not kill the filibuster because the Rs showed such decorum and restraint when they had the chance.
Quote:
The insanity of "if the South had not attacked Fort Sumter then Lincoln would not have had the support to bring the Union together and thus the Rs should not end the filibuster" has entertain me this morning.
Quote:
You do you.
normalhorn said:
Ending the filibuster sets the clock on so many things in government when Democrats have majority control, like:
Ending the Electoral College for a national popular vote
Adding to the Supreme Court
I could go on, but I don't like thinking about the ramifications of it
flown-the-coop said:
7 plus posts of day?! Maybe read something other than Texags for perspective. Your takes are impossibly wrong. Indeed, you do you.
Sq 17 said:
From the Republican point of view The main reason not to end the filibuster is the Rs don't have 50 votes when it comes to actually doing anything contentious
They would look really silly if they did away with the filibuster and they still couldn't pass a budget.
Pretty sure now that the cost to their constituents is front and center they would not be able to pass a budget that codifies all the cuts that were in the BBB
Yes a CR would be a way to get those cuts without having to take another vote Usually a CR extends current spending levels but BBB which was a " budget bill " passed under reconciliation rules ( only needed 50+vp) cut some spending In The next fiscal year so the "clean CR" that the house pass actually has significant cuts
One of the reasons the house is not in session is IMO they don't have the votes to pass the other 9 budget bills
If the R's had the votes they would be passing budget bills that do not need 60 votes Budget bills are exempt from the filibuster CR's are not
Kozmozag said:
Yes get rid of it. Make them actually fiflbuster the old way. It worked, it was just alot of work for the senator.
aTmAg said:flown-the-coop said:
7 plus posts of day?! Maybe read something other than Texags for perspective. Your takes are impossibly wrong. Indeed, you do you.
LOL. The filibuster has been around since the Thomas Jefferson administration in 1806. You know who pushed for a 2/3rds vote to end filibusters? The conservative stalwart we know as Woodrow Wilson. You know who pushed for it to be reduced to 3/5ths in 1975? Another conservative stalwart: Walter Mondale. Now flown-the-coop wants to join these geniuses to make it 1/2.
And yet he calls my take "impossibly wrong". Hilarious.
Quote:
The House and Senate rulebooks in 1789 were nearly identical. Both rulebooks included what is known as the "previous question" motion. The House kept their motion, and today it empowers a simple majority to cut off debate. The Senate no longer has that rule on its books.
What happened to the Senate's rule? In 1805, Vice President Aaron Burr was presiding over the Senate (freshly indicted for the murder of Alexander Hamilton), and he offered this advice. He said something like this. You are a great deliberative body. But a truly great Senate would have a cleaner rule book. Yours is a mess. You have lots of rules that do the same thing. And he singles out the previous question motion. Now, today, we know that a simple majority in the House can use the rule to cut off debate. But in 1805, neither chamber used the rule that way. Majorities were still experimenting with it. And so when Aaron Burr said, get rid of the previous question motion, the Senate didn't think twice. When they met in 1806, they dropped the motion from the Senate rule book.
Quote:
Why was reform possible in 1917 when it had eluded leaders for decades? And why did the Senate choose supermajority cloture rather than simple majority cloture?
First, the conditions for reform. After several unsuccessful efforts to create a cloture rule in the early 1900s, we saw a perfect storm in March of 1917: a pivotal issue, a president at his bully pulpit, an attentive press, and a public engaged in the fight for reform. At the outset of World War I, Republican senators successfully filibustered President Wilson's proposal to arm merchant shipsleading Wilson in March of 1917 to famously brand the obstructionists as a "little group of willful men." He demanded the Senate create a cloture rule, the press dubbed the rule a "war measure," and the public burned senators in effigy around the country.
Adoption of Rule 22 occurred because Wilson and the Democrats framed the rule as a matter of national security. They fused procedure with policy, and used the bully pulpit to shame senators into reform.
Second, why did senators select a supermajority rule? A bipartisan committee was formed to negotiate the form of the rule. Five of the six Democrats supported a simple majority rule; one Republican supported a supermajority rule, and one Republican preferred no rule. Negotiators cut a deal: Cloture would require two-thirds of senators voting. Opponents promised not to block or weaken the proposal; supporters promised to drop their own proposal for simple majority cloturea proposal supported by at least 40 senators. The cloture rule was then adopted, 76-3.
Quote:
Well, these modern geniuses just want to restore it to a simple majority vote - as it originally existed in the Senate's rules. The "introduction" of the filibuster was more an accidental deletion than a purposeful addition. We only ended up with the supermajority rule because they could never agree to re-introduce a rule that only required 1/2.
doubledog said:
It is not about winning or losing, it is about pleasing your base and primaries for 2026.
Who?mikejones! said:
I do wish we went back to appointed senators and not elected. The senate represents the state, the entity, which may not have the same needs or wants as the populace.
The house represents the population.
What we dont need is two houses of the federal govt who's members both depend on a direct vote. It skews the power and incentives
Burpelson said:
The power at hand always wants more pathways to more power until they are not, the opposite reaction will be equal and greater than you can fully imagine.
CowboyGirl said:Burpelson said:
The power at hand always wants more pathways to more power until they are not, the opposite reaction will be equal and greater than you can fully imagine.
Exactly this - it is easy for people in the minority party who are not Senators (AOC) or who are in Senate Leadership (Schumer) to wax poetic about ending the filibuster. It is the dumbest thing in the world for any individual Senator to actually vote to end it. The power of the filibuster is the single most important grant of power that each Senator has. It sounds good in theory to end it, but getting Senators to voluntarily vote to strip themselves of significant power is harder than it sounds when push comes to shove.
flown-the-coop said:CowboyGirl said:Burpelson said:
The power at hand always wants more pathways to more power until they are not, the opposite reaction will be equal and greater than you can fully imagine.
Exactly this - it is easy for people in the minority party who are not Senators (AOC) or who are in Senate Leadership (Schumer) to wax poetic about ending the filibuster. It is the dumbest thing in the world for any individual Senator to actually vote to end it. The power of the filibuster is the single most important grant of power that each Senator has. It sounds good in theory to end it, but getting Senators to voluntarily vote to strip themselves of significant power is harder than it sounds when push comes to shove.
And this is actually the biggest argument for eliminating it.
Power in the United States is supposed to rest with the people, the voter. The ONLY office we elect on a national level is POTUS / VPOTUS. As such, the greatest power invested in an individual should be in POTUS as he IS the Executive Branch.
Senators are members of a group of 100 who must work with 435 other members to get things done. There should not be pockets of individual power amongst those members. They are all to be EQUAL.
I agree with will be hard for senators to set aside their individual aspirations and selfish intentions to work for the good of the American people, but that is their purpose. It is not to hold up the Legislative Branch so they can get pork barrel spending for their state.
