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 Post subject: Senate reform
 Post Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2013 10:33 pm 
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Somewhat less over the top than "NUCLEAR OPTION", isn't it?

Ah, well. The Senate Republicans have finally succeeded in forcing the Democrats to take away the punch bowl. Making it clear that they would never, ever consider an Obama appointee to a particular Federal court, in order to preserve the Republican appointed majority of judges in that court, seems to have been the final straw; a simple majority vote is now all that is needed for Executive appointees and Federal judges (aside from the Supremes, of course).

Needless to say, the Republicans were quick to deny they were in any way to blame; and threaten utter and dire vengeance for the wrong done them. The first is irrelevant, really; the second meaningless noise unless the GOP somehow manages to get both the Senate and the White House at the same time. This is not the way to bet in 2016, and gets increasingly unlikely thereafter; though it could happen someday. But in the interim, Obama is going to be putting a lot of judges into a lot of courts between now and January 2015; and all of those agencies the Republicans want to sabotage by denying them leadership will finally get their heads. And it's not as if the Republicans could really get much more obstructionist than they are now even if they wanted to. So I suspect the Democrats are counting this as a worthwhile exchange.

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 Post subject: Re: Senate reform
 Post Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2013 10:41 pm 
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Weremensh wrote:
and all of those agencies the Republicans want to sabotage by denying them leadership will finally get their heads.

Jeez. It only took five years.

If you can go 5 years into an 8 year presidency without even being able to appoint heads of government agencies, your government is well and truly broken.

Stuff like this makes me wonder why anyone even bothers with democracy*, until I consider the alternatives.

* If any of you try to start the "it's not a democracy, it's a republic" argument with me, I will seriously slap you. I've had some woman trying to tell me that the UK is an "elected dictatorship" because democracies don't exist in real life, and I'm all like "Shut up, I don't get to vote in any meaningful election at all!"

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 Post subject: Re: Senate reform
 Post Posted: Fri Nov 22, 2013 12:06 am 
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It really is pathetic that this became necessary. It is also stuff like this that makes me cringe when people say both sides are equally bad. The Republicans were calling the Democrats obstructionists when they opposed a handful of Bush appointees. They have blocked dozens of Obama appointees.

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 Post subject: Re: Senate reform
 Post Posted: Fri Nov 22, 2013 12:18 pm 
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The Senate was never supposed to be a supermajority-ruled chamber in the first place. The routine use of the filibuster is historically anomalous. This reform puts things back to something approaching normal rather than being a new and radical way of doing things.

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 Post subject: Re: Senate reform
 Post Posted: Fri Nov 22, 2013 7:47 pm 
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When I heard about this on the radio, I was a bit shocked. It seemed to come pretty much out of nowhere. But of course - it wasn't for bills, just appointees.

If it were for me, I would have changed the rules so that if the senate hasn't passed a motion to ask for more time, then appointees get in without senate action after 100 days. It has declined to advise, so its silence on the issue is its consent.

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 Post subject: Re: Senate reform
 Post Posted: Sat Nov 23, 2013 5:24 am 
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Ah yes, the "It's ok now that we're in the majority, but was bad when you were in charge" thing has happened again. Ending the filibuster is bad. It takes any voice from the minority in the senate. Doesn't matter who that voice is. The democrats are just hedging their bets that the republicans will never again have a majority in the senate while also having a sitting president. Don't think that the republicans won't use this to their full advantage either once they have majority sway again. (because they will at some point. Maybe not 2016 but they will eventually) Then where will everyone be? It will be the Dems whining "The republicans can't do that, give us the filibuster back". This is a bad deal no matter who is in the majority. It is seriously time to get rid of the republicrat party.
Unless you like the taste of statism.

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 Post subject: Re: Senate reform
 Post Posted: Sat Nov 23, 2013 8:01 am 
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As has been said, this is just for nominees, not the passage of bills. We have 93 open federal judicial seats and another 90 or so open top cabinet positions. I understand that the purpose of the Senate is to prevent the ephemeral whims of the majority from running amok with legislative power, but I don't buy that the advice and consent clause should give a minority of the Senate leave to prevent the other two branches of government from functioning.

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 Post subject: Re: Senate reform
 Post Posted: Sat Nov 23, 2013 8:02 am 
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Obama's nominees have been filibustered longer and harder than any president ever before, even when they were highly qualified and not particularly partisan, by the admission of the opposition.

What broke first was the minority's willingness to let the majority get ANYTHING done.

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 Post subject: Re: Senate reform
 Post Posted: Sat Nov 23, 2013 9:38 am 
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Just remember that within the next 8 years or so when I resurrect this thread to say, "I told you so."

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 Post subject: Re: Senate reform
 Post Posted: Sat Nov 23, 2013 11:05 am 
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Under Dubya (the last time the GOP was in this position), the main reason this didn't happen is that the Democrats took the direct Republican threat to do the same thing seriously and it wasn't needed. Granted, it helped that there were still enough old timers left in the Senate (like McCain) that a face saving compromise was brokered to help the Democrats back down rather than see this precedent set; but the Republicans were quite willing to do this years ago, and they aren't getting any more collegial as time goes by. Rather the reverse, though that actually holds for the entire Senate.

Oh, and the smart way to bet is that this will not be a Republican privilege for rather more than 8 years. Unless they seriously reform themselves to become tolerable to other voting blocs, and somehow do this without alienating their current base, then the chances of them holding both the Presidency and the Senate any term soon are both slender and diminishing with time. They may eventually be forced, all unwilling, to clean up their act and improve those odds; but so far they aren't.

By the bye; the Filibuster itself was not scrapped or directly modified by what happened the other day. That would take a 2/3 vote in the Senate except at the very beginning of the term; and only then if they declare that it is a new Senate (which they rarely do). This was more of a procedural workaround.

What actually happened is that Reid declared, after a failed Cloture vote, that the nominee could come up anyway. The President of the Senate asked the Parliamentarian if this was so, the Parliamentarian said no, and so the President of the Senate ruled that the nominee could not come up. Someone then objected to the ruling, and a simple majority vote was held to uphold or strike down said ruling. All but three of the Democrats voted to overturn, the Republicans all voted to uphold, and the 52 nay votes had it.

Don't fret, though. There are still plenty of procedural delaying tactics the Republicans can and ever do avail themselves of; and they will continue to do so. But filibustering everything 'just because' is off the table for now; it's up to the majority party to decide what is an acceptable filibuster for the rest of this particular Senate (at least). My guess? Look for the Democrats to allow them for most everything else, but force the Senator involved to actually take the podium and talk in order to do it.

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 Post subject: Re: Senate reform
 Post Posted: Sun Nov 24, 2013 10:35 pm 
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I support the end of the filibuster even if the Democrats are in the minority.

The US government is so goddamn dysfunctional precisely because the minority party can veto everything. The whole point of having elections is so the majority party can implement its policies, and in parliamentary democracies, this is what happens because the prime minister is also the head of the majority party. There are only a few countries where you elect the legislature and the executive separately, and the US is being even weirder giving the minority party a veto at all times.

I think that all regular bills should go through with simple majority consent. If the minority does not like the majority's bills being put into action, then its job is to win the next election. "Tyranny of the majority" means "the majority running roughshod over the minority's rights". That's "rights". Not "policy preferences". You should only need a supermajority to amend the constitution.

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 Post subject: Re: Senate reform
 Post Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2013 2:05 pm 
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The Republicans have to a great extent run on their inability to fulfill a large part of their primary legislative agenda; they can always blame this on the Democratic minority in the senate. This is what lets them get away with playing to multiple bases that really have no business being in the same party: they can promise things to one side of the party and the other two sides will think, "That'll never get anywhere."

If they were to somehow run out of excuses and begin actually getting things done, their popularity would drop. Drastically. Of course, I wouldn't be happy short-term, but in the long run, it'd clean things up a bit by not letting them run on a platform that unpopular.

(This doesn't apply to legislation. Of course, the Republicans could take the precedent to apply to legislation, which would lead to the above)

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 Post subject: Re: Senate reform
 Post Posted: Tue Nov 26, 2013 11:46 pm 
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That's a good point, actually. If political parties could get things done, they'd have to do things that are doable instead of spouting pie-in-the-sky rhetoric.

I would be really pissed off if the Republicans won both houses and dismantled Obamacare, but I still believe that they have the right to do it. If the American public wants to try Ryancare, then that's what they should get. And the Republicans should have to bet their electoral fortunes on the belief that Ryancare is a good idea that will work. If it doesn't work and people hate it, then they lose the next election.

And should the majority pass legislation that trampled on constitutional rights, that's what the Supreme Court is for.

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 Post subject: Re: Senate reform
 Post Posted: Sat Nov 30, 2013 1:24 pm 
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Kea wrote:
* If any of you try to start the "it's not a democracy, it's a republic" argument with me, I will seriously slap you. I've had some woman trying to tell me that the UK is an "elected dictatorship" because democracies don't exist in real life, and I'm all like "Shut up, I don't get to vote in any meaningful election at all!"
Actually, we'd be better off if it was a "real" democracy. If all our political issues were decided on the 'broad' level by citizen referenda, and on the narrow level by specific people entrusted to see through specific things, we'd probably be honestly better off right now.

Like, the Athenians would appoint an admiral to command a fleet to fight a battle, then get out of his way. They might have him beaten to death or exiled or whatever for screwing up, or they might issue dumbly contradictory orders like "destroy this city" followed immediately by "oh crap don't destroy this city!" But at least it was generally accepted that anything which needed to be done for the public good, should actually get done.

There was no layer of the government in Athens, so far as I know, that could completely roadblock the government and make it incapable of basic 'governance tasks' like handling finances and running state-operated organizations. The only reason this is even an issue in countries like America and Belgium is because a republic introduces layers of bureaucracy that can potentially become deadlocked if enough morons and jerks take office.

Jorodryn wrote:
Ah yes, the "It's ok now that we're in the majority, but was bad when you were in charge" thing has happened again. Ending the filibuster is bad. It takes any voice from the minority in the senate. Doesn't matter who that voice is.
We cannot afford to put the business of running the country on indefinite hold because the minority is jumping up and down and crying 'VETO! VETO!' in response to literally every act taken by the majority.

The pre-November 2013 filibuster system worked well in the past when the White House and Senate were held by different parties at times, because in that era the two parties were willing to agree that the government should continue to function. When a faction of revolutionary anarcho-capitalists takes the reins of the Senate minority, and is willing to block all attempts to run the country indiscriminately unless specifically appeased and bribed every time a routine action needs to take place... that's not going to work.

Therefore it becomes bluntly necessary to change the system for the country to be governable. The Constitution is not a suicide pact, the filibuster is not there to allow the minority to shut down routine and normal acts of governance until it gets its way in all things. In previous generations this power was not abused and could safely be trusted to the hands of the minority. This generation of Republican senators have proven that they have no respect for the responsibility of their office to the American people at large, and have violated the tradition of restraint that made the filibuster possible.

It would serve them right if the power to filibuster appointees were removed only from this Senate, to punish them for their arrogance and irresponsibility. And if future Senate minorities, including Republicans, got to keep this power again, having learned to use it responsibly. Alas, this is impossible, and the only way to make the country governable is to simply abolish at least some classes of filibusters.

If you don't like it, write the nearest Republican senator and upbraid him for making this a necessity. If the Democrats were doing it purely as a power grab, they'd have done it three years ago; this is not a new reaction to a new problem.

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The democrats are just hedging their bets that the republicans will never again have a majority in the senate while also having a sitting president.
If the congressional Republicans do not moderate their stance and stop being obstructionist, they will become so unpopular with the general public that this is very unlikely to happen. If the congressional Republicans do moderate their stance and stop being obstructionist, having them take power would actually not be so much of a problem.

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 Post subject: Re: Senate reform
 Post Posted: Sun Dec 01, 2013 7:20 pm 
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The filibuster had nothing to do with the shut down.

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