The Democrats in the senate do negotiate with terrorists. That’s the short of it. They’re willing to legitimize the threat to dismantle minority rights by buying it off, thereby neutering the protections. And the American people as a whole are more fond of the schoolyard bully than the bullied. A principled approach of “The Republicans have made heavy use of this tactic in the past and are now disarming it for their current political advantage. We think this is the wrong way to conduct the country’s business, and will not legitimize their terrorist threat to reshape the government at their whim by giving them what they want.” I could certainly see the senate Republicans removing the fillibuster for as long as they retain a majority, then on the eve of losing a majority switching the rules so that 80% (or some other ridiculous number) is required to a) break a fillibuster and b) change senate rules.
The sad thing is, I don’t think much better of the Democrats in terms of adhering to principle v chasing power. What they all seem to have missed is why the rules were put there in the first place. Riots in the street are never pretty. Fuck the two party system. If nobody has a majority, nobody runs the show alone. Proportional representation and instant run-off voting are where it should be at. And while we’re at it, why not a national referendum with a 2/3 threshold? And a pony. Definitely a pony.
The whole thing is whacked out.
I heard on NPR this morning that the republicans in North Carolina felt betrayed by their Republican senator because he cosponsored a bill with Hillary Clinton for Veterans Benefits. Not because of the bill itself, but because he worked with Hillary.
Wanna go offshore?
This is one case where I’m having trouble feeling sympathetic for the Dems. Explain to me why the filibuster should even exist?
Granted, the Republicans blocked most of Clinton’s judicial nominees, so I don’t think it’s fair, but just on a purely theoretical level, I don’t see why the filibuster should exist, and I tend to side with the argument that, well, the confirmation of nominees is their responsibility, they shouldn’t just be allowed to sit on those confirmations.
The only argument I’ve seen for the filibuster is that it allows the minority in the “funny” house to block things. I call it funny because the Senate isn’t even representative. It would make more sense to allow the filibuster in the house, except then nothing would get done.
(Okay, I guess the other argument for the filibuster is tradition, but I’m going to ignore that one).
Fillibusters serve a purpose in that they prevent a 51% majority from riding roughshod over a 49% minority. That said, it’s kind of a dysfunctional way to go about it. A better approach might be increasing the majority threshold for some votes from a simple majority to 60%, or some other arbitrary figure.
But why the Senate in that case? Why do I care about a 51% majority of the states?
You’re right; that is broken, but I’ve always thought the senate was broken. I’d much rather see proportional representation everywhere.
Let’s just amend the Constitution to say that all appointees are written into the Constitution, so must be changed by amendment.
That’d be fun.