I think Biden's change in view is a harbinger that something will be done with the Filibuster. You now have Centrist/Moderates and Progressives seemingly aligned. Where do you stand?
- Banish
- Reform
- Leave as is
Biden Endorses Filibuster Rule Changes President Biden for the first time said he favored a return to the requirement that opponents occupy the floor when making their case against legislation. Senator Mitch McConnell promised a “scorched earth” response.
The fight over the Senate filibuster escalated sharply on Tuesday, as President Biden for the first time threw his weight behind changing the rules even as Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, threatened harsh reprisals if Democrats moved to weaken the procedural tactic.
In an interview with ABC News, Mr. Biden gave his most direct endorsement yet of overhauling the filibuster, saying that he favored a return to what is called the talking filibuster: the requirement that opponents of legislation occupy the floor and make their case against it.
“I don’t think that you have to eliminate the filibuster; you have to do it, what it used to be when I first got to the Senate back in the old days,” the president said. “You had to stand up and command the floor, and you had to keep talking.” The comments were a significant departure for Mr. Biden, a 36-year veteran of the Senate who has been frequently described by aides as reluctant to alter Senate procedure.
“It’s getting to the point where, you know, democracy is having a hard time functioning,” he added...
Sen. Manchin’s suggestion for changing the filibuster: “Make them stand there and talk.”
Mar 7, 2021,
On Sunday, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), a longtime defender of the filibuster, signaled that he might nevertheless be open to filibuster reforms that could make it easier for Democrats to advance their legislative agenda...
... “if you want to make [filibustering] a little bit more painful — make them stand there and talk — I’m willing to look at any way we can.”...
...That may not sound like a big deal, but it is: As Politico reporter Andrew Desiderio pointed out on Twitter Sunday, what Manchin appears to be describing is a throwback to the “talking filibuster,” which would likely pose a much more surmountable obstacle to the narrow Democratic Senate majority...
As Desiderio explained, under a “talking filibuster,” any “member of the minority party can filibuster as long as he/she stays put on the floor.” But once a member finishes speaking, the filibuster would end, and “there’d be a vote at a simple majority threshold” of 50 votes, instead of the existing 60-vote threshold required to end a filibuster.
That’s a big change, because there’s currently no actual filibustering required to filibuster in the Senate, at least not in the conventional sense. As Vox explained back in 2015, the modern filibuster doesn’t require a senator talking on the floor for hours on end to delay a bill.
Instead, today’s filibuster is a straightforward move to reject unanimous consent on a bill that the minority can wield painlessly: ...
...If that rule were changed, though — say, by going back to the talking filibuster of yore — filibusters might only paralyze the Senate until the minority runs out of members willing to hold the floor...
Former President Barack Obama delivered a passionate and deeply political tribute to the late Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) at Lewis’s funeral service on Thursday. Lewis was one of the nation’s foremost civil rights leaders beginning in the 1960s, and Obama spoke of how even as a very young man, Lewis endured beatings and other violence to advance the cause of voting rights for Black Americans.
Obama called for legislation restoring the Voting Rights Act, much of which was gutted by the Supreme Court’s decisions in Shelby County v. Holder (2013) and Abbott v. Perez (2018). He also endorsed other democratic reforms, including an end to partisan gerrymandering, extending statehood to Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico, and making Election Day a national holiday.
And then he called upon the Senate to remove an obstacle that has consistently stood in the way of civil rights legislation throughout American history...
Sen. Bernie Sanders expressed his support for axing the Senate filibuster on Thursday, after former President Obama called the legislative tactic a "Jim Crow relic" during his eulogy for civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) in Atlanta....
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Mitch McConnell delivers dire warning abut why Filibuster reform or abolition will lead to scorched earth!
My view is 'Reform' on the lines Manchin has put forth.
I don't think anyone should take a thing Mitch says seriously.
Not that what he says may not have some truths but just that the Republicans have shown time and again that no norm, no ethics czar, no Senate parliamentarian, nothing, will stop the Republicans in enacting their agenda if they have the power to do so and the way around.
So basically the filibuster as is only serves as a bar to the Dem's and that is why Mitch wants it to stay.
If the Dem's heed Mitch's warning and the Republican's have power and a filibuster is the only thing stopping them enacting a key agenda point I expect another sound bite like this from Mitch, while he laughs at Dem naivety as he torches the filibuster.
Nothing in your country will get done till you eliminate it. Sadly the democrats started it with judges and the GOP rightfully so did it with Supreme Court justices.
Reality is if the GOP held the presidency and had a 51-50 majority in the senate and held the house they would have no issue abandoning it.
Nothings getting done.
You see the same thing with the immigration crisis.
The argument I am seeing put forth as to why the GOP currently supports the filibuster is that they have no real agenda, outside Financial ones (tax cuts, grants to business, etc) that they care about or need to pass and those things can be done via Budget Reconciliation.
So if your stance is the less gov't can achieve during any term the better, then the filibuster helps.
Also I think the prior thinking was that a price would be paid in elections if the opposition blocked popular and desired legislation but what in fact happens is the party in power pays the price for not finding a way to get their agenda thru when they had power. That greatly tips the balance to 'oppose and stop everything' when in opposition to make the party in power look weak.
I can buy the argument that removing the filibuster would spell out dramatic upheavals for the federal political landscape every time you get a new majority, but the argument becomes rather moot if the filibuster is abused to stall every majority decision, as then you are already in a scorched earth political landscape.
I like Franken's old suggestion about a 41 minority vote to keep the filibuster going during a cloture vote, this puts a strain on the minority who wants to stall. You can't just go around doing fundraising or political campaigning somewhere else completely while you are stalling the political process in the background. You actually have to put in effort, be present and go on the voting record. I find it bizarre that you can just stop political process by default by not even being there.
Manchin's suggestion of an actual speaking requirements would also seem like a good place to start reform. It shouldn't be completely straightforward and standard to stop legislative process at the senate level.
It's an arbitrary rule that has already been changed and watered down multiple times. But that rule can be arbitrarily bypassed by the "reconciliation" process. The whole thing is silly.
Even changing it to a "talking filibuster" is pointless because as long as there are 3 or 4 people who oppose it, they can have them constantly rotate in and out and it will just waste everyone's time. That's why they got rid of it in the first place. People would talk and talk so they figured that they'll save time and energy and not bother with the talking.
When did the speaking requirement stop being a thing?
Looks like the 70's.
Quote:
Beginning with a rules change in 1806, the Senate did not restrict the total time allowed for debate. In 1917, Rule XXII was amended to allow for ending debate (invoking "cloture") with a two-thirds majority, later reduced in 1975 to three-fifths of all senators "duly chosen and sworn" (usually 60).[6] Thus, although a bill might have majority support, a minority of 41 or more senators can still prevent a final vote through endless debate, effectively defeating the bill. This tactic is known as a filibuster.
Since the 1970s, the Senate has also used a "two-track" procedure whereby Senate business may continue on other topics while one item is filibustered. Since filibusters no longer required the minority to actually hold the floor and bring all other business to a halt, the mere threat of a filibuster has gradually become normalized. In the modern Senate, this means that any controversial item now typically requires 60 votes to advance, unless a specific exception limiting the time for debate applies.
Hmmm I voted for the talking filibuster but now am not so sure. If the necessary rule changes (see last point bolded below) cannot also be made then it must be scrapped.
...But a talking filibuster is just window dressing on the broader problem of the lack of bipartisanship in the Senate. It won't solve the fundamental problem -- and it could, actually, block up the chamber's work even more...
...The current filibuster system -- ... -- was actually put in pace to keep the business of the Senate moving...
... But because they believed such a move would raise the number of filibusters, the Senate also put a dual-track system in place.
The Brennan Center explained it all here: "No longer would a filibuster delay all Senate business. Instead, new Senate procedure would create a dual-tracking system that allowed the body to toggle between different bills so that a bill facing a filibuster was 'kept on the back burner' until a vote for cloture could be successful. This meant that no one observing the Senate would likely realize that a bill was being filibustered, since no one had to take the floor and stay there. This significantly reduced the public relations disincentive to filibuster and made it practically invisible to the public and the media. The talking filibuster had died; all a senator needed to do was indicate an intention to filibuster in order to move a bill to the end of the queue or 'the back burner.'"
If the talking filibuster was reinstated, so too would be the rule that no other Senate business -- judicial confirmations, Cabinet confirmations etc. -- could be conducted while the chamber was being held by someone in the process of filibustering. Meaning that for as long as the filibuster could go, the Senate would be at a complete legislative stop. Nothing could or would get done.
Which then raises this question: How long could a filibuster go?
While the common perception of the filibuster is a lone senator holding the floor for as long as they (and their bladder) can hold out, it's actually not in the Senate rules that only one senator can speak during a filibuster. ...
..."Rule XIX places no limit on the length of individual speeches or the number of Senators who may speak on a pending question. ...
...So every senator who wanted to participate in a filibuster could speak twice every single legislative day. That's still not easy -- since the filibustering group would have to have someone speaking 24 hours a day for as long as they could do it -- it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that a few senators could hold the floor for a considerable amount of time.
"Depending on how it's structured - the critical question, as with anything Senate-related - a small group of senators could talk for days or even weeks," ...
...Once the talking filibuster is over, Democrats would still need 60 votes to end debate and proceed to a vote. (Unless, of course, they change the legislative filibuster rules to allow cloture to be invoked by a simple majority.) ...
Spoiler:
Quote:
Originally Posted by RFlushDiamonds
Make them talk.
That allows minority positions to be heard and slows the process down to inform the public.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tame_deuces
I can buy the argument that removing the filibuster would spell out dramatic upheavals for the federal political landscape every time you get a new majority, but the argument becomes rather moot if the filibuster is abused to stall every majority decision, as then you are already in a scorched earth political landscape.
I like Franken's old suggestion about a 41 minority vote to keep the filibuster going during a cloture vote, this puts a strain on the minority who wants to stall. You can't just go around doing fundraising or political campaigning somewhere else completely while you are stalling the political process in the background. You actually have to put in effort, be present and go on the voting record. I find it bizarre that you can just stop political process by default by not even being there.
Manchin's suggestion of an actual speaking requirements would also seem like a good place to start reform. It shouldn't be completely straightforward and standard to stop legislative process at the senate level.
You know it is not often you can say a politician was really fighting for his convictions and was willing to suffer personal discomfort and pain to achieve it.
It would be great to see more politicians so passionate and willing to fight for issues they really believe in.
You almost have to admire his convictions here. ...almost.
...A real-life senator, South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, topped Stewart’s character’s performance in 1957. Sen. Thurmond armed himself with throat lozenges and malted milk balls and spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes to stall passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957...
...Thurmond prepared by first dehydrating in a steam room, in hopes of avoiding having to use a bathroom for many hours.
After 12 hours, Sen. Paul Douglas of Illinois, tried to speed matters along and placed a pitcher of orange juice on Thurmond’s desk, Cohodas writes. Thurmond drank a glass before an aide removed it from his reach...
You know it is not often you can say a politician was really fighting for his convictions and was willing to suffer personal discomfort and pain to achieve it.
It would be great to see more politicians so passionate and willing to fight for issues they really believe in.
You almost have to admire his convictions here. ...almost.
...A real-life senator, South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, topped Stewart’s character’s performance in 1957. Sen. Thurmond armed himself with throat lozenges and malted milk balls and spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes to stall passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957...
...Thurmond prepared by first dehydrating in a steam room, in hopes of avoiding having to use a bathroom for many hours.
After 12 hours, Sen. Paul Douglas of Illinois, tried to speed matters along and placed a pitcher of orange juice on Thurmond’s desk, Cohodas writes. Thurmond drank a glass before an aide removed it from his reach...
Speaking for 24 hours to keep his mistresses of color in their place was probably GTO for him.
Your last statement is false . Justin Trudeau has won minority governments with less votes than the conservatives.
Ehhh you are presenting a semantic distinction that is not accurate.
Justin could not form the gov't with less votes. A minority Gov't in Canada is formed only when the minority can cobble together a coalition of votes, that creates a majority.
So while Justin and the Liberals themselves did not directly get a majority, they secured the extra votes from parties who are empowered to consolidate their votes with them.
Very different than the US system, where the losing party can rule over one with more votes.
Perhaps more importantly Justin Trudeau is not a president, and Canada does not have have a presidential system. It is a constitutional monarchy.
Or to be more precise (and if my knowledge serves me right) it is a federation under constitutional monarchy governed by parliamentary democracy. Even if ignore the monarchy bit as mostly ornamental, we're still left with something very, very different from the US system or a typical presidential system.
I feel like we had this conversation back in like 2010 in a thread I made for it. Nothing has really changed since then. Everyone knows the filibuster is stupid, and one of the main reasons why so much of the goings on in DC are pure political theatre. The only question is who will have the political will to eliminate it and take their chances with the legislative havoc a future government could implement.
At the end of the day it's probably a winning line for Dems to be the ones to eliminate it since their policies are more popular nationwide. Plus, McConnell already did it for SCOTUS appointments, so it's clear his 'commitment to democracy' only extends as far as implementing his agenda.
No one believes there is a single Norm, Ethics Czar, Senate or House Parliamentarian or Filibuster legislation that given the power to do so and a legislative slate the Republicans priorities as critical to implement, that they would not simply over ride, blow throw or can, to do so.
Mitch would not even hesitate to get rid of any of the above, given the power and that being the road block to a desired outcome.
Mitch today would show offense and disdain about the Dem's doing it and the very next day if he got power laugh while saying "I would (do) it"
It is just the GOP has no legislative agenda outside tax cuts, which they can use the Budget process anyway so the filibuster serves him for now as an obstruction to the Dem agenda and it does no harm to his party. If that ever changes Mitch would gladly nuke the filibuster. Bet on it.
