Alstein
1589
He’s on record as being in favor of court-stacking, so he’s got my consideration.
Re the Filibuster. I never liked the “filibuster by proxy” rule. If you are going to jam up the Senate, at least stand there and yap.
Alstein
1593
So be it. If they’re going to do it, it means either doing it back, or never having a majority and having everything good overturned.
Ultimately, we’re going to need a constitutional amendment to stop the insanity, but that’s going to require one side crushing the other.
In the just-released Monmouth poll of Iowa, Mayor Pete – who has spent little time in Iowa compared to others – was third, despite incredibly low ratings on name recognition/no opinion. For those that did know the Mayor and had opinions, his favorability/unfavorability was 45-9.
So…prepare for that onslaught. ;)
Timex
1595
I’ve always thought this… and while I don’t know if there’s some real reason for my belief, I feel like filibustering should require that you feel strongly enough about something that you are willing to make a real, personal sacrifice for it.
Also, I feel like most of the senate is so incredibly old, that if they had to actually stand up there and talk to do a filibuster, we wouldn’t have many of them.
MikeJ
1596
Would be interesting if physical stamina was a component in selecting a Senator. “I will stand up for this great State! I mean, literally stand all week if I have to!”
I’m not sure this ‘improvement’ makes any difference. If you have several senators willing to yap, they just spell each other. As long as the one currently holding the floor only yields to one of the others, the filibuster continues. So in effect you have the same cloture problem you have now: In a closely-divided Senate, the majority is paralyzed by the minority.
ShivaX
1598
But it requires actual work from them, instead of one dude in the back using his de facto veto and then taking a nap.
Senators don’t get a veto.
Oghier
1599
Old-school filibusters also stop the Senate’s other work, while providing footage for the news. They’re more public. In most cases, I think that visibility would be a virtue.
Tim_N
1600
The latest morning consult national figures have him at 5% too, which is pretty great considering where he was only a couple of weeks ago and his name recognition is still quite low.
The College Degree split for Harris is rather eye-popping. Cory Booker’s is rather pronounced too. Hmmmm, wonder what may be causing that.
kerzain
1602
Uneducated people go to jail more often and are more likely to resent former prosecutors.
Source
Banzai
1603
Old style fillibusters also have an end, and then you vote on the motion, be it to end debate or whatever. It didn’t mean that once someone fillibustered a bill, that it had been stopped in its tracks permanently, only temporarilly.
In practice, talking filibusters did actually kill bills. The problem was that it shut down all other business, so the bill would be withdrawn. And note that it still required the cloture vote to end the filibuster, so if you didn’t have the requisite number, the bill died.
Sanders’ proposal is a bit incoherent, but he doesn’t seem to be proposing a change to the cloture vote requirement. He’s basically saying: We don’t even have 51 votes for MFA now; when we do have 51 votes for a majority we can change the rules for the filibuster (not cloture); and we don’t have to worry about cloture because we can get the Dem VP to rule that MFA can be passed through reconciliation.
Maybe the first and most important proposal every democratic candidate should be offering for 2020 should be to fix our broken ass government.
We can start with the way elections are held and end with a system that actually allows for more than two parties in a practical sense.
I confess I have not read this one. Sounds like it goes into the “watch out Dems, you’re veering too far to the crazy left!” genre.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/magazine/wp/2019/03/19/feature/sherrod-brown-may-have-been-democrats-best-2020-hope/
But are they in disarray?
