1829

Is there any doubt about the GOP Senate’s position on these issues? I feel like this is a thing that pundits say that doesn’t actually mean anything. You don’t need a doomed vote to establish that Republicans oppose the good. Democrats could have gummed up the Senate and shut down government, sure. That’s proven to not be a political winner.

What was accomplished by the GOP Senate that could’ve been stopped by minority Democrats? The most consequential Senate votes–Supreme Court nominations and the tax cut–didn’t require a 60 vote threshold for cloture, so the Republican majority was enough to close debate.

1830

Sort of but not quite. Here’s what the majority gets you:

  • confirmations of Presidential nominees. That includes all Cabinet appointments and judicial nominees. That’s a big deal.
  • reconciliation bills, which can be a big deal too. The GOP tax cut bill was passed this way. The ACA was passed this way.
  • committee chairs. This can be big too because committees have a bunch of control over which bills get referred out for a vote and how they get amended.

Those are big! But any vote that is subject to the 60-vote cloture requirement will still require 60 votes, which Democrats don’t have.

1831

Apart from Trump himself and his family (give it time) is there anyone likely to be prosecuted (absent political considerations) who hasn’t already been pardoned?

1832

Guys, barring new states, 60 Democratic senators is a pipe dream, so there is no use comparing this huge win with something that will never happen.

Although speaking of which, does this mean DC statehood can go forward?

1833

Not without killing the fillibuster, which weak-willed quasi-Republican “Democrats” like Manchin will not allow, alas.

1834

I mean, fuck this. I freely admit that I don’t understand how it works, but I’ve found a set of rules and offered them up, so I don’t think you can really say that I’m not trying to offer evidence. In any event, I don’t think it can actually be the case that there is no difference between being in the majority and being in the minority when it comes to exercising control over what legislation gets debated and / or subjected to a floor vote.

1835

This is a fair point of view, actually, but I do think there’s a difference between having a Senator on record as having voted against something and just being nebulously opposed to it. It provides a less muddy line of questioning from reporters, campaign ads, etc… “Why did you vote against stimulus?” is a harder question for a GOP Senator to answer than “What’s your opinion on stimulus?”

Also fair - chalk any frustrations up to the fact that I very much doubt the Dems are going to do anything with the opportunity they’ve been given.

1836

QT3 Dems in Disarray!

1837

I don’t see why they need to “kill” the filibuster anyway. Just enforce the damned thing. If Manchin wants to block something, make him stand on the fucking floor and read Green Eggs and Ham until he keels over.

1838

That’s fine, but previously there were bills that might have been supported by 10 republicans if there was a vote on it but would never have been referred out of committee because they didn’t have the support of 28 republicans or whatever was deemed enough to make it worth doing.

They won’t be able to ignore McConnell unless Manchin and Sinema cave on the filibuster, but a) there’s now an actual point to putting pressure on them and others to remove the filibuster, and b) this significantly changes the relative power of Democratic vs Republican agenda. They can offer things to individual GOP senators to bring them on board and actually pass bipartisan legislation without those Senators having to oust their leaders to get a vote.

It’s possible that they would have been able force some of that agenda through McConnell and his committee chairs with a Democratic president ready to sign their bills, but it’s certainly easier to get better deals with the majority than without it.

1839

You asked me for a specific example of the minority forcing a vote during McConnell’s tenure, which I found. Then you downplayed it with hand waving. Schumer did exactly what you asked–he forced a full roll call vote on a motion to proceed that McConnell didn’t want brought to the floor. The vote failed and that was it. GOP Senators were on record voting against a (motion to proceed on a) bill to “protect the healthcare of millions of people of the United States.” And it won exactly zero political points because no one even remembers or knows about it.

Sure there’s a difference. If you’re in the majority, you can pass legislation that requires a majority vote with your caucus alone, so you bring it to the floor to get passed. That’s the difference. If you’re in the minority, you can’t pass legislation with your caucus’s votes alone so you don’t control debate on that legislation. I know it seems super weird. It was weird to me. I started looking into this stuff because I was trying to push back on someone else for suggesting the same thing. But McConnell doesn’t have a statutory or rules-based authority to set the Senate’s agenda the way the Speaker does in the House. It’s by custom and convention only for the efficient operation of the Senate. He’s really just first among equals.

1840

I also wonder if they could get support behind killing the filibuster for certain classes of legislation in the same way as they did for appointments. For example, specifically for considering statehood petitions.

Similarly, I wonder if they can push SCOTUS reform through reconciliation if they are making changes and providing funding for them.

1841

I’m not objecting to your example. I’m objecting to the unnecessary ad hominem.

1842

That hasn’t been the way the filibuster works for decades.

1843

Sure, I apologize. I was just frustrated to have found the perfect example (it does indeed seem to be very rare for Senators to force a vote) and have you handwave it away. I’ve linked directly to the Senate rules and CRS white papers. Maybe there’s some clause in Riddick’s Rules that negates everything I’ve been saying, but I don’t think so. I think McConnell’s, uh, powers have been mischaracterized by progressive media. He’s definitely awful, but as majority leader he’s mostly just exercising the authority that being in the majority gets. Now as minority leader, expect the obstructions and slow downs to start rolling in. In a way, McConnell has more procedural power in the minority because he’ll just want to break things. Republicans are best at making things not work.

1844

Oh I realize that, but hey, we are talking about changing a lot of other long-standing things. I want to see Mr. Smith up there.

1845

It’s an interesting example of framing and labeling - the actual rule has changed so much since the Mr. Smith days we really shouldn’t be calling it the filibuster anymore but maybe the “minority blocking rule” or something else more accurately descriptive, and yet, we just use the same term that no longer means what it used to mean, creating a false impression to some degree.

1846

It may well be. I confess I still don’t understand the incident, or what precisely he did that Dems could not have done a million times before. But my recollection of the explanation at the time was that he caught the Reps with no one on the floor to object. Maybe that’s not right, but that was the basis of my response.

Yeah, no worries. I’m tired from staying up all night tracking the results, so probably even more annoying than no usual. Sorry for that.

1847
1848

The Senate is a weird place.

I stumbled across this transcript from 2019, between Schumer and Senator Kennedy (a Republican from Louisiana). It really brought home the degree to which the Senate emphasizes cordiality.