due process indeed. ok t4i snipa.

Another factor to consider is that Congressional committees (both House and Senate) are populated in proportion to each party's overall representation in their respective branch. Since the the Senate is so evenly split, committee membership is also fairly even (with D as the slight majority due to their overall majority in the Senate). It's close enough that even lacking one vote will end up with split votes (and failure of confirmation), since all either party seems to do in recent years is obstruct the other.

If the balance of power in the US is so tightly contested that every single vote in the Senate (and potentially even the House) is hugely consequential, shouldn't this be a motivation for the DNC/RNC and the base voters to nominate candidates who are healthy enough to do their fucking job, rather than octogenarians or folks like Fetterman? It would imho be a good thing if the Senate no longer looked like the paleontology section of the museum.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Apr 18 2023 04:00pm

The problem with that is there aren't a lot of people who have the same goals in mind who aren't octogenarians.

The younger you get the less you support entrenched power structures, and in the USA the thing that is the most important factor to being elected is the security of entrenched power structures.

in both the case of Feinstein and Fetterman the choice was run them or lose, presumably. Feinstein's name is so known that she doesnt require funding and can still win, her replacement would be branded an agent of change and WOKE and could lose and would need to be heavily funded. Fetterman was ok until he stroked out, and at that time changing candidates would have been an easy win for Dr Oz.

i really like to play monday morning quarterback too, but it must be hard to have a set amount of cash and have to figure out how to distribute it hundreds of ways every cycle.

what we need is for voters to reject old guard candidates, send a message to both parties once you're 80 your out, but it wont happen with this much polarization.

Enjoy this slow, painful death of the republican party.

Boehner retired because he saw it coming.
https://www.daytondailynews.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/speaker-john-boehner-goes-off-congressman-jim-jordan/SBJKsAcEUSGyMDbutJVVoI/

This post was edited by said_aouita on Apr 19 2023 08:49am

Term limits are a necessity, this isn't hard guys, bipartisan legislation

term limits are wildly popular bipartisan amongst voters, and wildly unpopular bipartisan amongst representatives who are too cowardly to admit it. at this point we desperately need them.

at this point in time it is so difficult to pass meaningful legislation because much of it is opposed by the entrenched elderly power structure, cannabis legalization is another big one that is bipartisan amongst younger voters at this point but opposed by the elderly in both parties