I think it would be a mistake to extrapolate the current state of things (Dems with ambitious legislation, Republicans mostly interested in blockade) too far into the future, even in the absence of a major political realignment.



Imho, a sensible solution would be to lower the threshold of the filibuster to 55 votes. With this threshold, there would be no policy whiplash just because the Senate composition changed by one or two seats around the 50:50 equilibrium (e.g. 2016-2020), but major waves or a sustained period of electoral success by one party would be rewarded with the power to enact more far-reaching legislation.

At the end of the day, it is not just Congress that is gridlocked in contemporary American politics - the electorate is pretty gridlocked too. For 14 years, since the 2008 cycle, no side has been able to gain the upper hand persistently. As long as American voters can't bring themselves to endow one side or the other with a girthy mandate, no major legislation being passed is the correct outcome, from a philosophical or democratic theory point of view.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Jul 8 2022 04:56pm

https://www.yahoo.com/news/biden-sign-executive-order-help-110349287.html

the federal government yet against attempts to usurp the rights reserved for the states

Imagine the headlines about "outrageous norm-breaking" and "this is VERY dangerous for democracy" if Trump had publicly decried the Supreme Court as "out of control" and "driven by naked power politics rather than constitutional judgement", just because he was butthurt about a decision that didn't go his way.

What I like about the standing filibuster is that it allows people to hear the arguments for why a bill is bad (or good) and it encourages Americans to engage their Senator to support/oppose the bill in question. Because all Senate business is stopped, it would be used sparingly. The fact that the Senate is a completely different composition should, in theory, prevent any sort of wild whiplash in policy.



Explain how there would be policy whiplash. The Senate, by definition, is anti-democratic. We didn't have the filibuster AT ALL for the first 50 years of this country. Then we had a filibuster where you had to speak until you dropped. The 60 vote threshold (where you don't actually have to debate) has only been around for 50 years and has frankly been abused. It's time to go back to the way we did things for over 100 years.

You don't have to imagine...Trump attacked SCOTUS all the time!

Here is one of many examples:
https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/02/twitter-trump-pennsylvania-tweet-mail-in-voting-supreme-court/

That was at a time when Trump had already lost the election and was on his out. That he went off the rails toward the end of his presidency is no secret. He was, however, accused by the media of norm-breaking and being a threat to democracy long before his post-2020-election-antics began.

Furthermore, the things he said in this specific tweet weren't even all that inflammatory. He, unlike Biden, criticized a specific SCOTUS decision on its substance, but didn't outright reject the court's legitimacy.






I guess all the septuagenarians and octogenarians on both sides of the aisle wouldn't be keen on reintroducing the standing filibuster.^^
It might eventually lead to voters prioritizing youth and energy in their candidates, so that they have the stamina for a 24h filibuster speech. Wait, that's actually an argument in favor of your proposal...


Side note: didn't the filibuster speeches often times consist of reading cooking recipes or the telephone book?



I was referring to the situation where the filibuster is just nuked, rather than replaced with a standing filibuster or a 55 vote threshold.

Within the last 6 years, we have witnessed two instances of a party winning a very marginal, weak trifecta in Washington without actually having a proper mandate to invoke big, sweeping change. Republicans in 2016, Democrats in 2020. If the Senate would pass all bills with a simple majority in a post-filibuster world, stuff like abortion rights would be banned or guaranteed across the whole country every other election cycle when power in the federal government switches from one side or the other based on some tiny, ~2% movement in the underlying election results. (E.g. 2016 -> 2020, when the margin in the decisive state of the presidential election shifted from R+0.77 to D+0.63).

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Jul 8 2022 07:22pm

ya? the supreme court didnt do chit when the election was stolen. its not unreasonable to consider they are on the take.
the thought works like this?
so many have sold out to the WEF
is the supreme court WEF?
the WEF is pushing world communism.
communism is slavery
slaves dont get to decide stuff like getting abortions.

I agree this sort of BS from the WH is not good.
Been saying this to friends all these D that say "we don't care what the SCOTUS says" are playing a losing game and should stop.

To be fair, I kinda get where Democrats are coming from. Through a series of bad decisions and unlucky timing, they got completely outmaneuvered on the Supreme Court - and now, their only two options are either breaking some norms to either pack or delegitimize the court, or put up with the highest court in the country having a conservative supermajority enshrined for an entire generation.

Agreed looking back on series of events. The entire GOP owes Mitch not allowing Obama to elect one is pretty crazy and Obama failed to push back enough.
My only bitch is these decisions are against the countries majority. It’s the EC playing out again in the court??? The 45% getting a lot here