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#335776: Oct 28th 2020 at 6:09:04 AM

The Constitution has no limit on how big SCOTUS is, so Court Packing is putting extra judges in past the customary nine

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Redmess Redmess from Netherlands Since: Feb, 2014
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#335777: Oct 28th 2020 at 6:53:54 AM

Could you explain what the filibuster is, exactly?

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#335778: Oct 28th 2020 at 6:56:56 AM

In effect, it means that a majority of the senate is not enough to pass a motion, and instead a higher threshold (such as 3/5 or 2/3) is needed.

Edited by ShinyCottonCandy on Oct 28th 2020 at 9:57:18 AM

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#335779: Oct 28th 2020 at 6:57:15 AM

In theory, a filibuster is a Senator taking their time to speak on the floor and then continuing to talk indefinitely as a means of dragging out and preventing a vote from occurring.

In practice, Senators can simply signal the intent to filibuster and boom, no vote on the bill. In order to override a filibuster, Congress needs a 60-person majority vote. And Senators from either Majority or Minority side can do this on every bill, every time, forever. So what the filibuster actually does is shift the number of votes needed to ever pass any bill from 50 to 60.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Oct 28th 2020 at 6:58:21 AM

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Clarste One Winged Egret Since: Jun, 2009 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
One Winged Egret
#335780: Oct 28th 2020 at 7:02:41 AM

The fillibuster is a bizarre procedural concept originating from people giving long and pointless speeches in order to delay a vote. The idea being that congress can't vote on a bill until they've stopped discussing it, even if that "discussion" is just someone reading the dictionary out loud, cover to cover.

Eventually this mutated into people just "declaring" that they would so and/or are doing so in absentia, which means that anyone can prevent something from being voted on. They can just arbitrarily decide that. Obviously this favors minority parties.

As a counter to the fillibuster, the rest of congress is allowed to vote to immediately begin the vote, bypassing the fillibuster. This currently requires a little more than a majority. Basically it ups the threshold for getting things done, which again minority parties love since it gives them more power.

"Nuking the fillibuster" is therefore seen as an extreme option since it removes a tool that you'll need in the future after you've been voted out in the next election.

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#335781: Oct 28th 2020 at 7:07:57 AM

We're being cynical here.

Ideally, the filibuster is a way for a minority to engage in principled resistance to a vote that they find objectionable. Senate rules allow a legislator to hold the floor for as long as they are physically able to continue speaking unless at least 60 of them vote for "cloture", which advances the motion under consideration regardless.

In practice, nobody does this any more. Ted Cruz famously attempted a genuine filibuster — I think it was against Obamacare, but I can't recall offhand. He read Green Eggs and Ham on the Senate floor in what many took as a parody of the practice. Anyway, in practice all one party has to do is indicate that they will filibuster a bill in order to force a cloture vote, effectively requiring a 60-vote majority to advance it to a final vote.

Recently, the filibuster has allowed a kind of "tyranny of the minority", where the party not in power can completely block any legislation. However, it is not part of the Constitution; it's a Senate rule that could be removed by simple majority vote.

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#335782: Oct 28th 2020 at 7:09:37 AM

Of course the problem is that in an institution as biased as the Senate, all the filibuster practically guarantees is that the Democrats will never be able to legislate anything or perform any business where the filibuster hasn't already been removed, because obstructionism allows for no compromises.

The Republicans could conceivably wind up with 60 Senate seats in the current environment, it's just unlikely, and when you don't want to actually get anything done it doesn't matter if you're blocked.

Edited by RainehDaze on Oct 28th 2020 at 2:10:49 PM

DeMarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#335783: Oct 28th 2020 at 7:14:52 AM

Of course, when they are the minority party, Democrats could filibuster everything the Republicans propose as well.

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Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#335784: Oct 28th 2020 at 7:17:15 AM

Also, the filibuster has been around so long many people, including many Democratic senators, regard it as a permanent, untouchable aspect of the Senate itself.

Regardless of what Biden wants, there's at least three Democrats who probably wouldn't vote to nuke the filibuster, so we need a strong majority in the Senate when the time comes, not just 50 + the VP.

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#335785: Oct 28th 2020 at 7:17:18 AM

They had a trifecta for two years and how many things did they even try to advance legislatively?

A repeal that was killed by their own Senators and a tax bill that wasn't subject to filibustering anyway. The filibuster doesn't harm the Republicans now that it's been removed from judicial appointments as they don't want or need to pass anything.

Edited by RainehDaze on Oct 28th 2020 at 2:17:57 PM

Clarste One Winged Egret Since: Jun, 2009 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
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#335786: Oct 28th 2020 at 7:19:16 AM

The point was that the Senate is biased towards Republicans both for geographical reasons and also because conservatism wins when bills are not passed, while progressivism loses.

Edited by Clarste on Oct 28th 2020 at 7:19:59 AM

DeMarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#335787: Oct 28th 2020 at 7:23:20 AM

Not true. They needed the Congress to pass their tax bills and deregulation. The Dems could have filibustered all that but didn't. It isn't inherent in the rule, it was a tactical choice that Dem Senators made.

Edited by DeMarquis on Oct 28th 2020 at 10:23:32 AM

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SpookyMask Since: Jan, 2011
#335788: Oct 28th 2020 at 7:24:15 AM

I will find it highly annoying if democrats end up being ineffectual because they don't want to touch "sacred" traditions with ten foot pole tongue

Like besides it being nice if USA's situation improved overall, it'd be really annoying if this current situation became new status quo that repeats every few years.

RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
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#335789: Oct 28th 2020 at 7:27:11 AM

[up][up] Weren't those passed under that r-thingy rule that only comes up once a year and isn't filibustered? By the same tradition as things can be, filibustering that would have been unacceptable.

DeMarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#335790: Oct 28th 2020 at 7:27:27 AM

The truth is that is was less about "sacred conditions" and more that safe incumbents have little incentive to rock the boat, even if their party's agenda isn't being advanced. Safe seats lead to complacency.

@Raineh: Not all of them, no.

Edited by DeMarquis on Oct 28th 2020 at 10:28:20 AM

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RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
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#335791: Oct 28th 2020 at 7:30:39 AM

Seems the deregulation was passed under a rule that also skips the Senate filibuster, backtracking to check laws passed in 2017.

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#335792: Oct 28th 2020 at 7:39:45 AM

There is an exemption to the filibuster for budgetary reconciliation, which allows certain pieces of legislation to bypass cloture as long as they are at at least revenue-neutral. Obamacare was passed under such conditions.

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#335793: Oct 28th 2020 at 7:40:40 AM

Not true. They needed the Congress to pass their tax bills and deregulation. The Dems could have filibustered all that but didn't. It isn't inherent in the rule, it was a tactical choice that Dem Senators made.

The tax bill and attempts to destroy Obamacare were under a special House measure called Budget Reconciliation. Because Budgets are the first and foremost important job of the House of Representatives, they can declare a law a Budget Reconciliation Act so long as it deals mostly with Taxation and Budgetary Measures (which both did), and because the House declared it so important, it negates the Senates ability to use the Filibuster. Even if the Democrats wanted to Filibuster it, by law they could not, and ever since the Democrats took the House McConnell has refused to even talk about any Bill they send unless Trump demands they vote for it.

Falrinn Since: Dec, 2014
#335794: Oct 28th 2020 at 7:43:16 AM

Interesting article from 538 about a recent outlier poll in Wisconsin

Basically, they got a poll that shows Biden up a ludicrous-seeming +17 in Wisconsin from a traditionally reliable pollster.

While this is an obvious outlier poll in a state Biden was already favored to win the state, this is actually the latest in a series of recent polls that suggest that Trump's support is taking a beating in the upper midwest, likely due to the recent explosion in COVID-19 cases. Iowa has also shifted to being slightly in Biden's favor for the first time in 538's forecast.

Edited by Falrinn on Oct 28th 2020 at 7:43:26 AM

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#335795: Oct 28th 2020 at 7:44:29 AM

And the other regulation cuts that were passed (at least in 2017, don't know about 2018) were passed under the Congressional Review Act, which also blocks filibustering.

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#335796: Oct 28th 2020 at 7:54:25 AM

I think that Trump doesn't have the level of fanatical stupidity that is required to vote for him now.

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Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#335797: Oct 28th 2020 at 8:00:57 AM

The last actual filibuster I remember was in the Texas State Senate when Wendy Davis filibustered an abortion restrictions bill in an attempt to run out the clock on the legislative session. Of course, the Senate promptly called a special session and passed it, but she got a lot of attention for getting as far as she did.

DeMarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#335798: Oct 28th 2020 at 8:04:10 AM

"Budget Reconciliation" Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Well, if we take the Senate, we can do the exact same thing back at them, so the filibuster would seem to be irrelevant.

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#335799: Oct 28th 2020 at 8:08:28 AM

There are restrictions on reconciliation. For example, you can only use it once per some period (session, year?). For another, it must be at most revenue-neutral, meaning that repeal of Trump's tax cuts or an expansion of Obamacare wouldn't be possible. Expanding the Supreme Court isn't a budget measure so can't go under reconciliation, unless it's snuck in as an amendment to a budget bill.

Edited by Fighteer on Oct 28th 2020 at 11:08:54 AM

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SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#335800: Oct 28th 2020 at 8:10:35 AM

I am not sure that one could bring it as an amendment, either.

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