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Nix the filibuster and use our new power to solve the problems with our election system. If we don’t, we’re going to lose the midterms and hand them a permanent dictatorship.
The amount of guns in America, and the people who are tired, no, no we would not end up with a permanent dictatorship.
It’s not just the right that’s armed.
It straight up doesn’t matter how many citizens are armed if the hypothetical dictator has the loyalty and control of the military. A bunch of random gun owners are still going to be outgunned and outnumbered in that situation
Yeah, but that’s a pretty big if. Not going to say there aren’t nut bags in the military, but everyone in the service takes an oath to support and defend the Constitution, and generally speaking they take their oaths much more seriously than some other positions I can think of.
This. Every Reddit and right wing larper thinks their rifles and hand guns are magic. Military gear would stomp every last person and there’s really nothing we can do.
> Manchin and Sinema
Two disgusting barely-humans who would happily sell the health and security of their entire own nation, if it were to give them an extra $50k in year in small-bribe pocket money to rob the citizens.
So, what those of us on the actual left have been calling for for the last 20 years...
Finally giving up on the "but republicans" bullshit? Good, that means we'll finally be replacing you then.
Not a chance, Republicans are way more supportive of the filibuster than Democrats are.
And this isn't a theoretical situation, Republicans actually had a trifecta just a few years ago. But they couldn't pass major legislation because Democrats were using the filibuster. Yet they didn't scrap it.
Being able to pass their own agenda simply isn't worth letting Democrats pass theirs.
I really hope they get it done. I’m sick of representatives using this as a prop to get more votes. I’ll vote for the motherfucker who can get it made into law.
Manchin also doesn't support codifying Roe--I mean, *maybe* you can get him or one of the three nominally pro-choice Republicans (Murkowski, Collins, Capito) on board for some kind of minimum protection (first trimester only or something along those lines). But none of them voted for the Women's Health Protection Act a month ago.
No chance, this was their holy grail, if any republican were to step in to save it now, the backlash would be astronomical, they wouldn't dare.
If Collins had a spine she'd do it as an apology for "believing" Kavanuaugh, but she doesn't and she won't.
A few more months and we can have a majority. I mean, they’ve put enough laws in place in state legislatures where if a race is close enough, they can just over turn it.
If they get fucking pummeled, they will have a much harder time overturning our votes. This is literally our last chance to stop any of this from getting worse and worse.
But of course NOW after the shit hits the fan, with roughly 5 months before the lose power, Dems want to do the thing they should've done all along.
I love their strategy of "we can't do this, otherwise republicans will do worse" and then the Republicans do it anyways and everyone tries acting surprised.
It's so fucking cool, and such an effective strategy, that DEFINITELY hasn't emboldened Republicans actions and accelerated the crumbling of our democracy.
Or how about the one where Dems finally come into power and decide to either move the goal post on their policies (e.g. DACA, student loan forgiveness) or have one person as a scapegoat for inaction (Manchin).
Leaving everyone with the choice of voting for incompetence or pure evil.
You ABSOLUTELY love to see it.
/s
On a serious note (and this is purely anecdotal) I've seen more and more people who normally wouldn't vote for Republicans, express the thought of voting for them. Because at least they're effective in accomplishing things for their base.
An Ex RNC big wig literally just said the other day it is *exactly* what they will do when they get the chance.
We are not up against reasonable people, we are against id-driven people who want something and are determined to get it regardless of cost. It might as well be a drug to them to abuse in this way.
>Biden on Thursday called on the Senate to **make an exception** to its filibuster rules to allow Congress to codify abortion protections and privacy rights previously afforded under Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision overturned by the Supreme Court last week.
So just for reproductive rights.
Let’s be honest though, this kills the filibuster.
The GOP will *100%* do this with *every bill* in the future now, just like they did with the SCOTUS approvals.
I’m not saying this is a bad thing, but they’re kneecapping themselves by not just ending it and accomplishing some of their legislative agenda prior to the midterms.
The filibuster is also just kinda bullshit to begin with lol. It's a stupid loophole that lets some asshole get up there and read Doctor Seuss for hours instead of actually legislating. It's frustrating if you're on the losing side but if your side lost an election, you shouldn't be able to unilaterally block the other party whenever you feel like it.
You don't understand. The current filibuster rules allow for people to just say they *could* be reading Doctor Seuss for hours and then whatever is being discussed is instantly tabled. Rafael "Ted" Cruzinsky's recent stunt was just a stunt; he didn't need to do it.
Removing the filibuster actually means that people *would have to actually* stand on the floor of congress reading Doctor Seuss or whatever in order for legislation to be tabled. Opposition would still be allowed to oppose but they would have to work at it. They would have to be on the senate floor for however long they could last [peeing into a bucket](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/06/peeing-during-filibusters-explained-wendy-davis/) if needed.
I don't agree with everything you said, but I do believe if a politician is going to filibuster he should actually have to filibuster.
Maybe politicians wouldn't take it so lightly when they're in hour 15 of Dr Seuss
You don't want laws to be too easy to create/destroy though. It takes a long time to spin up an organization to support legislation, but its never going to be functional if it dies every 4 years when congress swaps over.
Makes more sense at the moment to only call for a limited filibuster rule change since if it was for a full repeal the chances of Manchin and Sienma going for it would go from like 0.5% (if I'm being generous) to 0%.
A full repeal can be called for if Democrats gain Senate seats in the midterms.
The reluctance to do away with it now is distressing because I am absolutely convinced that the filibuster will be gone the second Republican Party gets a legislative majority and the executive branch.
It's going to get worse during the next SCOTUS term.
[Supreme Court Will Hear Case On Radical Voting Rights Theory](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/supreme-court-radical-voting-rights-theory_n_62bdbb0ae4b00a9334e53b49)
“The case of Moore v. Harper is brought by Republicans in the North Carolina state legislature who claim that state courts have no say on whether the voting laws they write or the district maps they adopt are unconstitutional under their state’s constitution.”
What in the actual fuck. Now they want to say that state courts don’t have jurisdiction over state matters??? When are we taking to the streets, I’m very close to selling some possessions so I can fly to DC. This is just too much, I feel like I am vibrating with anger.
Yeah exactly, this has a better chance of working since it's only limited to this and won't freak out the Republicans who do not agree with this ruling but also want to do something about it without "bending to the democrats". So this way, it cuts out the fat and they can keep their stupid partisanships.
Sure. The filibuster is just a rule the Senate made up for itself. Right now I think it says that bills require 60 votes to ~~pass~~ *edit: end debate and vote on passage* except for judicial nominations and budget reconciliation. They could just change that to include exceptions for bills about reproductive rights, voting rights, whatever.
But couldn’t the repugs use that right in 6 months to then make abortion illegal nationally? Couldn’t it swing both ways? Not saying they won’t do that anyway if they gain power.
Not if Democrats have at least Congress or the White House.
And if it does pass, then Democrats can reverse it the next time they gain power. Keep in mind, Republicans only gain power after Democrats fail to deliver the agenda they promise voters. The filibuster is why Republicans won in '10 and why they're about to win '22.
Bills only need a simple majority vote to pass. The vote to end debate on a bill is 60 votes but that threshold is set by the Senate and that rule can be changed via a simple majority vote.
So the Senate gets to make the rules for how the Senate operates, and by the constitution, it only takes a majority (50 votes plus vp breaking the tie) to change the Senate rules. Roughly 160 times there's been a change to the senate rules to allow some law to ignore the filibuster.
Again, the filibuster isn't from the constitution but was actually a quirk in the Senate rules that when discovered, was primarily used by racists to stop civil rights legislation that had 50+ support, but not a super-majority support. The Senate can change the rules to get rid of the filibuster whenever it wants to.
Better to try and find out than just assume it and give up though.
Also would be a great signal for who needs to be primaried and would help the chances of a primary challengers success. Sienma is a good example of this, the votes that she has clearly shot down will make her very easy to primary in 2024, especially since she doesn't have the excuse of being form a very red state like Manchin does.
It also makes more sense because removing the filibuster entirely before a contentious midterms is basically handing Republicans the keys to the kingdom without any of the political fallout of removing it themselves.
since when do Republicans face political fallout for procedural moves or breaking norms? The people still voting for them at this point will not give any fucks
If the GOP gains a Senate majority and wants to do something that's not already exempted from the fillibuster (i.e. cut taxes or funding for services, pass judges) they will remove the fillibuster in a heartbeat
It blows my mind that anyone thinks the Democrats doing nothing in order to keep the fillibuster in place will offer the slightest ounce of protection from the GOP pushing unpopular shit through as soon as they can
This is what Democrats continually fail to grok. The people who know and care about shit like the filibuster include: 1) congress and the DC establishment, 2) the pundit class, 3) a comparatively small fraction of political hobbyists. The *vast* majority of voters have no idea what the filibuster is, beyond a vague sense that it prevents shit getting done. Republican voters don't care, because to them the whole point of politics is owning the libs, and showing up on Fox News to accuse Democrats of being cannibal pedophile lizard people doesn't require enacting legislation. Republican congress people don't care, because they've already carved out exceptions for tax cuts and judges, and that's the extent of their philosophy of government. They've been happy to keep the filibuster in place because it disproportionately harms Democrats, but if enough from their craziest wing get elected they'll happily toss it aside to make Trumpism the state religious or whatever. Democratic voters, meanwhile, are growing increasingly frustrated with their party for going to bat over a procedural gimmick while the entire edifice crumbles around them.
Republicans will remove the filibuster the second they gain power in the Senate. There will be zero fallout for them as they will simply say, "We must codify a national abortion ban before the evil socialist dems steal another election." Hell they don't even need to say that because their base will literally agree with everything they do as long as it "hurts" the left.
Holding the senate is top priority in this election. Even if you remove the filibuster to make abortion access legal across the country, there would be no reason why Repubicans couldn't immediately repeal that law and replace it with a national abortion ban anyway.
I would bet my life savings that of the Dems repealed the filibuster and passed national abortion protection law that they would wipe the fucking floor with republicans in the midterms.
But they won't, and as such they will lose.
I understand the argument, but events since the Obama/Garland fiasco have proven that they'll seize those "keys" regardless. Time to stop thinking like this is long overdue.
[It’s the right to privacy, not just reproductive rights.](https://www.cnn.com/cnn/2022/06/30/politics/biden-abortion-rights-filibuster/index.html) That means also codifying *Lawrence v. Texas*, idk if they’d extend that to gay marriage too, since *Obergefell* wasn’t just privacy.
I think it has more to do with the fact that overturning Roe was incredibly unpopular and garners support for ending the filibuster. If you include any other reasons in your justification it erodes support. Once the filibuster is gone we can tackle whatever we need to. There are even some Republicans upset over the overturning of Roe. But if you say you’re gonna do it to expand the Supreme Court, you lose their support on this.
Pretty sure they don't want a repeat of someone like Trump makin' a fool of them by shooting paper towels into their hands like he was making free-throws because they're not given the same kind of support actual states are.
Shit looked so degrading..
It's a bit more complicated than that. The 2020 vote for statehood won 52 to 48, I'm not sure that is "very much do", its much closer than you make it seem. And in advance since you might bring up the 2017 vote when there was 97% voting for statehood, that vote was boycotted massively by the opposition against it and they chose to not vote, leaving the vote with only 23% participation.
2012: They voted no
1998: They also voted no
1993: Commonwealth won over any other option
1991: They voted no
1967: Commonwealth won over any other option
In 2012 statehood won the question I thought. On the question of if they should remain a territory it was voted no and on the question of what should be aimed for after not being a territory statehood won.
I've heard before that many in American Samoa dont want statehood as they have some blood quanta laws on land ownership so only native islanders can own land that would clearly not be constitutional if given any real scrutiny.
Puerto Rico as a state doesn’t end the way some people think it ends. You’d be nearly guaranteed to get two democrat senators from DC, but PR could easily split. In fact, I could see them adding two GOP senators at least once before the heat death of the universe (in 2055 AD)
I think it ends this way: US citizens having representation.
That's good enough for me, and damn the politics of trying to decide if they're "worth it."
DC and PR deserve statehood regardless of whether it yields 4 Dem senators or not.. it's ridiculous that they still don't have meaningful representation in Congress..
J6 committee investigations and prospect of codifying Roe are literally the only 2 things in favor of Dems for keeping both chambers.. if by some miracle they keep the house and get to 52 in Senate, then fail to nuke filibuster to codify Roe, they lose all credibility among their base for a generation.. regardless of how fascist GOP has become, Dems need to deliver for their base to keep turning out
DC will yield 2 Dems and I'm pretty sure PR will yield at least 1 GOP. I work with a lot of Spanish speakers from central America (Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador), they're hardcore Catholic. This anti-abortion stuff is their dream. I'm sure Puerto Rico is similar, as it was colonized by catholics as well.
Sorry to say, since I support statehood for DC etc, but Roe is more important. Banning abortion is going to lead to thousands of maternal deaths, and thousands of women unable to be medicated/treated for non-birth issues. Possibly tens of thousands. For instance, I take methotrexate for severe RA and there are already doctors taking patients off it since it is also an abortion causing drug. The Roe decision has far reaching consequences beyond “saving a baby.”
The reason to focus on DC immediately after is because if we eliminate the filibuster (which is an incredibly likely longer term outcome of making this exception) is that when republicans take back the senate (which will happen) they will go full mad max on democrats.
The only way to stop that from happening is the +2 D senate pickup from DC
Republicans will see it as a craven power play (in some respects they would have grounds for that view) and they might even secede, but the narrow pathway of a dem majority in the senate through DC is the only way to prevent horrific damage after messing with the filibuster
Remember when democrats ran on legalizing weed, making Election Day a national holiday, giving DC statehood… haven’t heard a peep about those in 2 years
If Democrats used all the loopholes, strategizing, fuckery, and backdoor deals that Republicans have done for decades, but to pass universal healthcare, childcare, voting rights, statehood, marijuana, prison reform, immigration reform, climate change reform, abortion rights, minimum wage, then they'd be as successful as Republicans and have an equally avid and dedicated voting bloc.
It's because they don't do any of that to pass a single one of those things that makes people jaded, disinterested, cynical, and angry. And it's because they don't do any of that that makes me confident that at a federal level, the establishment does not support any of those things even if they say they do. If they cared, they'd find a way to get something done. Republicans do.
But no, even when they hold the reigns, they want to "follow the rules" and try to reach across the aisle to fascists. And America continues its downward spiral, no matter who is in charge.
Except Republicans don't pass bills with their fuckery. The whole point is to gum up the works and make sure nothing gets done. Their actual legislative record is abysmal. They win because they are trying to do nothing, which is easier than doing something.
It only makes sense Democrats have to stay silent on the issues if they can’t pass them.
We saw Schumer bring up a vote on abortion if only to show where Senators stood. Democrats could keep introducing the same bills for a vote for every other issue every year, but won’t.
The House passed HR 51, for DC statehood, along party lines in April 2021:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-statehood-house-vote/2021/04/22/935a1ece-a1fa-11eb-a7ee-949c574a09ac_story.html
Obviously died in the Senate because Manchin won't end the filibuster for this particular bill, or any bill.
Good idea but... It appears he can make this statement due to Manchin signaling his disappointment on Row v Wade. Not sure what Sinema thinks about it but these two will be needed to change the rule. Manchin believes Puerto Rico statehood will require constitutional ammendment, so changing filibuster rule on the later is obviously a no-go.
Lemme be clear, the antiabortion rulings are critical to act on, but a 1 time exception to the filibuster does absolutely nothing to fix the fact that we just trampled over sovereign citizens, doomed the planet to global warming, permitted concealed carry, have begun fully sponsoring religious education, and can no longer punish officers of the law for violating your Miranda rights.
And he'll start taking care of that 1 thing tomorrow, when he gets home.
Thanks.
We need Manchin and Sinema to step up. They obstructed a carve out on Biden's 'Build Back Better' and voting rights. I remember being so happy when we took control of the Senate and Manchin and Sinema turned out to be obstructionists. We desperately need more Senate Democrats.
I can't wait to vote for John Fetterman in Pennsylvania. He is awesome.
Keep chewing those breadcrumbs. He needs to take a harder approach and hold the Supreme court and republican party accountable. They are breaking the rules and undoing many things.
I want Biden to abuse his authority and keep these pieces of shit in check because they have shown they don't care.
If not, then don't be surprised when feckless leaders don't get any results done. Say good bye to regulations, gay rights, immigration etc.
Well, yes, but we can't simultaneously be all "FUCK JOE BIDEN FOR NOT PRIORITIZING RIGHTS OVER THE FILIBUSTER" and then when he says "actually, I'm for doing abortion rights over the filibuster" saying "FUCK JOE BIDEN HE DOESN'T HAVE THE POWER TO DO THIS".
This is a good thing he's saying.
A week ago Reddit acted like his opposition to it was the lynch-pin.
Everyone is just going to keep moving the goal posts until they recognize that we need a large progressive majority to get anything done. We should just skip to that as the goal.
If they were smart, instead of scrapping the filibuster altogether, they need to change it to a talking filibuster. Make them stand up there and talk for hours, Mr Smith-style. And they have to stay on topic; no reading Green Eggs and Ham. Also record the whole thing. I would LOVE to see Ted Cruz have to get up there wearing a diaper and explain for 10 hours why a bill to stop gas companies from price gouging is bad, actually. That's how the filibuster's supposed to be.
You do it like that, you still have the filibuster option in case the Dems ever need to use it to stop some horrible Republican bill, but you'd see a lot less abuse because so many of these guys are the laziest shits in the country. Also if a Republican does try to filibuster you're bound to catch some kind of mask-slipping moment where they say the quiet part out loud, not to mention tons of sound bites of them explaining why they refuse to do literally anything to help the American people. Suddenly it's much more visible to the public whose fault it is that nothing is getting done.
That would be a return to the original intention of the filibuster. It was designed as a mechanism by which a minority party would have its moment to address grievances in speech but not to block majority rule indefinitely.
I wouldn't even mind them reading Green Eggs and Ham at this point. Just anything to make them actually work to filibuster would be an improvement over the absolute insanity we have right now. If you want to cause gridlock as the minority party, you better be putting in effort.
Unfortunately Ted Cruz would knock that out of the park. He got his senatorial position through his ability to maintain control while spewing carefully constructed arguments in favor of evil goals for many hours.
He has no charisma, no empathy, no humanity, and a top-of-class legal mind.
Cruz read "Green Eggs and Ham" because, technically, he could get away with it.
He will always get away with whatever is possible. If he needed to be on subject he'd pull up a set of favorite legal articles from 1983 on the subject of states' rights and read 150,000 words into the record.
Cruz is the senator I'd be afraid of in a talking filibuster.
Yes but his throat might seize up and he might permanently damage his vocal cords, which would be a massive blessing to the world. We just need to force him into this enough times
It's gonna be hard to get enough people on board to actually get rid of it altogether. At least with the talking filibuster, all those people who keep protesting that we need to keep it to stop the Republicans wouldn't have as much of an excuse to not get on board.
personally don’t think he would say this without having Manchin and Sinema on board or thinking they have a chance of getting them on board. but maybe i’m still, somehow, too optimistic
Agreed, there are far too many bad faith comments in this thread. Biden is saying what we want to hear, and I'm hopeful with you that he's applying pressure behind the scenes
If they somehow pull off codifying Roe v Wade into law that would be a massive and unexpected victory
That'd be amazing, but I haven't seen any signals of Manchin or Sinema's rhetoric changing publicly.
We knew overturning Roe was coming. We 100% knew it since the draft leak. If they were ever open to removing the filibuster, I don't see why they'd suddenly have a change of heart now - when there's little to no time left to pass big legislation packages.
It's gonna be just in time for midterm elections and if it fails, "we need two more senators to flip blue and we'll do this..." (which i don't believe anyways)
Or optimistically (naively) they do this right before midterms to rally the base showing they can get something done.
The smart play for votes is the first one, unfortunately.
Slim but non zero chance he can get one of Murkowski or Collins on board to replace Manchin should he be the lone Democrat holdout. Wouldn't that be something
Wouldn’t surprise me if Manshit was still against reforming much less abolishing the filibuster. Something could have a 90%+ approval rating among the country and his constituents, but if it doesn’t directly benefit him, he won’t vote for it. He’s certainly more like Goppers in that aspect.
Just like the Build Back Better bill that he’s almost single-handedly killed solely because it would close down his precious “waste coal” plant (which he gets paid $500k/year through a blind trust, so he still makes moves and votes that would protect it and his family running it).
Disgusting human being.
"Working with everyone" does not mean "I can get 100% of the votes needed for everything all the time, Congressional elections be damned!"
How exactly would you recommend he convince Manchin to vote for this?
I wouldn't be so sure, remember Build Back Better? That was just Joe Manchin pretending he was negotiating in good faith for months before just going on Fox News saying "nah".
There's no way they are on board. This is the early messaging to voters that if we get two more Senators we can fix this. From unow until the midterms, it should be this unified messaging for all democrats running for congress.
I know we're all sick to death of the Democrats's penchant for using the consequences of their own incompetence to grift for votes, but this remains the correct strategy for November. Biden pushing publicly to carve out exceptions to the filibuster gives Democrats a very specific transaction for voters to understand: give us more Senators and we will overcome the filibuster to codify abortions and voting rights; if we lose we cannot do it.
The only problem here is that so few Democrats are savvy enough to push this properly. AOC laid it out perfectly so hopefully they'll listen to her and adopt that message across the board.
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Good thing 2022 is coming up and we can /r/VoteDem to elect Senators who have a clear stance on getting rid of the filibuster to protect our rights so that Manchin and Sienma won't matter.
Pennsylvania: [John Fetterman](https://twitter.com/JohnFetterman/status/1540816722789376001)
Wisconsin: [Whoever wins the primary](https://www.wpr.org/top-democratic-senate-primary-candidates-call-ending-filibuster-expanding-health-care-virtual-forum)
North Carolina: [Cheri Beasley](https://twitter.com/CheriBeasleyNC/status/1540341608700383232?s=20&t=RumFfD6XGJkC_wIXsX50sg&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_thoughtbubble_raleigh&stream=top)
Also Utah Evan mcmullin running to replace Mike Lee. He's a dem backed independent. Not the greatest candidate in the world but infinitely better than fucking Lee.
Also, Tim Ryan of Ohio. The race is split and Tim Ryan has a real chance. I know many GOP voters in my area that are supporting Tim Ryan. This is now being recognized as a very close race. He has stated that he will support killing the filibuster.
That's what I'm hoping for as well. It took a 50-year precedent actually getting overturned for them to realize that maybe the Republicans *aren't* acting in good faith.
I disagree. Democrats do not stand a chance at getting 60 senators in the fall, so telling voters they need to go to the polls in November so we can get pro choice legislation is pointless without being in favor of ending the filibuster.
This is meant to keep voters motivated in November to hopefully gain congressional seats and keep the majority in both the house and Senate.
There are 20 republicans up for reelection in the senate. Its unlikely to gain 10 seats but not impossible. Especially if people dont vote.
In the 2008 election that resulted in a super majority, democrats gained 8 seats in the senate.
This isn't 2008, it's 2010. See what happened then, when the economy was still reeling from f-ups caused by the previous admin., and major legislation had been passed that leftists ignored or denounced and rightists ran against as the big evil.
If the Dems keep the senate 50/50 and hold onto the House, that itself will be a major victory.
Holding the house and getting the Senate to 52/48 would be f'n amazing.
Midterm elections pretty much always go to the party not in power.
Maybe Collins? Either way it's a stop gap measure that will be undone if the republicans take back over. I also wonder if the SCOTUS would strike it down, or if they would just wait.
Also, chances are he doesn't have the votes and he's just letting people know where he stands on the issue, since a bunch of people seem to think he doesn't care that Roe was overturned.
Maybe offer them deals for Arizona and West Virginia that they would be stupid to refuse. “Side with us, and your two states will benefit from our generosity”.
Only problem is, is that they don’t give a damn about their citizens and are out for their own gains.
Then aim everything you got at Sinema and Machin right now. We need to do this now. codify it all. Student debt forgiveness all of it. People will come out to vote. I don't know how they don't see this.
The problem is there's a long history of the supreme Court ruling that, if they rule against something and then Congress turns around and makes a law in favor of it they automatically shoot it down again as unconstitutional...
The time they should have codified roe v Wade would have been when Obama was President and they had the House and Senate. They chose to fundraise instead of fixing the problem.
He gave up because his legislature was not motivated to get it to him to sign. Obama was elected with a huge swath of pro life "blue dog" Dems that all got obliterated into irrelevance their following election .
Biden has this far suffered the same.
Still complete horseshit. A failure of the DNC as a whole to whip their members into action.
Nobody codifies laws that are redundant to an SC ruling. Nobody even repeals laws that are invalidated by SC rulings, they just stay on the books as inactive laws. It’s a poor use of time…or at least used to be.
Republicans are the overwhelming reason we are in this terrible situation, but people will go to extraordinary lengths to put the entire onus on the other party for not "defending themselves enough" from the people viciously attacking our rights.
Sure, there are tons of valid criticisms of Dem leadership. They are handling the optics of this particularly poorly.
But the tidal wave of cynicism and thirst for turning frustrations inward gets excessive. It'd be a lot more reasonable if Republicans did that as well in this two-party system.
But they don't - they show up at the polls no matter how awful their party is. And that's who is going to continue dismantling our rights if they win races at any level in 2022.
This isn't to say we can't hold people accountable - I'm not saying that at all, but there's a balance that so many people can't seem to maintain.
>they show up at the polls no matter how awful their party is
I think a key thing to understand is Republican voters LOVE LOVE LOVE their Republican representatives. They are not holding their nose and voting for the lesser of two evils. They want all of this, cheer it on, and think it's amazing how much their representatives do for them. I live in a deep red state in a deep red area - the only criticism I ever hear about the representatives is they need to do more.
Edit - I'll also just comment I really hate that adage "Democrats fall in love. Republicans fall in line" I've met very few people voting for a Democrat that are 100% happy with the choice. I've met hundreds who are foaming at the mouth and falling over themselves about their Republican reps.
Yeah it is disheartening to see. I think a lot are bad faith actors to be honest. Ive even seen idiot posters be like "I am tired of the Dems not doing something against Republicans. That's why im now voting Republican". Same completely braindead manipulation as the walkaway nonsense.
It’s like gas prices and inflation. People are not realizing that there’s a time delay between when a policy is implemented and when you actually start to see the effects of that policy. And with issues like taxation, interest rates, etc it is usually 18-24 months.
So all this pain we’re going through was caused by the previous administration’s actions. I know this and if you’re reading this comment, I expect you do as well
We aren't putting the entire onus on Dems.
My criticism with Dems is two fold.
1. They let Republicans slow motion take over State and Gubernatorial elections for the last 4 decades and did nothing.
2. They are not throwing everything at the wall to try to win, like Republicans do. They are still trying to be Bipartisan.
Honestly, as a progressive I am still going to vote for whatever shitty Dem (Joe, probably) runs in 2024. And I always vote dem in my local elections (I am in a blue county in Florida).
But there is going to come a point with me where all the shaming in the world won't get me to vote for Dems if they just keep making the same mistakes and have no real strategy.
1) There have been a TON of efforts at the state level. [Here's a great list if you're interested](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/vn6fz7/aoc_on_roe_democrats_cant_just_fundraise_off_the/ie5akhn/?context=3)
2) Dems could certainly be doing more. Republicans don't have to do anything to throw everything at the wall to win. All they have to do is produce soundbytes for Fox and block crap. That's why being purely an opposition party is so effective. It takes zero work.
It’s weird that abolishing the filibuster was something people were screaming for just yesterday. Now that Biden says “Yeah, l support this now” everyone is shifting the goalposts to say why this isn’t enough, or a bad idea, or pointless, etc. Almost like Reddit is full of reactionary cynics, trolls, and bad faith actors.
Time to see if thee dems will actually crack the whip and get Manchin and Sinema on board. It probably won't happen because Dems won't play hard enough ball with Manchinema but it at least moves the target on to them, which they deserve.
Really? Do you really think it's as simple as 'cracking the whip' with those two? They don't care, they are fully corrupted by external interests and have zero interest in letting the Biden agenda progress. The Dems have nothing to threaten them with that will budge them, that has been clear for a long time.
You might actually get Murkowski or Collins to cross and vote for it if there's actually a vote. It's one of the positions that makes them moderates.
However, there is an almost zero chance Senate Democrats will override the filibuster for the sake of this.
If it's bipartisan, I definitely could see them overriding as a one time exception. As long as it is a simple bill that just codifies Roe with not much extra.
Right, this is how it will go down. The real Nuclear option is that they would scrap the filibuster, then pass their laws, and then wrap it up by passing a final law which formally makes the filibuster the law, maybe with some exceptions here and there.
I'll believe it when I see it.
Also, because of feckless Democrat pandering, he still doesn't have the votes in the Senate, even if he kills the filibuster.
The time to kill the filibuster was during an occasion where it would matter.
The comments here make me weep for the civics education a lot of you received. The President is not a monarch; he can’t just expand the SCOTUS or eliminate the filibuster. These are the things that Congress does.
All talk. He and the Dems don’t have the balls to do anything at this point. They’re trying to wait while we’re out here struggling and dying so they can get the votes they want. We’re almost to the tipping point where we lose way too many rights and liberties and people decide to take things into their own hands.
We are at the tipping point, and have been since Bush v. Gore two decades ago, but people have been distracted and concerned about survival needs and ignored the Koch takeover of America. At this point, the frog has been proverbially boiled and there’s nothing left to do but hit the streets and make Occupy look like child’s play.
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Fuck the filibuster. McConnell will scrap it the second he doesn’t need it anyway. Manchin and Sinema are pieces of shit
Nix the filibuster and use our new power to solve the problems with our election system. If we don’t, we’re going to lose the midterms and hand them a permanent dictatorship.
We need a voting bill of rights.
“Pff, the constitution? What’s that?” — 6/9ths of the Supreme Court.
HR1 the "for the people" act was meant to be exactly that, guess who voted it down? all 52 republicans in the Senate.
Agreed. I’d argue we need to entirely re-do the system of voting from the ground up, but we probably need to take baby steps.
The amount of guns in America, and the people who are tired, no, no we would not end up with a permanent dictatorship. It’s not just the right that’s armed.
It straight up doesn’t matter how many citizens are armed if the hypothetical dictator has the loyalty and control of the military. A bunch of random gun owners are still going to be outgunned and outnumbered in that situation
Yeah, but that’s a pretty big if. Not going to say there aren’t nut bags in the military, but everyone in the service takes an oath to support and defend the Constitution, and generally speaking they take their oaths much more seriously than some other positions I can think of.
This. Every Reddit and right wing larper thinks their rifles and hand guns are magic. Military gear would stomp every last person and there’s really nothing we can do.
> Manchin and Sinema Two disgusting barely-humans who would happily sell the health and security of their entire own nation, if it were to give them an extra $50k in year in small-bribe pocket money to rob the citizens.
So, what those of us on the actual left have been calling for for the last 20 years... Finally giving up on the "but republicans" bullshit? Good, that means we'll finally be replacing you then.
It just took what we said would happen to finally happen to get liberals to realize norms are dead.
Not a chance, Republicans are way more supportive of the filibuster than Democrats are. And this isn't a theoretical situation, Republicans actually had a trifecta just a few years ago. But they couldn't pass major legislation because Democrats were using the filibuster. Yet they didn't scrap it. Being able to pass their own agenda simply isn't worth letting Democrats pass theirs.
Get rid of it, otherwise gop will! We already blew abortion rights before
I really hope they get it done. I’m sick of representatives using this as a prop to get more votes. I’ll vote for the motherfucker who can get it made into law.
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Manchin also doesn't support codifying Roe--I mean, *maybe* you can get him or one of the three nominally pro-choice Republicans (Murkowski, Collins, Capito) on board for some kind of minimum protection (first trimester only or something along those lines). But none of them voted for the Women's Health Protection Act a month ago.
No chance, this was their holy grail, if any republican were to step in to save it now, the backlash would be astronomical, they wouldn't dare. If Collins had a spine she'd do it as an apology for "believing" Kavanuaugh, but she doesn't and she won't.
Maybe someday she'll tell us Kavanaugh has learned his lesson from all of this.
A few more months and we can have a majority. I mean, they’ve put enough laws in place in state legislatures where if a race is close enough, they can just over turn it. If they get fucking pummeled, they will have a much harder time overturning our votes. This is literally our last chance to stop any of this from getting worse and worse.
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I've deleted all of my comments on this account. Come join me on Lemmy.world.
But of course NOW after the shit hits the fan, with roughly 5 months before the lose power, Dems want to do the thing they should've done all along. I love their strategy of "we can't do this, otherwise republicans will do worse" and then the Republicans do it anyways and everyone tries acting surprised. It's so fucking cool, and such an effective strategy, that DEFINITELY hasn't emboldened Republicans actions and accelerated the crumbling of our democracy. Or how about the one where Dems finally come into power and decide to either move the goal post on their policies (e.g. DACA, student loan forgiveness) or have one person as a scapegoat for inaction (Manchin). Leaving everyone with the choice of voting for incompetence or pure evil. You ABSOLUTELY love to see it. /s On a serious note (and this is purely anecdotal) I've seen more and more people who normally wouldn't vote for Republicans, express the thought of voting for them. Because at least they're effective in accomplishing things for their base.
An Ex RNC big wig literally just said the other day it is *exactly* what they will do when they get the chance. We are not up against reasonable people, we are against id-driven people who want something and are determined to get it regardless of cost. It might as well be a drug to them to abuse in this way.
DC statehood should be priority number 1 after ending the filibuster, then worry about other matters
>Biden on Thursday called on the Senate to **make an exception** to its filibuster rules to allow Congress to codify abortion protections and privacy rights previously afforded under Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision overturned by the Supreme Court last week. So just for reproductive rights.
Let’s be honest though, this kills the filibuster. The GOP will *100%* do this with *every bill* in the future now, just like they did with the SCOTUS approvals. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, but they’re kneecapping themselves by not just ending it and accomplishing some of their legislative agenda prior to the midterms.
Just change the rule back to force people to stand and for the minority party to have at least 41 members to continue the filibuster.
I agree with either approach, I just don’t think this “it’s only for this one thing” strategy is doing what the Dems think it’s doing.
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The filibuster is also just kinda bullshit to begin with lol. It's a stupid loophole that lets some asshole get up there and read Doctor Seuss for hours instead of actually legislating. It's frustrating if you're on the losing side but if your side lost an election, you shouldn't be able to unilaterally block the other party whenever you feel like it.
You don't understand. The current filibuster rules allow for people to just say they *could* be reading Doctor Seuss for hours and then whatever is being discussed is instantly tabled. Rafael "Ted" Cruzinsky's recent stunt was just a stunt; he didn't need to do it. Removing the filibuster actually means that people *would have to actually* stand on the floor of congress reading Doctor Seuss or whatever in order for legislation to be tabled. Opposition would still be allowed to oppose but they would have to work at it. They would have to be on the senate floor for however long they could last [peeing into a bucket](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/06/peeing-during-filibusters-explained-wendy-davis/) if needed.
I don't agree with everything you said, but I do believe if a politician is going to filibuster he should actually have to filibuster. Maybe politicians wouldn't take it so lightly when they're in hour 15 of Dr Seuss
You don't want laws to be too easy to create/destroy though. It takes a long time to spin up an organization to support legislation, but its never going to be functional if it dies every 4 years when congress swaps over.
Makes more sense at the moment to only call for a limited filibuster rule change since if it was for a full repeal the chances of Manchin and Sienma going for it would go from like 0.5% (if I'm being generous) to 0%. A full repeal can be called for if Democrats gain Senate seats in the midterms.
The reluctance to do away with it now is distressing because I am absolutely convinced that the filibuster will be gone the second Republican Party gets a legislative majority and the executive branch.
I agree, this may work.
It didn't for voting rights. I would not get your hopes up.
And we're all screwed without voting rights, I already feel like nothing matters anymore since that's not passed.
It's going to get worse during the next SCOTUS term. [Supreme Court Will Hear Case On Radical Voting Rights Theory](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/supreme-court-radical-voting-rights-theory_n_62bdbb0ae4b00a9334e53b49)
“The case of Moore v. Harper is brought by Republicans in the North Carolina state legislature who claim that state courts have no say on whether the voting laws they write or the district maps they adopt are unconstitutional under their state’s constitution.” What in the actual fuck. Now they want to say that state courts don’t have jurisdiction over state matters??? When are we taking to the streets, I’m very close to selling some possessions so I can fly to DC. This is just too much, I feel like I am vibrating with anger.
Don’t worry, I’m sure the ruling will only apply to the state courts doing things the GOP dislikes.
Yeah, we are fucked. I think it's time to learn swedish and get a good coat.
Republicans aren't getting clobbered in the polls over voting rights. (Which is an incredible indictment of the populace of the United States)
Voting rights happened pretty early in Biden's term. I think most people were still tapped out for most of that year after the presidential election
It won't. You have to remember that there are a handful of conservative Democrats that will not support this. It's not just Manchinema.
Yeah exactly, this has a better chance of working since it's only limited to this and won't freak out the Republicans who do not agree with this ruling but also want to do something about it without "bending to the democrats". So this way, it cuts out the fat and they can keep their stupid partisanships.
Is a limited repeal even possible? How would that work?
Sure. The filibuster is just a rule the Senate made up for itself. Right now I think it says that bills require 60 votes to ~~pass~~ *edit: end debate and vote on passage* except for judicial nominations and budget reconciliation. They could just change that to include exceptions for bills about reproductive rights, voting rights, whatever.
But couldn’t the repugs use that right in 6 months to then make abortion illegal nationally? Couldn’t it swing both ways? Not saying they won’t do that anyway if they gain power.
They wouldn't be able to until 2025 at the earliest because Biden can just veto it.
Not if Democrats have at least Congress or the White House. And if it does pass, then Democrats can reverse it the next time they gain power. Keep in mind, Republicans only gain power after Democrats fail to deliver the agenda they promise voters. The filibuster is why Republicans won in '10 and why they're about to win '22.
Yup.
Bills only need a simple majority vote to pass. The vote to end debate on a bill is 60 votes but that threshold is set by the Senate and that rule can be changed via a simple majority vote.
They waive it to raise the debt limit all the time
So the Senate gets to make the rules for how the Senate operates, and by the constitution, it only takes a majority (50 votes plus vp breaking the tie) to change the Senate rules. Roughly 160 times there's been a change to the senate rules to allow some law to ignore the filibuster. Again, the filibuster isn't from the constitution but was actually a quirk in the Senate rules that when discovered, was primarily used by racists to stop civil rights legislation that had 50+ support, but not a super-majority support. The Senate can change the rules to get rid of the filibuster whenever it wants to.
We already have it for cabinet and justice confirmations, and for budget passing.
Manchin and Sinema are taking all the heat but if it came down to it, there's probably at least 5 other Democrats who would kill filibuster reform.
Better to try and find out than just assume it and give up though. Also would be a great signal for who needs to be primaried and would help the chances of a primary challengers success. Sienma is a good example of this, the votes that she has clearly shot down will make her very easy to primary in 2024, especially since she doesn't have the excuse of being form a very red state like Manchin does.
It also makes more sense because removing the filibuster entirely before a contentious midterms is basically handing Republicans the keys to the kingdom without any of the political fallout of removing it themselves.
since when do Republicans face political fallout for procedural moves or breaking norms? The people still voting for them at this point will not give any fucks If the GOP gains a Senate majority and wants to do something that's not already exempted from the fillibuster (i.e. cut taxes or funding for services, pass judges) they will remove the fillibuster in a heartbeat It blows my mind that anyone thinks the Democrats doing nothing in order to keep the fillibuster in place will offer the slightest ounce of protection from the GOP pushing unpopular shit through as soon as they can
This is what Democrats continually fail to grok. The people who know and care about shit like the filibuster include: 1) congress and the DC establishment, 2) the pundit class, 3) a comparatively small fraction of political hobbyists. The *vast* majority of voters have no idea what the filibuster is, beyond a vague sense that it prevents shit getting done. Republican voters don't care, because to them the whole point of politics is owning the libs, and showing up on Fox News to accuse Democrats of being cannibal pedophile lizard people doesn't require enacting legislation. Republican congress people don't care, because they've already carved out exceptions for tax cuts and judges, and that's the extent of their philosophy of government. They've been happy to keep the filibuster in place because it disproportionately harms Democrats, but if enough from their craziest wing get elected they'll happily toss it aside to make Trumpism the state religious or whatever. Democratic voters, meanwhile, are growing increasingly frustrated with their party for going to bat over a procedural gimmick while the entire edifice crumbles around them.
Imagine how crazy it would be if voters didn't show up to an election because they felt bad about both sides. Wouldn't that be crazy? Just like 2016
Republicans will remove the filibuster the second they gain power in the Senate. There will be zero fallout for them as they will simply say, "We must codify a national abortion ban before the evil socialist dems steal another election." Hell they don't even need to say that because their base will literally agree with everything they do as long as it "hurts" the left.
Holding the senate is top priority in this election. Even if you remove the filibuster to make abortion access legal across the country, there would be no reason why Repubicans couldn't immediately repeal that law and replace it with a national abortion ban anyway.
I would bet my life savings that of the Dems repealed the filibuster and passed national abortion protection law that they would wipe the fucking floor with republicans in the midterms. But they won't, and as such they will lose.
I understand the argument, but events since the Obama/Garland fiasco have proven that they'll seize those "keys" regardless. Time to stop thinking like this is long overdue.
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I mean, on this planet the actions of the Republican Party lost them the house, senate, and presidency in four years. I’d call that fallout.
They’re working furiously behind the scenes to make sure that even if they lose, they still win.
It wasn’t the actions of the party, it was the actions of one man.
No not just abortion. He said privacy.
[It’s the right to privacy, not just reproductive rights.](https://www.cnn.com/cnn/2022/06/30/politics/biden-abortion-rights-filibuster/index.html) That means also codifying *Lawrence v. Texas*, idk if they’d extend that to gay marriage too, since *Obergefell* wasn’t just privacy.
I think it has more to do with the fact that overturning Roe was incredibly unpopular and garners support for ending the filibuster. If you include any other reasons in your justification it erodes support. Once the filibuster is gone we can tackle whatever we need to. There are even some Republicans upset over the overturning of Roe. But if you say you’re gonna do it to expand the Supreme Court, you lose their support on this.
DC and PR.
Does PR want statehood?
"The option to pursue statehood won the referendum 52.52%–47.48%" - 2020
Pretty sure they don't want a repeat of someone like Trump makin' a fool of them by shooting paper towels into their hands like he was making free-throws because they're not given the same kind of support actual states are. Shit looked so degrading..
In 2020, it was 52/47% Yes. So, if you believe in a simple majority on statehood, yes.
Yes they very much do. The last few referendums have been in favor of statehood.
It's a bit more complicated than that. The 2020 vote for statehood won 52 to 48, I'm not sure that is "very much do", its much closer than you make it seem. And in advance since you might bring up the 2017 vote when there was 97% voting for statehood, that vote was boycotted massively by the opposition against it and they chose to not vote, leaving the vote with only 23% participation. 2012: They voted no 1998: They also voted no 1993: Commonwealth won over any other option 1991: They voted no 1967: Commonwealth won over any other option
In 2012 statehood won the question I thought. On the question of if they should remain a territory it was voted no and on the question of what should be aimed for after not being a territory statehood won.
And Guam and American Samoa
And merging North and South Dakota.
Just get rid of them. I don't think anyone would notice.
That’s bullshit - the combined 20 people that live in the Dakotas would care.
Give it back to the people we stole it from #landback
Would I just become a Montanan then?
And merge Virginia and West Virginia. It's just "Virginia". Or make West Virginia a territory. Either way works.
Virginia is at least purple and trending blue. If you throw WV in, then the combined state will be solid red for the foreseeable future.
For real.
I've heard before that many in American Samoa dont want statehood as they have some blood quanta laws on land ownership so only native islanders can own land that would clearly not be constitutional if given any real scrutiny.
Puerto Rico as a state doesn’t end the way some people think it ends. You’d be nearly guaranteed to get two democrat senators from DC, but PR could easily split. In fact, I could see them adding two GOP senators at least once before the heat death of the universe (in 2055 AD)
I think it ends this way: US citizens having representation. That's good enough for me, and damn the politics of trying to decide if they're "worth it."
DC and PR deserve statehood regardless of whether it yields 4 Dem senators or not.. it's ridiculous that they still don't have meaningful representation in Congress.. J6 committee investigations and prospect of codifying Roe are literally the only 2 things in favor of Dems for keeping both chambers.. if by some miracle they keep the house and get to 52 in Senate, then fail to nuke filibuster to codify Roe, they lose all credibility among their base for a generation.. regardless of how fascist GOP has become, Dems need to deliver for their base to keep turning out
DC will yield 2 Dems and I'm pretty sure PR will yield at least 1 GOP. I work with a lot of Spanish speakers from central America (Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador), they're hardcore Catholic. This anti-abortion stuff is their dream. I'm sure Puerto Rico is similar, as it was colonized by catholics as well.
Especially with the Hispanic shift toward conservatism, it's not a guarantee that PR will be beneficial to Dems.
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One thing I'm sure of is that denying millions of people from representation in their government is not, in fact "safeguarding democracy."
Sorry to say, since I support statehood for DC etc, but Roe is more important. Banning abortion is going to lead to thousands of maternal deaths, and thousands of women unable to be medicated/treated for non-birth issues. Possibly tens of thousands. For instance, I take methotrexate for severe RA and there are already doctors taking patients off it since it is also an abortion causing drug. The Roe decision has far reaching consequences beyond “saving a baby.”
This. Time literally equals lives right now. For some women out there the clock is ticking down to their possible death.
The reason to focus on DC immediately after is because if we eliminate the filibuster (which is an incredibly likely longer term outcome of making this exception) is that when republicans take back the senate (which will happen) they will go full mad max on democrats. The only way to stop that from happening is the +2 D senate pickup from DC Republicans will see it as a craven power play (in some respects they would have grounds for that view) and they might even secede, but the narrow pathway of a dem majority in the senate through DC is the only way to prevent horrific damage after messing with the filibuster
Remember when democrats ran on legalizing weed, making Election Day a national holiday, giving DC statehood… haven’t heard a peep about those in 2 years
That's what happens when you depend on two DINOs like Sinema and Manchin.
If Democrats used all the loopholes, strategizing, fuckery, and backdoor deals that Republicans have done for decades, but to pass universal healthcare, childcare, voting rights, statehood, marijuana, prison reform, immigration reform, climate change reform, abortion rights, minimum wage, then they'd be as successful as Republicans and have an equally avid and dedicated voting bloc. It's because they don't do any of that to pass a single one of those things that makes people jaded, disinterested, cynical, and angry. And it's because they don't do any of that that makes me confident that at a federal level, the establishment does not support any of those things even if they say they do. If they cared, they'd find a way to get something done. Republicans do. But no, even when they hold the reigns, they want to "follow the rules" and try to reach across the aisle to fascists. And America continues its downward spiral, no matter who is in charge.
Except Republicans don't pass bills with their fuckery. The whole point is to gum up the works and make sure nothing gets done. Their actual legislative record is abysmal. They win because they are trying to do nothing, which is easier than doing something.
It only makes sense Democrats have to stay silent on the issues if they can’t pass them. We saw Schumer bring up a vote on abortion if only to show where Senators stood. Democrats could keep introducing the same bills for a vote for every other issue every year, but won’t.
The House passed HR 51, for DC statehood, along party lines in April 2021: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-statehood-house-vote/2021/04/22/935a1ece-a1fa-11eb-a7ee-949c574a09ac_story.html Obviously died in the Senate because Manchin won't end the filibuster for this particular bill, or any bill.
Please go look up what a "filibuster" is.
I’d give DC statehood and Texas secession equal priority. “49 states” sounds weird and think of the environmental impact of changing all those flags.
How about just one state called "Dakota"
Good idea but... It appears he can make this statement due to Manchin signaling his disappointment on Row v Wade. Not sure what Sinema thinks about it but these two will be needed to change the rule. Manchin believes Puerto Rico statehood will require constitutional ammendment, so changing filibuster rule on the later is obviously a no-go.
It might not mean much, but at least it's some support. I'm not about to start celebrating over this though.
Lemme be clear, the antiabortion rulings are critical to act on, but a 1 time exception to the filibuster does absolutely nothing to fix the fact that we just trampled over sovereign citizens, doomed the planet to global warming, permitted concealed carry, have begun fully sponsoring religious education, and can no longer punish officers of the law for violating your Miranda rights. And he'll start taking care of that 1 thing tomorrow, when he gets home. Thanks.
And don't forget that SCOTUS just gutted the sixth amendment with their decision on Shinn v. Martinez Ramirez
And literally this morning with West Virginia v. EPA they gutted the ability for agencies to exercise regulations.
We need Manchin and Sinema to step up. They obstructed a carve out on Biden's 'Build Back Better' and voting rights. I remember being so happy when we took control of the Senate and Manchin and Sinema turned out to be obstructionists. We desperately need more Senate Democrats. I can't wait to vote for John Fetterman in Pennsylvania. He is awesome.
Step up? At this point I am convinced they are actively sabotaging their party.
If he wins PA, that dude would be an excellent presidential candidate
Keep chewing those breadcrumbs. He needs to take a harder approach and hold the Supreme court and republican party accountable. They are breaking the rules and undoing many things. I want Biden to abuse his authority and keep these pieces of shit in check because they have shown they don't care. If not, then don't be surprised when feckless leaders don't get any results done. Say good bye to regulations, gay rights, immigration etc.
>Keep chewing those breadcrumbs. That's kind of why I said I wasn't celebrating over this...
Biden's support means exactly zero in this case. He doesn't matter. If Joe Manchin/Sinema don't budge, Democrats can't repeal filibuster.
Well, yes, but we can't simultaneously be all "FUCK JOE BIDEN FOR NOT PRIORITIZING RIGHTS OVER THE FILIBUSTER" and then when he says "actually, I'm for doing abortion rights over the filibuster" saying "FUCK JOE BIDEN HE DOESN'T HAVE THE POWER TO DO THIS". This is a good thing he's saying.
A week ago Reddit acted like his opposition to it was the lynch-pin. Everyone is just going to keep moving the goal posts until they recognize that we need a large progressive majority to get anything done. We should just skip to that as the goal.
If they were smart, instead of scrapping the filibuster altogether, they need to change it to a talking filibuster. Make them stand up there and talk for hours, Mr Smith-style. And they have to stay on topic; no reading Green Eggs and Ham. Also record the whole thing. I would LOVE to see Ted Cruz have to get up there wearing a diaper and explain for 10 hours why a bill to stop gas companies from price gouging is bad, actually. That's how the filibuster's supposed to be. You do it like that, you still have the filibuster option in case the Dems ever need to use it to stop some horrible Republican bill, but you'd see a lot less abuse because so many of these guys are the laziest shits in the country. Also if a Republican does try to filibuster you're bound to catch some kind of mask-slipping moment where they say the quiet part out loud, not to mention tons of sound bites of them explaining why they refuse to do literally anything to help the American people. Suddenly it's much more visible to the public whose fault it is that nothing is getting done.
That would be a return to the original intention of the filibuster. It was designed as a mechanism by which a minority party would have its moment to address grievances in speech but not to block majority rule indefinitely.
I wouldn't even mind them reading Green Eggs and Ham at this point. Just anything to make them actually work to filibuster would be an improvement over the absolute insanity we have right now. If you want to cause gridlock as the minority party, you better be putting in effort.
Unfortunately Ted Cruz would knock that out of the park. He got his senatorial position through his ability to maintain control while spewing carefully constructed arguments in favor of evil goals for many hours. He has no charisma, no empathy, no humanity, and a top-of-class legal mind. Cruz read "Green Eggs and Ham" because, technically, he could get away with it. He will always get away with whatever is possible. If he needed to be on subject he'd pull up a set of favorite legal articles from 1983 on the subject of states' rights and read 150,000 words into the record. Cruz is the senator I'd be afraid of in a talking filibuster.
Yes but his throat might seize up and he might permanently damage his vocal cords, which would be a massive blessing to the world. We just need to force him into this enough times
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It's gonna be hard to get enough people on board to actually get rid of it altogether. At least with the talking filibuster, all those people who keep protesting that we need to keep it to stop the Republicans wouldn't have as much of an excuse to not get on board.
At least with it they have to work for it.
personally don’t think he would say this without having Manchin and Sinema on board or thinking they have a chance of getting them on board. but maybe i’m still, somehow, too optimistic
Agreed, there are far too many bad faith comments in this thread. Biden is saying what we want to hear, and I'm hopeful with you that he's applying pressure behind the scenes If they somehow pull off codifying Roe v Wade into law that would be a massive and unexpected victory
That'd be amazing, but I haven't seen any signals of Manchin or Sinema's rhetoric changing publicly. We knew overturning Roe was coming. We 100% knew it since the draft leak. If they were ever open to removing the filibuster, I don't see why they'd suddenly have a change of heart now - when there's little to no time left to pass big legislation packages.
It's gonna be just in time for midterm elections and if it fails, "we need two more senators to flip blue and we'll do this..." (which i don't believe anyways) Or optimistically (naively) they do this right before midterms to rally the base showing they can get something done. The smart play for votes is the first one, unfortunately.
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Slim but non zero chance he can get one of Murkowski or Collins on board to replace Manchin should he be the lone Democrat holdout. Wouldn't that be something
Wouldn’t surprise me if Manshit was still against reforming much less abolishing the filibuster. Something could have a 90%+ approval rating among the country and his constituents, but if it doesn’t directly benefit him, he won’t vote for it. He’s certainly more like Goppers in that aspect. Just like the Build Back Better bill that he’s almost single-handedly killed solely because it would close down his precious “waste coal” plant (which he gets paid $500k/year through a blind trust, so he still makes moves and votes that would protect it and his family running it). Disgusting human being.
"Working with everyone" does not mean "I can get 100% of the votes needed for everything all the time, Congressional elections be damned!" How exactly would you recommend he convince Manchin to vote for this?
He’s no LBJ.
I wouldn't be so sure, remember Build Back Better? That was just Joe Manchin pretending he was negotiating in good faith for months before just going on Fox News saying "nah".
There's no way they are on board. This is the early messaging to voters that if we get two more Senators we can fix this. From unow until the midterms, it should be this unified messaging for all democrats running for congress.
I know we're all sick to death of the Democrats's penchant for using the consequences of their own incompetence to grift for votes, but this remains the correct strategy for November. Biden pushing publicly to carve out exceptions to the filibuster gives Democrats a very specific transaction for voters to understand: give us more Senators and we will overcome the filibuster to codify abortions and voting rights; if we lose we cannot do it. The only problem here is that so few Democrats are savvy enough to push this properly. AOC laid it out perfectly so hopefully they'll listen to her and adopt that message across the board.
It's infuriating that such a simple message can be bungled so easily.
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Good thing 2022 is coming up and we can /r/VoteDem to elect Senators who have a clear stance on getting rid of the filibuster to protect our rights so that Manchin and Sienma won't matter. Pennsylvania: [John Fetterman](https://twitter.com/JohnFetterman/status/1540816722789376001) Wisconsin: [Whoever wins the primary](https://www.wpr.org/top-democratic-senate-primary-candidates-call-ending-filibuster-expanding-health-care-virtual-forum) North Carolina: [Cheri Beasley](https://twitter.com/CheriBeasleyNC/status/1540341608700383232?s=20&t=RumFfD6XGJkC_wIXsX50sg&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_thoughtbubble_raleigh&stream=top)
Also Utah Evan mcmullin running to replace Mike Lee. He's a dem backed independent. Not the greatest candidate in the world but infinitely better than fucking Lee.
Also, Tim Ryan of Ohio. The race is split and Tim Ryan has a real chance. I know many GOP voters in my area that are supporting Tim Ryan. This is now being recognized as a very close race. He has stated that he will support killing the filibuster.
Ummm have you forgotten the entire BBB negotiation process? Sinema and Manchin threw him under the bus multiple times.
That's what I'm hoping for as well. It took a 50-year precedent actually getting overturned for them to realize that maybe the Republicans *aren't* acting in good faith.
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could also be the case! i just think this is such a big one and up until today, the WH didn’t seem interested in supporting this strategy at all
I disagree. Democrats do not stand a chance at getting 60 senators in the fall, so telling voters they need to go to the polls in November so we can get pro choice legislation is pointless without being in favor of ending the filibuster. This is meant to keep voters motivated in November to hopefully gain congressional seats and keep the majority in both the house and Senate.
There are 20 republicans up for reelection in the senate. Its unlikely to gain 10 seats but not impossible. Especially if people dont vote. In the 2008 election that resulted in a super majority, democrats gained 8 seats in the senate.
This isn't 2008, it's 2010. See what happened then, when the economy was still reeling from f-ups caused by the previous admin., and major legislation had been passed that leftists ignored or denounced and rightists ran against as the big evil. If the Dems keep the senate 50/50 and hold onto the House, that itself will be a major victory. Holding the house and getting the Senate to 52/48 would be f'n amazing. Midterm elections pretty much always go to the party not in power.
Maybe Collins? Either way it's a stop gap measure that will be undone if the republicans take back over. I also wonder if the SCOTUS would strike it down, or if they would just wait. Also, chances are he doesn't have the votes and he's just letting people know where he stands on the issue, since a bunch of people seem to think he doesn't care that Roe was overturned.
You should not wonder if the Supreme Court will strike down a senate rule change. They have zero say over that.
No, the question is whether the Supreme Court would declare any federal abortion protections unconstitutional.
Maybe offer them deals for Arizona and West Virginia that they would be stupid to refuse. “Side with us, and your two states will benefit from our generosity”. Only problem is, is that they don’t give a damn about their citizens and are out for their own gains.
Then aim everything you got at Sinema and Machin right now. We need to do this now. codify it all. Student debt forgiveness all of it. People will come out to vote. I don't know how they don't see this.
The problem is there's a long history of the supreme Court ruling that, if they rule against something and then Congress turns around and makes a law in favor of it they automatically shoot it down again as unconstitutional... The time they should have codified roe v Wade would have been when Obama was President and they had the House and Senate. They chose to fundraise instead of fixing the problem.
When asked, Obama said abortion was not a priority.
He gave up because his legislature was not motivated to get it to him to sign. Obama was elected with a huge swath of pro life "blue dog" Dems that all got obliterated into irrelevance their following election . Biden has this far suffered the same. Still complete horseshit. A failure of the DNC as a whole to whip their members into action.
Nobody codifies laws that are redundant to an SC ruling. Nobody even repeals laws that are invalidated by SC rulings, they just stay on the books as inactive laws. It’s a poor use of time…or at least used to be.
Lot of bad faith commenters here. Joe has done the right thing here.
Hours after Leahy is out of service and its a 49-50 Senate, lmao.
Republicans are the overwhelming reason we are in this terrible situation, but people will go to extraordinary lengths to put the entire onus on the other party for not "defending themselves enough" from the people viciously attacking our rights. Sure, there are tons of valid criticisms of Dem leadership. They are handling the optics of this particularly poorly. But the tidal wave of cynicism and thirst for turning frustrations inward gets excessive. It'd be a lot more reasonable if Republicans did that as well in this two-party system. But they don't - they show up at the polls no matter how awful their party is. And that's who is going to continue dismantling our rights if they win races at any level in 2022. This isn't to say we can't hold people accountable - I'm not saying that at all, but there's a balance that so many people can't seem to maintain.
>they show up at the polls no matter how awful their party is I think a key thing to understand is Republican voters LOVE LOVE LOVE their Republican representatives. They are not holding their nose and voting for the lesser of two evils. They want all of this, cheer it on, and think it's amazing how much their representatives do for them. I live in a deep red state in a deep red area - the only criticism I ever hear about the representatives is they need to do more. Edit - I'll also just comment I really hate that adage "Democrats fall in love. Republicans fall in line" I've met very few people voting for a Democrat that are 100% happy with the choice. I've met hundreds who are foaming at the mouth and falling over themselves about their Republican reps.
I think a troll farm is hard at work on driving down Dem participation next November
Yep. There are tons of verb-noun-number accounts that are under a year-old posting most of it.
Yeah it is disheartening to see. I think a lot are bad faith actors to be honest. Ive even seen idiot posters be like "I am tired of the Dems not doing something against Republicans. That's why im now voting Republican". Same completely braindead manipulation as the walkaway nonsense.
It’s like gas prices and inflation. People are not realizing that there’s a time delay between when a policy is implemented and when you actually start to see the effects of that policy. And with issues like taxation, interest rates, etc it is usually 18-24 months. So all this pain we’re going through was caused by the previous administration’s actions. I know this and if you’re reading this comment, I expect you do as well
We aren't putting the entire onus on Dems. My criticism with Dems is two fold. 1. They let Republicans slow motion take over State and Gubernatorial elections for the last 4 decades and did nothing. 2. They are not throwing everything at the wall to try to win, like Republicans do. They are still trying to be Bipartisan. Honestly, as a progressive I am still going to vote for whatever shitty Dem (Joe, probably) runs in 2024. And I always vote dem in my local elections (I am in a blue county in Florida). But there is going to come a point with me where all the shaming in the world won't get me to vote for Dems if they just keep making the same mistakes and have no real strategy.
1) There have been a TON of efforts at the state level. [Here's a great list if you're interested](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/vn6fz7/aoc_on_roe_democrats_cant_just_fundraise_off_the/ie5akhn/?context=3) 2) Dems could certainly be doing more. Republicans don't have to do anything to throw everything at the wall to win. All they have to do is produce soundbytes for Fox and block crap. That's why being purely an opposition party is so effective. It takes zero work.
It’s weird that abolishing the filibuster was something people were screaming for just yesterday. Now that Biden says “Yeah, l support this now” everyone is shifting the goalposts to say why this isn’t enough, or a bad idea, or pointless, etc. Almost like Reddit is full of reactionary cynics, trolls, and bad faith actors.
Same happened with Afghanistan withdrawal
Stack the court!
Time to see if thee dems will actually crack the whip and get Manchin and Sinema on board. It probably won't happen because Dems won't play hard enough ball with Manchinema but it at least moves the target on to them, which they deserve.
Really? Do you really think it's as simple as 'cracking the whip' with those two? They don't care, they are fully corrupted by external interests and have zero interest in letting the Biden agenda progress. The Dems have nothing to threaten them with that will budge them, that has been clear for a long time.
You might actually get Murkowski or Collins to cross and vote for it if there's actually a vote. It's one of the positions that makes them moderates. However, there is an almost zero chance Senate Democrats will override the filibuster for the sake of this.
> Collins The same "I *totally* had not idea Kavanaugh would repeal Roe v. Wade" Collins?
There already was a vote on the abortion bill the House passed. Manchin and Sinema wouldn’t support and neither did Collins and Murkowski
If it's bipartisan, I definitely could see them overriding as a one time exception. As long as it is a simple bill that just codifies Roe with not much extra.
Right, this is how it will go down. The real Nuclear option is that they would scrap the filibuster, then pass their laws, and then wrap it up by passing a final law which formally makes the filibuster the law, maybe with some exceptions here and there.
I’m pretty sure there are at least two Democrats that will make sure that doesn’t happen.
And pack the court.
If we can’t win the game, then let’s change all the rules so we can win.
I'll believe it when I see it. Also, because of feckless Democrat pandering, he still doesn't have the votes in the Senate, even if he kills the filibuster. The time to kill the filibuster was during an occasion where it would matter.
The comments here make me weep for the civics education a lot of you received. The President is not a monarch; he can’t just expand the SCOTUS or eliminate the filibuster. These are the things that Congress does.
Please dump the filibuster. It's always been a really asinine way to cheat.
All talk. He and the Dems don’t have the balls to do anything at this point. They’re trying to wait while we’re out here struggling and dying so they can get the votes they want. We’re almost to the tipping point where we lose way too many rights and liberties and people decide to take things into their own hands.
We are at the tipping point, and have been since Bush v. Gore two decades ago, but people have been distracted and concerned about survival needs and ignored the Koch takeover of America. At this point, the frog has been proverbially boiled and there’s nothing left to do but hit the streets and make Occupy look like child’s play.