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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAnyone watch Lawrence O'Donnell tonight? Need someone to Summarize Brilliant Filibuster Solution
Norm Ornstein guested on the show and he offered a most brilliant solution to the Manchin/Filibuster problem.
I worry any attempt on my part to paraphrase or summarize Ornstein's suggestion how to fix the filibuster short of doing away with it would not do it justice.
I'll give it a try at short summary.
Essentially the idea is to "fix" the filibuster by changing the rules, so that responsibility lies squarely in the laps of the Republicans to actually be the ones on the floor of the Senate doing the speaking, reading or whatever for as long as Grassley Portman McConnell et al can handle it. In other words, they have to be doing the actual filibustering on the floor in person.
Much more, but I don't have the transcript, and I didn't take notes and my memory isn't what it once was.
I think it was helpful, doable, and a solution that could appeal to Manchin. And we need to appeal to Manchin. unfortunately.
Republicans are chomping on the bit for Manchin to defect, and they're waiting to embrace with open arms.
We have to appeal to Manchin, we've got no choice if we want to keep status quo until 2022. I had hoped we'd have to defectors from the Republican party, like Lisa for instance but that ain't happening.
Miguelito Loveless
(4,465 posts)without actual, you know, filibustering.
Joinfortmill
(14,417 posts)qazplm135
(7,447 posts)the whole point is to keep him from having to take tough votes. The status quo suits him just fine.
Need to elect more Dems to render him moot.
Sogo
(4,986 posts)msfiddlestix
(7,281 posts)thank you.
Sogo
(4,986 posts)I just thought it was interesting that we both are excited about what we saw on Lawrence's show and yet can't quite explain it!! (Those Senate rules are so damn complex!)
msfiddlestix
(7,281 posts)And this bit from someone I haven't agreed with over the years, I think he's with the AEI and I have a loathing for that institute.
I was only apologizing for duplicating and missing your post, probably because I too was excited and felt like there was a tool that solve the issue, albeit imperfectly.
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)the Senate floor and try to talk the bill to death, I believe after that it was a simple majority vote. I could be wrong.
msfiddlestix
(7,281 posts)bdamomma
(63,845 posts)Last edited Fri Mar 5, 2021, 06:34 PM - Edit history (1)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/03/02/manchin-filibuster-never-sinema/oops sorry, weird I didn't have any trouble is it because I have that thingy which allows certain sites but blocks others?
msfiddlestix
(7,281 posts)But if someone else does it would be worth the reading important excerpts.
Celerity
(43,333 posts)Instead of naming and shaming them, Democrats might consider looking at what Manchin and Sinema like about the filibuster. Sinema recently said, Retaining the legislative filibuster is not meant to impede the things we want to get done. Rather, its meant to protect what the Senate was designed to be. I believe the Senate has a responsibility to put politics aside and fully consider, debate, and reach compromise on legislative issues that will affect all Americans. Last year, Manchin said, The minority should Instead of naming and shaming them, Democrats might consider looking at what Manchin and Sinema like about the filibuster. Sinema recently said, Retaining the legislative filibuster is not meant to impede the things we want to get done. Rather, its meant to protect what the Senate was designed to be. I believe the Senate has a responsibility to put politics aside and fully consider, debate, and reach compromise on legislative issues that will affect all Americans. Last year, Manchin said, The minority should have input thats the whole purpose for the Senate. If you basically do away with the filibuster altogether for legislation, you wont have the Senate. Youre a glorified House. And I will not do that. If you take their views at face value, the goal is to preserve some rights for the Senate minority, with the aim of fostering compromise. The key, then, is to find ways not to eliminate the filibuster on legislation but to reform it to fit that vision. Here are some options:
Make the minority do the work.
Currently, it takes 60 senators to reach cloture to end debate and move to a vote on final passage of a bill. The burden is on the majority, a consequence of filibuster reform in 1975, which moved the standard from two-thirds of senators present and voting to three-fifths of the entire Senate. Before that change, if the Senate went around-the-clock, filibustering senators would have to be present in force. If, for example, only 75 senators showed up for a cloture vote, 50 of them could invoke cloture and move to a final vote. After the reform, only a few senators in the minority needed to be present to a request for unanimous consent and to keep the majority from closing debate by forcing a quorum call. The around-the-clock approach riveted the public, putting a genuine spotlight on the issues. Without it, the minoritys delaying tactics go largely unnoticed, with little or no penalty for obstruction, and no requirement actually to debate the issue. One way to restore the filibusters original intent would be requiring at least two-fifths of the full Senate, or 40 senators, to keep debating instead requiring 60 to end debate. The burden would fall to the minority, whod have to be prepared for several votes, potentially over several days and nights, including weekends and all-night sessions, and if only once they couldnt muster 40 the equivalent of cloture debate would end, making way for a vote on final passage of the bill in question.
Go back to the present and voting standard.
A shift to three-fifths of the Senate present and voting would similarly require the minority to keep most of its members around the Senate when in session. If, for example, the issue in question were voting rights, a Senate deliberating on the floor, 24 hours a day for several days, would put a sharp spotlight on the issue, forcing Republicans to publicly justify opposition to legislation aimed at protecting the voting rights of minorities. Weekend Senate sessions would cause Republicans up for reelection in 2022 to remain in Washington instead of freeing them to go home to campaign. In a three-fifths present and voting scenario, if only 80 senators showed up, only 48 votes would be needed to get to cloture. Add to that a requirement that at all times, a member of the minority party would have to be on the floor, actually debating, and the burden would be even greater, while delivering what Manchin and Sinema say they want more debate.
Narrow the supermajority requirement.
Another option would be to follow in the direction of the 1975 reform, which reduced two-thirds (67 out of a full 100) to three-fifths (60 out of 100), and further reduce the threshold to 55 senators still a supermajority requirement, but a slimmer one. Democrats might have some ability to get five Republicans to support their desired outcomes on issues such as voting rights, universal background checks for gun purchases or a path to citizenship for Dreamers. A reduction to 55, if coupled with a present-and-voting standard would establish even more balance between majority and minority. In a 50-50 Senate, and with the GOP strategy clearly being united opposition to almost all Democratic priorities, Biden and Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) need the support of Manchin and Sinema on a daily basis. They wont be persuaded by pressure campaigns from progressive groups or from members of Congress. But they might consider reforms that weaken the power of filibusters and give Democrats more leverage to enact their policies, without pursuing the dead end of abolishing the rule altogether.
jmbar2
(4,874 posts)It's not really about the filibuster as we think of it...someone droning on interminably about something.
It's about cloture votes.
A cloture vote is needed to close discussion of a piece of legislation in order to bring it to a vote. In the past, it required a majority of people to actually be present in the room to vote on it.
That was changed in recent decades so that they don't actually have to be present to have the vote. Ornstein is saying that if returned to requiring physical presence to vote, the Republicans would have to attend the full debate, then publicly vote yea or nay to close discussion.
Dems could get more folks to stick around in person for the cloture and subsequent votes on their legislation. Republicans hellbent on obstruction would be less motivated if they had to sit through an all night discussion, then publicly vote against popular legislation.
At least that's how I understood it.
msfiddlestix
(7,281 posts)thank you for bringing that up and reminding me.
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,853 posts)How things got changed so that they don't need to actually filibuster is what I don't understand.
msfiddlestix
(7,281 posts)Would that be so hard to do, must we have to research every moment of every maneuver throughout the past two decades?
brooklynite
(94,517 posts)Last edited Fri Mar 5, 2021, 08:38 AM - Edit history (1)
The rules are set, by majority vote, at the beginning of the term (at the time, under Republican control). They include a provision that subsequent changes to the rules require a 2/3 vote. That's why it took so long for the transition to Democratic control: Schumer and McConnell had to work out a deal that Republicans would vote for as well.
msfiddlestix
(7,281 posts)He's credited for knowing every nook and cranny of Senate rules and processes over a span of decades.
So I can go to bed tonight after I flush the bit of hope for a viable solution down the crapper and get it through it my head that we're fucked. We may as well forget about any passage of anything meaningful at least until 2022. Which is just another date for hopeful outcome.
Thanks for the correction. good night to you too.
brooklynite
(94,517 posts)standing rules is always debatable and requires one days written notice. If a unanimous consent request for the immediate consideration of a resolution amending the standing rules is objected to, the resolution goes over, under the rule and is placed in a
parliamentary status from which it is difficult to retrieve. Although agreeing to a rules change resolution requires only a majority vote, invoking cloture on such a resolution (which is fully debatable and subject to amendment) requires a vote of two-thirds of Senators present and voting, with a quorum present67 if all Senators vote. It appears the same cloture threshold would likely apply to the motion to proceed to such a resolution. Direct amendments to the standing rules are also occasionally made by statute.
msfiddlestix
(7,281 posts)Let there be no divergence.
brooklynite
(94,517 posts)msfiddlestix
(7,281 posts)I'm just a lowly senior watching our democracy withering in a slow and painful death.
And reading and hearing a million and one reasons why it's the best we can do.
drray23
(7,627 posts)Along other variations That are suppositely more palatable to the conservative democrats.
As a matter of fact, the fillibuster was modified several times over the course of decades until it got completely neutered by just requiring the fillibusterers to say the want to do it and thats it.
msfiddlestix
(7,281 posts)Not my intention to frame it that way.