Why the Filibuster Suits the GOP Just Fine

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

Tweet text:
Adam Jentleson 🎈
@AJentleson
This is such an important piece by @SamWangPhD and @ari_gold_helz. Are there risks to eliminating the filibuster? Of course. But by its nature, and due to recent partisan sorting, it is a tool that systematically benefits Republicans far more than Dems.

Why the Filibuster Suits the GOP Just Fine
Because neither party can reliably elect enough senators to overcome a filibuster, modern American politics is trapped. We figured out just how trapped.
theatlantic.com
7:22 PM · May 1, 2021

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/zone-legislative-death/618754/



In the Senate today, a simple majority isn’t enough to pass a bill: 60 out of 100 votes are necessary to break a so-called filibuster by invoking “cloture” to end debate. Routine use of the filibuster is a modern and accelerating phenomenon. Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who regards the filibuster as a permanent fixture worthy of protection, has seen the cloture rule invoked 1,050 times since he took office in 2011. Before that, the preceding 1,050 cloture motions took more than 30 years to accumulate. In the filibuster’s first 50 years, starting in 1917, cloture was invoked an average of less than once a year.

Because neither party can reliably elect enough senators to overcome a filibuster, modern American politics is trapped in a Zone of Legislative Death: more than 50 seats, enough to select a majority leader; fewer than 60 seats, not enough to pass legislation. This zone is extremely difficult to escape. We calculated just how difficult.

Senators are elected by popular vote, meaning we can determine how many voters each major party represents. We added up the votes cast in the most recent election of all 100 senators. The result is a national popular vote, spread over several years. In the current Senate, whose members were elected in 2016, 2018, and 2020, the 50 Democratic-caucusing senators, including independents Bernie Sanders and Angus King, received 52.4 percent of the vote, while the 50 Republican senators received 47.6 percent.

What share of the vote would either party have needed to reach a filibuster-proof 60 seats? By shifting the vote in each of the 100 elections by the same number of percentage points until Democrats or Republicans were ahead in 60 races, we found that Democrats would have needed to win 55.8 percent of the national vote. Republicans would have needed to win only 50.2 percent of the vote to escape the zone—barely a popular majority at all.

*snip*

[dsc]

1. This is what I have been trying to say for a long time

but it is much better written.

[moose65]

2. Yep

Democrats don’t really get to use the filibuster much, because Republicans don’t give a shit about passing legislation that helps average Americans. I mean, during Trump’s entire Presidency, there was really only one piece of major legislation- the massive tax cuts for the wealthy. And because that was a budget bill, it was exempt from the filibuster rules.

Republicans have now become a one-trick pony. All they do is block and obstruct. They have absolutely nothing to offer to most Americans.