I like the idea of a talking filibuster or something of that sort. It should take some work to filibuster things so everything doesn't automatically get filibustered.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/07/joe-manchin-filibuster-senate-474197 Notable quotes... “The filibuster should be painful, it really should be painful and we've made it more comfortable over the years,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.” “Maybe it has to be more painful.” “If you want to make it a little bit more painful, make him stand there and talk,” Manchin said. “I'm willing to look at any way we can, but I'm not willing to take away the involvement of the minority.” However, Manchin did not rule out using the budget reconciliation process to pass a voting rights bill with a simple majority, keeping the door open to a potential workaround for Democrats to push through a voting overhaul while preserving the filibuster. The House on Wednesday narrowly passed a sweeping package of election-related reforms, a proposal they've given the symbolically important designation of H.R. 1. “I'm not willing to go into reconciliation until we at least get bipartisanship or get working together or allow the Senate to do its job,” Manchin said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I'm not going to go there until my Republican friends have the ability to have their say also.”
This would essentially nuke the filibuster while theoretically leaving it in place. For something like a voting rights bill that is a top priority, Dems could just wait days or weeks or whatever it takes if they really wanted to pass it. Implementing the so-called “talking filibuster” appeared to strike a cord with Brian Fallon, executive director the the group Demand Justice and a onetime spokesperson for now-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who tweeted that it had the potential to be the “ultimate solution here.” “It preserves some ability for the minority to slow a bill as long as they physically hold the floor, but then allows an up-or-down vote once they give up. This is the Jimmy Stewart model,” he wrote, a reference to the 1939 movie “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”
But then isn't it just for political theater? You can't possibly talk forever... or am I miss something.
I don’t see how the voting rights bill could even be passed using reconciliation it doesn’t have anything to do with the budget or taxes.
Agreed - Manchin didn't seem to explain how that would even possible. Maybe you do something ridiculous like fund voting rights initiatives or pull funds from states that don't? I have no clue and it doesn't seem particularly likely if a minimum wage increase couldn't get through.
Essentially yeah. The filibuster could be a tool used to bring attention to specific controversial issues instead of requiring 60 votes for everything. I guess how Wendy Davis made a big deal of the abortion bill in Texas just to bring attention to it? I'd be curious how the filibuster worked back in the day and if it still was able to stop legislation or just slow it. A more powerful version (that gives the minority more strength) could be something like you need 40 Senators each speak for 4 hours to sustain a filibuster. In this scenario, you test the commitment of each person filibustering, and put the workload on the minority party - but also retain their ability to kill a bill. So they could filibuster key things like voting rights, but they couldn't stop smaller bills without a hell of a lot of work.
50 people in rotation could talk whenever the senate is in session, or rather, whenever the bill being filibustered is on the active track.
I'm all for the bringing back the talking filibuster and am with Manchin on this. The filibuster should be protected as a tool for the minority but it shouldn't be something that just needs to be invoked without actually doing anything.
What if the filibuster required situps? That would automatically make it more rare and also make fitness a more central quality in the primaries.
There needs to be some politicians that have the courage and work bipartisan to fix the gerrymandering problem.
Yeah I think they call it the Jimmy Stewart filibuster because it’s the type of filibuster that only allows you to hold up a bill being passed if you are willing to hold court essentially with 49+ senators in audience and actually speak. Then after you speak the vote continues instead of someone like Ted Cruz while in Cancun on Zoom to a Senate chamber with nobody in it can just say “I object” to anything and immediately kill the bill. I am perfectly fine giving the minority the chance to delay for a couple days to make their case against a bill they think is bad for the country, but the heavy lifting should be in being able to kill a bill and the a bill should only be killed after sunlight is brought to it and public sentiment makes the difference on unpopular bills. Glad to see Manchin is finally coming around to some practical sense reforms. I fully expect the Republicans to totally do away with the filibuster the next time they have the White House and Congress. They are ones who changed the rules to get partisan judges confirmed mind you that. The Democrats cannot be fools here and Manchin needs to understand that people in West Virginia don’t give a crap about the filibuster but they will care if nothing is done in DC the next 2 years.
That is not correct. The Democrats changed the rules to get judges and cabinet appointments confirmed because they did not put forward anyone that Republicans in the Senate would approve. The Republicans expanded that change to include Supreme Court Justices in addition to the District Court and Appeals Court Judges the Democrats changed the rules for.
The GOP was refusing to even give the judges a hearing and was again acting in bad faith. Otherwise, you are correct.
