apparently last night Ben Sasse read the entirety of a 5,000 word speech Joe Biden gave in 2005 defending the filibuster: https://news.yahoo.com/sasse-reads-biden-2005-filibuster-172911476.html here's Biden's original speech: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4954070/user-clip-biden-defending-filibuster
Remember when the right said you can't appoint a judge in the last year when a Dem wast president and then proceeded to rush a judge through in like a month when a Repub was in the last year of presidency? Good times. For some Reason™, I can't remember you posting hypocritical speeches about the judge situation(correct if wrong), if hypocrisy is a noteworthy thing for you. Decorum and accountability are dead, one party can't play with the power set on 2 while the other plays on 10.
2005 is very different from 2021. Insurrection to overturn an election happen. That failed. So now what. Next step is for the GOP to legalize methods to overturning election result. Voting right act gutted and now Ga and many other Republican state legislator is going full out anti-democratic, full on voter suppression and if that doesn’t work, take over the process to overturn results. Legalize stealing and overturning election. This level of fk democracy didn’t happen in 2005. 2021 is very different from 2005. HR1 must be passed to protect democracy and I’m sure people who like democracy wouldn’t care that Biden flip away from his speech in 2005 to pass HR1. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/georgia-election-bills-targeting-local-election-officials
You left out the most important difference. In 2005, the Republicans held the Senate, and the filibuster was an important tool for Democrats to stop Republicans from passing legislation with zero Democratic Support. Now, the Democrats hold the Senate (or rather, the Democrats hold the Vice Presidency in an evenly divided Senate) so they don't want a lack of Republican Support to stand in they way of passing important legislation.
You don't have to worry. If the fillibuster is removed than HR1 can pass with a simple majority and we won't have GOP controlled Senate anymore. So no need to sweat it. This is something I absolutely give no flying fu k if it isn't principled. People's basic voting rights are being suppressed. That's far more important than some Senate rule that has nothing to do with the Constitution. This country is run by the minority. Hence why even when the GOP controls the House, more people cumulatively vote for Democrat representives than Republican ones. Thanks gerrymandering. It's time to end this bullshit and if it's at the expense of a senate rule used constantly in bad faith, yippee ki yay mother ****er.
Congressional power changes many times over the last 100 years. Filibuster has been abused and was a pain for progress. But it stays intact. Why now? How many times was there an insurrection to overturn an election? And right after it failed, how many times Republican state legislators follow up with full-out anti-democratic, full-on voter suppression, instituting law to take over the process to overturn results they don't like? That's what is the most important and most relevant to why now filibuster must change. To protect democracy. Obama should have done away with it when GOP was clear that they don't care about America but just to win.
Protect Constitutional voting rights or a Senate rule that has no Constitutional basis that is routinely used in bad faith? Tough choice.
This is pretty much the way of both parties as Republicans in control did away with the filibuster on USSC appointments and talked about doing away with the filibuster in general also. Remember Trump just a few months ago was saying that it shouldn't take 60 votes to pass things. Both parties have engaged in short sighted thinking that has come back to haunt them. This is why my own view is that we shouldn't do away with it but it should be a talking filibuster. If Cruz, McConnell, and Graham are going to oppose everything they should be willing to hold the floor to do that.
I'm pretty sure that's the compromise Biden is willing to do and I'm down for that as it creates a much bigger obstacle to obstruct. Voting rights legislation is the biggest priority in my opinion now and if demographic shifts are allowed to effect federal elections rather than the GOP gerrymandering and surpressing their way to mitigate these demographic shifts, then the GOP doesn't have much of a future unless they drastically change their rhetoric.
Yes, that was my point. It isn't that the Democrats hate the filibuster and have been trying to get rid of it for decades and the Republicans love it. Outside of a few individuals who lean one way or the other on it, the vast majority of the time you will see the party in power complaining about it and the minority party supporting it. On the one hand, I like the talking filibuster because it takes up that amount of time in the Senate where nothing else can get done, and stopping the government from legislating is nearly invariably a good thing. On the other hand, I don't like the talking filibuster requirement, because it is just meaningless theater. It would be like requiring anyone who wants to invoke a filibuster to wear a purple cape and turn in a circle three times. What is the point. To me, the ideal would be a silent filibuster, wherein a Senator would claim the floor and nothing happens until said Senator indicates that he is returning the floor to the chair. Now that would be some gridlock.
The Biden admin is radical left, but the same as Trump policy-wise. Biden's a rabid dog ... but also very sleepy and mentally feeble Grasping for straws, all ado about nothing.
A perfect post, considering the topic. Well done! We're fans of West Wing, especially of the first four seasons, and watched it every week while it was playing. "President Bartlet" was an interesting character, played brilliantly by Martin Sheen. The show was criticized by some liberals, and admired by some conservatives, quite an accomplishment. ;-)
we own the full run on dvd and have probably watched the entire thing straight through a dozen times. my wife is a huge fan, I enjoy it as well. a little corny at times, a bit of a fantasy on Sorkin's part, but fun to watch
I thought they should have had the Republicans win the second election. They even wrote the show to require a deus ex machina for the Republican candidate to lose, but then threw in the deus ex machina to make it happen. I would have liked to have seen what the writers could do with Alda and Richardson and Root as the incoming administration, even if for only that half a season following the election.
Much of what happens on the floor of the Senate is theater and the art of theater and rhetoric are related. The original concept of the filibuster from the Roman Senate and was a Senator holding the floor by speaking to stall votes. As others have noted while the filibuster wasn't in the Constitution or in the first US Senate the change to cloture made it possible but that change was only due to a Senator not yielding. Given all of the stunts that Senators have done such as bringing toy guns and snowballs to the floor of the Senate I don't see anything wrong with the theater of a talking filibuster especially given that it is what the filibuster was.
