That flies against the self-interest of many federal legislators. Many are in office because of gerrymandering. So it will never be a bi-partisan fix.
Biden is for "talking" version. Mitch McConnel went crazies yesterday, saying do it and watch me defund planned parenthood, pass anti-abortion legislation and create national concealed carry gun laws. Funny. This to me is more reason to do it. Yes, changes to filibuster would allow more things to happen, both popular and unpopular things. But there has been a trend - Dem likes to do popular things while Rep likes to do unpopular things. Rep gets away with it because they continue to win elections and they continue to win elections because it's not a level playing field. All the new attempts at voter suppressions and their outright statement that if more people vote, we will lose is a fine example of their strategy. By not killing the 60-vote margin, the Dem will lose power for a long time while exactly allowing the status quo or allowing Rep to continue to do unpopular things, such as defund planned parenthood, anti-abortion nationally, national concealed carry gun laws. By killing this 60-vote margin so Dem can pass HR1 and other legislation to level the playing field more, the party that does more popular things is more likely to win election than the party that does more unpopular things. Call Mitch's bluff.
I want them to do the talking filibuster for the very least to please Manchin, but at the same time, I would like them to take up Stacey Abrams offer and remove the filibuster for voting rights act, I'm hoping Manchin would be willing to do so for that.
I'm reforming the filibuster and bringing back the talking filibuster. The origins of the filibuster was from the Roman Senate of a senator holding the floor by continuing to talk. That said Republicans haven't been able to defund Planned Parenthood, outlaw abortion, or put in national concealed gun laws even though they've held the majority most the last two decades partly because of the filibuster.
I don't have any evidence to prove this, but I wonder if part of the reason for the Republicans maintaining their majority is that they've never been able to pass the really crazy **** that they've supported (outlawing abortion, putting guns in schools, eliminating whole branches of the government). If voters actually believed there was a chance of these things happening, would they be so willing to tolerate the GOP's stone-age stance on social issues just to get a tax cut? Maybe they would at first, but as all the problems accompanying GOP craziness accumulated, we might see voters wake up to the true price of "conservatism." Somewhat related, a political blogger I follow suggested allowing GOP-led states to opt out of nearly every federal program/spending that they decry as "socialism", and then watch how quickly their voters change their tune as many of the red states devolve into third world nightmares without the federal spending they currently rely upon. The blogger believes this would change things much more quickly that the piecemeal bits of progress the Democrats are able to pass while in power. In either case, I'm somewhat on the fence because while I do believe minds would change more quickly, the casualties (particularly poor children) would be pretty bad. I'm not sure I'd be willing to sacrifice 8-12 years of the economically disadvantaged, even for such a potential political victory. Furthermore, it's also possible that red states will do just enough to prevent complete collapse and thus will maintain their power. Progress is never easy, damn it.
I understand that's a real concern. Those are all unpopular things. If the playing field is fair, they should pay a price for it. At a philosophical level, Rep, in general, prefers slow less risky changes while Dem prefers faster, higher-risk changes. The 60-vote margin filibuster is an advantage to the Rep for this reason. The 60-vote margin is like a heavy blanket of regulation on the government itself from doing anything. The world is operating at hyper-speed compared the past century. You've seen a thread on how China is beating the crap out of us, and a reason for that is they can do whatever they want in an instant while we argue back and forth and move at a snail speed, if at all. The only time we move fast (and that's still snail speed) is we are in an emergency (see Covid). In this new world, I think we need to take more risks, do things faster and adapt fast. We will make mistakes. We will allow unpopular things to get through. But we can also change and correct those things faster. We will be able to have a more responsive and functional government. And if we can level the playing field away from cheaters (voter suppression), which we can only start to do by getting rid of the 60-vote margin, the reactions (votes) to good and bad laws will be also more responsive. There would be less of "government can't do sh*t" and more of, that's a bad idea, that's a good idea. Take Obamacare as an example - good and bad in many ways and yet, it grew in popularity to the point where Republicans not only no longer dare to oppose some aspect of it, but openly say they now support the very popular aspect of it. And now there's demand for M4A or Obamacare with a public option, both of which wouldn't likely be on the table if there was no Obamacare. Takes Covid reliefs, it took an emergency, and the people now see Government is a necessary part of solving problems - instead of what Regan claimed: gov isn't the solution, it's the problem. You need a faster gov to show progress and for people to again believe in gov and hopefully the votes will reflect those that have good ideas vs those that get in the way of progress.
The structure of the Constitution is meant to slow things down and the truth the US government isn't meant to move fast. The Founders idea was that in the event of major crisis, such as war, the government would be able to act quickly. There is a fair argument that times are very different now and that we need things to move quicker. At the same time though as much as from the Democratic side can complain that more hasn't been done the truth is for most of the last 20 years the Republicans are the ones who have controlled all three parts of elected government. If we look at the bills that came out of the House when Republicans controlled it a lot of those are things that most Democrats wouldn't approve of. Regarding the PRC yes they are eating our lunch as far as infrastructure goes. Yes that is made easier because there really isn't opposition within the PRC government. That has a high costs though in terms of rights and I doubt we would be willing to trade top notch infrastructure for denial of individual rights and re-education camps for troublesome minorities. Also our governing system is capable of building state of the art infrastructure, we've done it before. As much as many of us want to see government get more done I'm not sure everyone agrees on what that is. Both major parties have been in minorities and history has shown anytime one party believes they have a permanent majority they are usually find themselves in the minority within a few years. One other factor like we've seen with the attempts to repeal the ACA if one party can get a lot passed on narrow partisan votes the next Congress might be tied up not in new legislation but just in trying to get previous legislation repealed.
I would definitely opt out of all federal government services if I got to opt out of Federal Income Tax at the same time.
Would you opt out of FAA air traffic control? Turn down US State Dept. services if you have a problem while travelling? Got in trouble while boating turn down the Coast Guard?
The filibuster doesn't exist in the Constitution though - there's nothing particularly historical about it. The slow pace of the Senate is a modern thing - really starting in the 20th century. In fact, several founding fathers hated the idea of supermajorities being required for most things (learned this in Wikipedia just now). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_in_the_United_States_Senate Commentaries in The Federalist Papers confirm this understanding. In Federalist No. 58, the Constitution's primary drafter James Madison defended the document against routine super-majority requirements, either for a quorum or a "decision": In Federalist No. 22, Alexander Hamilton described super-majority requirements as being one of the main problems with the previous Articles of Confederation, and identified several evils which would result from such a requirement: "To give a minority a negative upon the majority (which is always the case where more than a majority is requisite to a decision), is, in its tendency, to subject the sense of the greater number to that of the lesser. ... The necessity of unanimity in public bodies, or of something approaching towards it, has been founded upon a supposition that it would contribute to security. But its real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice, or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junto, to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority.
I think this would be a bad option, personally - basically, Dems would be saying "we're leaving the filibuster in place, except when its really important." The Dems would pass voting rights and nothing else. The GOP would blow a hole right through that and just use it at will whenever they have power. Or the Dems would just later say "well, also this other bill. and that bill." and on and on. If anything, I'd reverse it and get rid of the filibuster for all the little things that prevent just about anything from passing so the Senate can move faster (this might be less controversial). Leave it in place if you have to for the big stuff. (this is assuming the talking filibuster doesn't go forward) And then instead of passing one massive voting rights bill, pass 25 smaller ones.
Yes. Yes I would. I would rather buy travel insurance, hire guards when boating in international waters (whenever that is going to come up) and let ATC be privatized (likely running more efficiently and cheaper). On a day to day basis, I have essentially zero interaction with the federal government (other than their spying on me) and for that I get to pay them more than a a quarter of my paycheck every two weeks. Pass.
True it doesn't exist in the Constitution and some of the Founders were against the supermajorities but neither do most of the Cabinet positions. The Constitution specifically leaves it to the Senate to establish it's rules and many of the Founders were part of the Senate that allowed the issue of "previous question" to happen leading to the filibuster. Further while Hamilton and Madison expressed reservations regarding super majorities as noted in your link they did write into the Constitution several instances where super majorities were needed so they were aware of it. Hamilton and Madison also emphasized repeatedly how important it was to protect minority viewpoints and that the Senate was meant to slow things down. As the story goes some of the Founders cited it as "the saucer to cool the hot tea of the House".
Do you really think hiring private guards would have the ability to rescue people from a sinking ship in a hurricane? Also given the interconnectedness and complexity of air traffic control while privately run might be cheaper how would that be more efficient or better without national control?
I assume you live off the grid in middle of nowhere with no electricity or water and don't use any services like the internet or roads?
