Why limit the discussion to bills? Do you think that the obstructionism that has crippled the judicial system due to an inability to get any judges confirmed is a good thing?
Again, this is false. There’s no magic level of importance that forces people to put partisanship and fundraising and other issues aside. And in general most people don’t subscribe to the theory of very limited government that you’re advocating here. That goes for both sides- people are not electing representatives in the hope they won’t do anything.
And as a proponent of limited government, I’m sure Debaser would agree that every single bill that passed with 60 or more votes was truly “really important.”
Good point. I’m thinking of actual legislation. I don’t approve of the judicial appointments being blocked. Obama won. Elections have consequences. He should be able to appoint those.
However, I do think that Republicans voting against judges with whom they have policy differences is reasonable in certain circumstances.
For example, no SCOTUS appointment who disagrees with Heller should be voted through, IMHO. It should be a basic principle that you can’t be a good SCOTUS judge if you disagree with part of the bill of rights.
But seven bills did get passed. That indicates it is possible.
Sure they do. Not everyone, but the extremely low opinion that the public has for Congress surely isn’t a vote of confidence in the things that they do.
I would argue that many people actually do vote for representatives for what they won’t do as much as what they want them to do. That’s why negative ads work so well. “Vote for me, because if you don’t this guy will win and LOOK AT WHAT TERRIBLE THINGS HE WANTS TO DO!”
I never said that. But I am saying if something was truly important it would get the votes.
The seven things that passed do look mostly harmless at least.
Maybe the confidence is so low because they’ve passed almost nothing? Seems to me that if they’re not going to do anything, we shouldn’t be paying them for it.
And your view is that those are obviously the seven most important and best bills? I’d say there are six that are just uncontroversial and another (the funding bill) that was almost gun-to-our-heads.
It mostly reflects their inability to do jack shit, including pass bills that are necessary and which people support.
The question is, how many things could have gotten 50 votes but not 60, and what good or harm would they have done?
In particular, I’ll second what Fiveyearlurker said. Obama has nominated a number of people for executive, judicial, and regulatory appointments, and hasn’t been able to get votes on them - hell, have blocked their nominations from even coming to the floor for debate.
Since you’re a constitutionalist, doesn’t it seem to you that the Republicans in the Senate are deliberately blocking the Senate from fulfilling its Constitutional responsibility of advice and consent? That’s sure how it looks to me. I would argue that the absolute minimum that would satisfy that obligation is for the Senate to actually debate the nominations, whether or not the debate concludes in an up-or-down vote.
Do you go so far as to say that Ginsburg and Breyer should be removed, based on the fact that they dissented?
ETA: For me, I’m comfortable asserting that you can’t be a good SCOTUS justice if a Republican nominated you.
ETATA: 
For the first two years of Obama’s term there wasn’t gridlock. Public opinion of congress was still low then I believe.
No. I was just asked that and I’ve explicitly answered that I don’t think the seven passed are the most important. But I do think that the fact that there were seven to pass means it is possible for something to pass. So it something is that important it would be possible to pass it.
The funding bill is the obvious example of this. Something had to be passed so they did it.
People keep talking about these mystical bills that people support. Give me some examples. The obvious one is the recent gun control attempt. But that didn’t fail because of gridlock. That failed because of ideological opposition.
I posted the cite that there are literally thousands of laws sitting out there. Which ones, specifically can we not live without? Which of those thousands are the people clamoring to support?
Yes, a small minority of bills have passed. Other bills, as well as judicial and other executive appointments, are being filibustered.
The funding bill is literally the only example of this, and it was part of a debt fight that lasted a couple of years.
It failed because a 54-vote majority isn’t sufficient to pass things in the Senate. I failed to see how that’s unrelated to gridlock.
What’s your basis for the assertion that those bills would do more harm than good? And even if they would do more harm than good, why does that mean they should be blocked instead of debated and voted down?
The onus for that should be on all of you. I’m saying my opinion is that the bad laws congress would pass outweigh the good ones. You want evidence of a bad law and I’ll give you the recent attempt at gun control. That’s generally what the government seems to be best at: Curtail our rights, raise our taxes and increase spending.
If you think there are lots of laws that would be great if only they could get an up or down vote I’d love to see a list.
I’ve conceded this point. Unless someone shows up to actually defend it continuing to bring it up is sort of pointless.
Agreed. That’s basically what I’ve already stated.
I actually struggle with this, myself.
I hate the idea of a SCOTUS judge who would vote in favor of requiring background checks for all gun sales or reducing magazine capacity. But I understand that those are interpretations of the Second Amendment and can be debated. Sort of like the first amendment allowing restrictions for safety (fire in a theater) or copyright laws.
But I see the judges that Liberals appoint as not just wanting to regulate guns more than I would like, but rather being completely opposed to the second amendment. I mean, Heller wasn’t about regulation of guns. It was about whether we have an individual right to them at all.
This is unprecedented. It’s as if Republicans were sending judges to the SCOTUS who disagreed there should be any Fifth Amendment rights at all. Not just disagreeing with Miranda, but disagreeing with the entire concept of self incrimination and due process.
If you are that out of sync with the basic American freedoms as laid out in the Bill of Rights you shouldn’t be in the SCOTUS. I certainly think the Republicans should have voted against confirming these people, but I might even go farther and suggest throwing them out. (I know, it’s not possible.)
True. It failed to pass because of the 60 votes being required rather than 50. I see your point. My meaning was that it wasn’t republican obstructionism in the sense of “vote against everything” just for the sake of it. The Senators really didn’t think they could vote for the bill and go home to face their gun owning constituents.
But this example helps to prove my point. This is a law that I didn’t want to pass, like most laws. Why shouldn’t I celebrate a system that makes it harder for it to pass?
Why would I think otherwise? Put yourself in my shoes. I want the government smaller than it is. I want less taxes and less regulation. Do you seriously want me to think that is the direction those 2,600 proposed laws go in?
By “blocked” you mean failing to get 60 votes vs “voted down” meaning failure to get 50 votes? If so, I’m fine with whatever legal process can be used to make it harder to pass laws. There’s a reason it’s hard to pass an amendment for instance. I’m glad it hard to do. I’d hate for there to be a new constitutional amendment on abortion every time the Congress changed hands for instance.
Yeah, doing a background check to keep guns out of the hands of nutcases and felons, that’s ‘curtailing our rights.’
Personally, I think that would have been a great law, except it left out private transactions.
There are three inalienable rights listed in the Declaration of Independence, and some nut with a gun can take away any or all of them from people arbitrarily. You don’t care about the extensive ability of private actors to curtail my rights, but if the government guarantees and strengthens my rights by slightly restricting someone else’s, you’re at least figuratively up in arms.
A strange way of looking at the world.
It’s even stranger than that; there is no right to buy a gun without a background check. Most purchases already require a check, so this is settled law, and his objection has nothing to do with second amendment rights. It is pure partisanship, and knee jerk defense of everything the NRA says.
That’s true. But if you’re acknowledging that the Republicans do basically have a “vote against everything” strategy, I think that says enough about the problem here.
Because it’ll make it harder for the laws you do like to pass.
That’s the opposite of an answer. Not that I really think you can back up that kind of enormous generalization with facts, but come on.
I mean the thread topic, which is that overuse of the filibuster effectively means you need 60 votes to pass a law/appoint a cabinet member/name a judge instead of 50.
Likewise. But laws are held to a lower standard because we do need to pass those. It’s now difficult to even staff federal departments or get judges on the bench. And I realize you probably don’t think those departments should exist in the first place, but I’d suggest that be accomplished by passing laws instead of not letting the president name a full-time head of an agency Congress has already approved.
Do we really need another gun control thread?
For purposes of this thread, let’s just see if you can process the following:
- I believe that the proposed law would have curtailed my second amendment rights.
- It’s fine you disagree with that, but accept it as fact that is what I think.
- Given this, why shouldn’t I be happy to see that it failed to meet the sixty vote threshold which is how our current system works.
I don’t think the 30-hours of post cloture debate is that bad actually, it’s a good chance for minority viewpoints to still find an outlet and I’m okay with that.
But as a Republican I tend to think that the filibuster needs to go. In all reality I’m not even sold on a bicameral legislative system, or if we’re going to have one the Senate should be a more limited body like the upper house in Westminster systems. Maybe let them delay legislation but not be required as participants in it, or remodel it so they can only deal with legislation that affects boundaries of State/Federal issues like the German upper house.
The filibuster is one of those things we eventually need a party in majority to just destroy forever, but none has had the balls yet.
Normally the House/Senate run based on rules they develop for themselves, but I’ve wondered if they can also be regulated by ordinary statute. If one party controlled the House/Senate/White House could they force through a statute that prohibits filibustering entirely, under penalty of criminal charges (fines/arrest for the Senator who doesn’t shut up)? Or would that violate the constitutional language about Congress being allowed to set its rules of behavior for itself?