So far it seems like they’re hearing you. You should be their coach.
And your comment about Republicans potentially killing health care and then blaming Democrats is spot on. You’ve heard this story before, eh?
It’s pretty much what they always do, just lie about what they really support. Take a look at how many Republicans voted against Biden’s infrastructure bills, but then turned around and bragged to the constituents about “All the funding” they brought home for bridges and the like.
This is exactly right.
The status quo is that the expanded ACA subsidies expire. Democrats do not accept this, and will not vote for it (well, except for Fetterman I guess). If the GOP wants to let them expire then they can do it themselves (as Trump so helpfully pointed out).
If the GOP wants Democratic cover, then they need to negotiate to get Democratic votes.
If they don’t want to negotiate for Democratic votes, then they have to change the rules to allow cloture with 50 votes for Continuing Resolutions (which, honestly, is probably the “right” procedure anyway).
There’s probably books worth of subject matter in the words “they’ve made”. How they make the exception is important.
I know the general framework, and can explain that. But it’s all weeds and I’m not familiar with all the weeds.
The general rule, and the rule that is in effect today, is it takes 3/5 (60 votes) on any bill in the Senate to end a filibuster. That has never changed, and it probably will never change.
There are three ways to get around that standing rule:
- Exception (a real way): It takes 60 votes to end debate, except on Budget Reconciliation bills. Back in 1974, Congress passed a bill (that required 60 votes to end filibuster) and that bill said future budget recon bills only needed 50+ pass to end debate, not 60. So it takes an Act of Congress to get an exception. War Powers Act, Emergency Acts, etc all had in the actual bill language that created an exception that would not require 60 votes to do things that bore out of that specific act.
- Change the Rules (a real way): It takes 67 votes to change the Senate rules. So if you wanted to change the rules to lower cloture from the main rule of 3/5 (60 votes) to end a filibuster, you need 67 votes to make that rule change.
- Change the Precedent (a dumb way): It takes 50+ votes to change the precedent (ie, the nuclear option; kind of made up - the Senate gets to interpret it’s own rules). The effect is similar to changing the rules. Here, basically, the Senate just says “you know that rule that says it requires 3/5 majority to end a filibuster, what that actually means is only 50+ votes”. The rule does not change, but the meaning does. This route is less stable than the previous two. If you try to do it and say “you know that rule that says you need 3/5 votes to end a filibuster, what that actually means is only need 50+ votes to end a continuing resolution but still 60 on all the rest” - it would work in that instant, but you’ve created a binding precent now and it almost certainly mean you can end debate with 50+ votes on bills. Because it’s silly - there’s nothing confusing about it. Clearly these things require 60 votes (the rules still says “requires 60 votes” clear as day). No more institutional minority leverage; no more compromise.
It’s much more complicated than that, but those are 3 basic parts. So unless you invoke the nuclear option which is pretty much made up, it will always take 60 votes to create an exception or 67 votes to change the rules.
Paul Krugman explains the situation well today in his Substack.
TL;DR (but it’s really not long at all):
It was always in the OBBBA (a.k.a. Project 2025) for food stamps and health care to crater for poor Americans. But that wasn’t supposed to happen until the end of 2026 because “by the time Americans woke up to what was happening, the G.O.P. would have effectively consolidated one-party rule, making future elections irrelevant.”
The Republicans could fix this food stamp crisis right now by releasing emergency funds. "But there’s a further problem. Passing either a SNAP bill or a revised budget would require calling the House of Representatives back into session, which would in turn make it impossible for Mike Johnson, the speaker, to keep stalling the swearing-in of Adelita Grijalva, who won a special election more than 5 weeks ago. And here’s the thing: Once sworn in, Grijalva would provide the decisive signature to trigger a vote in the House to release the Epstein files.
That is the pathetic bottom line of this Rube Goldberg machine. It does make you wonder what is in the Epstein files about Donnie.
Both parties have used small tactical nukes on judicial and SCOTUS appointments and other appointments, and just recently (2022?) to increase the borrowing limit. They use the dumb way all the time.
ETA: A federal judge is telling the government to continue with SNAP payments, so that’s one problem solved. Hey, look, it turns out they didn’t have to threaten poor and middle class food security!
Yes and no. The changing precedent way (nuclear option, mini-nuke) has been used before. But only on how nominations get appointed, and only since 2013. 3 times total*. It’s never been used to pass actual legislation.
The exception part, to get around the standing rule of requiring 60 votes to end debate, has been used on legislation lots of times going back a much longer time. But that’s fine because it’s an act of Congress and passed in the normal way. It was never intended to only take 50 votes to end debate unless it’s done in a normal way - that’s why I call it the dumb way because it’s clear as day and they just do it anyways.
For the debt limit, it still requires 60 votes, unless there is an exception in existing legislation (an act of congress). If they ever pass a debt limit that only requires 50+ votes, what they do is pass a different bill first (that different bill still requires 60 votes because all new bills unless specifically excepted in previous legislation require 60). That different bill gives them an exception to increasing this one time debt limit by requiring only 50. Make sense? ha. Anyways, it’s slightly different and not the nuclear option way to get around the Standing Rules.
I think I’m right, but I’m certainly open to correction. Remember, it’s all weeds.
*really 2; one time was just changing how many hours debate would last. The other two we all know about.
It used to be 2/3rds majority. To be more precise, it was first 2/3rds of senators present and voting, then 2/3rds to senators duly chosen and sworn, then back to 2/3rds present and voting. Then the cloture rule was changed to 3/5th of senators duly chosen and sworn in 1975, which made it easier to gum up the works - with a “present and voting” threshhold, the minority would need to keep enough senators around to continue to vote down cloture motions, instead of just a very few.
One of the issues of this particular shutdown is that the Democratic proposal to continue ACA subsidies includes a clause to disallow recission of those funds. Recission bills, per the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, require only a legislative majority to pass through the Senate. The Democrats, quite sensibly, believe that without this clause the Republicans would simply remove the ACA subsidies via another recission bill before the ink was dry on the president’s signature on the “clean” CR.
But I note that it is a Republican priority to make the things they want to do (cutting social programs and public-goods funding) easy (i.e. not subject to the filibuster) while keeping things Democrats want to do (expanding those programs and the taxes needed to fund them) difficult.
Considering how desperate Mike Johnson is looking in his public appearances, I wonder if there’s something in the files about Mike Johnson.
Thanks.
and just to fit that in the 3 basic part framework:
Change the rules:67 votes were required to change the senate rules from 2/3 to 3/5 etc.
exception: that 1974 act required 60 votes to pass (end filibuster) to allow future simple majorities to reconcile bills.
More like he’s worried that Trump’s people will leak his Grindr account.
Trump posted this at Truth Social yesterday. Peak gaslighting.
Considering that the Epstein connection is bad enough to get Prince Andrew kicked out of the Royal family, it must be pretty damaging.
This has Trumps ‘Art of the Deal’ fingerprints all over it. Though it’s more than just fingerprints.
I had not considered that, but good point.
Trump’s “art” was always just being willing to walk away if he didn’t get everything he wanted. That works in business if you’re big enough, because there’s always another company you can go to for another deal.
But this falls apart in politics. There isn’t another party to deal with if he doesn’t like what the Democrats are offering. So when he walks away, he does it empty handed.
That is one bit of brilliant demagoguery. No sign of mental decline there. And it does answer the thread title question.
Charles has certainly ramped up the punishments for Andrew. Having dinner with Trump will do that to ya! (Joke, but it does seem to follow on the heels of the big event, in which Charles probably thought, during the dinner party: “egads, this fool might not be here if Andrew had testified in 2022!”) I think the FBI wanted to speak with Andrew at some point, didn’t they? ( FBI under Biden) Of course, he was able to avoid this, plus his mom paid off the settlement, and that was that. This is just gossipy, but still….gossip has its purposes, it can be true.
No, it is the real reason why the GOP is not giving in- they finally have a chance to kill “Obamacare”, despite the fact it is quite popular with the voters- even GOP voters.
They can edit those files to show whatever they want now.
Senator Elissa Slotkin explains the government shutdown and the GOP using healthcare and now SNAP benefits (which have contingency funding that Congress could continue to fund the program even if the continuing resolution remains stalled):
Stranger