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Congress, But Not The Fun Kind
AManFromEarth
Let's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered User regular
Let's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered User regular
So, Congress...
The United State Federal legislature consists of a House of Representatives, where each state is represented in proportion to its population and each overseas territory plus the District of Columbia have one representative a piece in an observer status, and the Senate, where each state is represented by two Senators who are elected on one of three six year cycles. The Constitutional duties of each house can be found in the Article One.
Currently, the 112th Congress is "working" toward supporting the military in Afghanistan, balancing the Federal Budget, providing healthcare reform, and circlejerking on the electoral muffin.
The Senate is owned, just barely, by the Democrats. The House, quite substantially, is owned by the Republicans. Historically, Americans like divided government, Ronald Reagan dealt with a Democrat controlled House and he's widely regarded as likeable.
If you don't already know (and shame on you), you can use these links to find our Congresscritters and discover what shenanigans they're getting up to in your name:
http://www.senate.gov/
http://www.house.gov/
Current Leaders and Persons of Interest!
Joe Biden (D) The Vice President (nominal head of the Senate, but only acts when there's a 50/50 split)
Harry Reid (D-NV) Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell (R-KY) Senate Minority Leader
John Kerry (D-MA) Chairman of Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
John McCain (R-AZ) Sad Grandpa, Ranking Member of Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
John Boehner (R-OH) Speaker of the House
Eric Cantor (R-VA) House Majority Leader
Paul Ryan (R-WI) Chair of Budget Committee and author of what I'll call the "Fuck the Poor" Budget
Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) House Minority Leader
There are others, but I'm tired, so let's move on.
Currently, public opinion of Congress is polling below communism and just above pedophiles and breaking even with Jim Belushi. Gridlock has become brinksmanship while bipartisanship and compromised were smothered in their cradles by the rise of the far right and the massive polarization of American politics over the last thirty years (thank you, Barry Goldwater and the Southern Strategy). We shuffle from shutdown to shutdown, from manufactured crisis to manufactured crisis as the Republican party looks for any opportunity to win elections and the Democrats scrambling to return fire while actually governing the country takes a back seat.
This has led to an increase in Presidential power, which I would argue is a dangerous precedent.
But what can be done?
Things this Thread is For:
Substantive discussion of the problems/issues of the US Congress
Real, doable ideas to solve these problems
Cheap jokes
Honest discourse, neither party is perfect here even though the Republicans are the biggest part of the problem.
Note: Getting rid of the Federal System already has several threads, it's not going to happen anytime soon in Real Life, so let's try to stick to things that could actually be done.
The United State Federal legislature consists of a House of Representatives, where each state is represented in proportion to its population and each overseas territory plus the District of Columbia have one representative a piece in an observer status, and the Senate, where each state is represented by two Senators who are elected on one of three six year cycles. The Constitutional duties of each house can be found in the Article One.
Currently, the 112th Congress is "working" toward supporting the military in Afghanistan, balancing the Federal Budget, providing healthcare reform, and circlejerking on the electoral muffin.
The Senate is owned, just barely, by the Democrats. The House, quite substantially, is owned by the Republicans. Historically, Americans like divided government, Ronald Reagan dealt with a Democrat controlled House and he's widely regarded as likeable.
If you don't already know (and shame on you), you can use these links to find our Congresscritters and discover what shenanigans they're getting up to in your name:
http://www.senate.gov/
http://www.house.gov/
Current Leaders and Persons of Interest!
Joe Biden (D) The Vice President (nominal head of the Senate, but only acts when there's a 50/50 split)
Harry Reid (D-NV) Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell (R-KY) Senate Minority Leader
John Kerry (D-MA) Chairman of Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
John McCain (R-AZ) Sad Grandpa, Ranking Member of Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
John Boehner (R-OH) Speaker of the House
Eric Cantor (R-VA) House Majority Leader
Paul Ryan (R-WI) Chair of Budget Committee and author of what I'll call the "Fuck the Poor" Budget
Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) House Minority Leader
There are others, but I'm tired, so let's move on.
Currently, public opinion of Congress is polling below communism and just above pedophiles and breaking even with Jim Belushi. Gridlock has become brinksmanship while bipartisanship and compromised were smothered in their cradles by the rise of the far right and the massive polarization of American politics over the last thirty years (thank you, Barry Goldwater and the Southern Strategy). We shuffle from shutdown to shutdown, from manufactured crisis to manufactured crisis as the Republican party looks for any opportunity to win elections and the Democrats scrambling to return fire while actually governing the country takes a back seat.
This has led to an increase in Presidential power, which I would argue is a dangerous precedent.
But what can be done?
Things this Thread is For:
Substantive discussion of the problems/issues of the US Congress
Real, doable ideas to solve these problems
Cheap jokes
Honest discourse, neither party is perfect here even though the Republicans are the biggest part of the problem.
Note: Getting rid of the Federal System already has several threads, it's not going to happen anytime soon in Real Life, so let's try to stick to things that could actually be done.
AManFromEarth on
0
Posts
You are completely correct. I remember writing "WI" and thinking, no, that's Wyoming because I am a moron.
It's fixed now.
Vote at the beginning of the term
They picked Reid because he promised to give certain influential senators positions they wanted/Senate democratic delegation is way more centrist than the House
Assuming the Republicans are going to take the Senate (even with Snowe gone this seems likely), is the liberal wing still going to get its hate on for the filibuster? Because traditionally thee expressions of hate are only reserved for members of the majority party, while the minority defends it as a critical weapon to drive consensus and prevent steamrolling by the majority.
Reids leader more or less solely because of seniority
I would.
I would, but both D and R Congresses seem to prefer deferring this responsibility to the Executive.
So the (most?) corrupt Senator elevated himself to the highest position in the Senate by bribing other Senators? Nice.
There is room for improvement. It doesn't need to be entirely axed, but I don't think it'd be unreasonable to strike or alter whatever language it is that allowed the GOP to effectively wield it simply by hinting that they might maybe kinda think of doing it.
Does having to work in shifts talking for a week straight seem asanine and childish? Sure, but either it gets people talking about the issue or having to admit they're just wasting time reading off pages of the phone book. Allowing it to be equally powerful without actually having to do anything but coyly nod at the page the rules are on and winking before heading off to a two week lunch isn't terribly helpful.
Oh Christ, Harry Reid wouldn't even make to the top 50 in a corrupt-athon. Ted Stevens and Robert Byrd would be well up there. But I think beating a fellow Senator with a cane to defend slavery makes you the winner in perpetuity. Seniority had a lot to do with it.
As for Congress:
Depends on who wins the White House. :P
More seriously, so that it doesn't look like a power grab, let's just sunset the damn thing, which is what should have been done when this first came up and the Gang of 14 united to preserve their own power. Fairest version would be six years so every Senator is up for re-election.
But Congress hasn't technically been on recess since January of 2011, which has kept Obama from wielding the power of recess appointments while t he Democrats have stonewalled an imperial shit ton of nominees. It's supposed to be checks and balances, not dicks and dicklances.
Pretty sure both those guys are dead. Guess I should have stated "sitting Senator" but I thought it implied.
Not that it stopped him from making recess appointments anyway. That ought to be a fun court case or three.
I think the Republicans shot themselves in the foot because they said "We'll show him who's on recess and who isn't, right after we all return from recess!"
Though to be honest, I'm not really bothered by this one. If the Democrats had stonewalled Bush nominees for literally no reason, I'd want him to do the same thing. I'm hoping that if court cases do come out of this, that it'll force Congress to look at pro forma and how it's used.
We'll notice that they're also running pro forma sessions this week, the traditional Easter recess.