The filibuster is a mechanism that forces the body to build stronger consensus around some issues than others. Mechanisms like this exist in a lot of governing bodies (not just legislatures.) When there were significant disadvantages to using it this wasn't as big a deal, but now it's being used against effectively everything.
No, it's a mechanism that always forces you to build a 60 vote concensus in a body that, supposedly, requires only a 50 vote one.
The problem Astaereth is that the minority party doesn't lose any capital filibustering damn near everything they don't like. They can just merely threatened to veto something and that results in the Senate working on things that are being threatened with a filibuster. So at the end of the day, no one can pull up of the voting record of Bigot B. Bitch of Alabama and say "See this asshole voted against every piece of legislation regarding X and now he's trying to claim he's for X." See the current set up gives the bigots a means of denying what they are, they never have try to explain why they voted against something because it never came up to vote and they can always have their peers in the safest seats threaten to do the filibuster.
I'd be less perturbed if they had to actually had to do a debate instead of using the threat of filibuster to stifle it. Sit their and argue why they are opposed to bill X instead of reading names from a phone book. Yes, that would mean holding up other matters but then their would be an actual risk, forcing both parties to make damn sure they pick the right thing to filibuster.
The problem Astaereth is that the minority party doesn't lose any capital filibustering damn near everything they don't like. They can just merely threatened to veto something and that results in the Senate working on things that are being threatened with a filibuster. So at the end of the day, no one can pull up of the voting record of Bigot B. Bitch of Alabama and say "See this asshole voted against every piece of legislation regarding X and now he's trying to claim he's for X." See the current set up gives the bigots a means of denying what they are, they never have try to explain why they voted against something because it never came up to vote and they can always have their peers in the safest seats threaten to do the filibuster.
I'd be less perturbed if they had to actually had to do a debate instead of using the threat of filibuster to stifle it. Sit their and argue why they are opposed to bill X instead of reading names from a phone book. Yes, that would mean holding up other matters but then their would be an actual risk, forcing both parties to make damn sure they pick the right thing to filibuster.
What a coincidence, that's exactly what I've been arguing this whole time.
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our circumstances are vastly different from theirs, our legislative process probably should be as well
and it actually is in a variety of ways! if the senate existed "as the founders intended," probably nary a bill would ever escape the chamber.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
No, it's a mechanism that always forces you to build a 60 vote concensus in a body that, supposedly, requires only a 50 vote one.
I'd be less perturbed if they had to actually had to do a debate instead of using the threat of filibuster to stifle it. Sit their and argue why they are opposed to bill X instead of reading names from a phone book. Yes, that would mean holding up other matters but then their would be an actual risk, forcing both parties to make damn sure they pick the right thing to filibuster.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
What a coincidence, that's exactly what I've been arguing this whole time.