CDZ The "nuclear" option

[usmbguest5318]

Say what you want about the senatorial filibuster, but the fact of the matter is that it's being incrementally discarded in effect brings the U.S. government closer to being, in effect, a parliamentary system. One may like that, for there are pros to that form of legislative structure. Like it or not, however, in a two party environment the more parliamentary the legislature, the more monarchical is the whole government when one party controls the WH and Congress, and it lays the foundation for "packing" the Court. It also makes the minority politically impotent.

 

[TNHarley]

I don't like it, honestly. Too bad both sides care more about politics than the Country.

 

[william the wie]

I disagree with the OP's implicit assumption that federal and non-federal parliamentary can be lumped together. Australia has been thrashing for years because they like premierships but national elections can only be won by "presidential" candidates. Germany does function relatively well and Canada oscillates back and forth.

 

[task0778]

The wingnuts in both parties have taken over too much control, if a politician doesn't accede to their dictates he/she finds themselves losing in the next primary. At least sometimes. Maybe what we need is a coalition of moderates from both parties that work together to arrive at solutions that most of us can live with. Maybe that isn't realistic but we gotta do something cuz we got major problems that are getting worse as time passes.

 

[oldsoul]

The wingnuts in both parties have taken over too much control, if a politician doesn't accede to their dictates he/she finds themselves losing in the next primary. At least sometimes. Maybe what we need is a coalition of moderates from both parties that work together to arrive at solutions that most of us can live with. Maybe that isn't realistic but we gotta do something cuz we got major problems that are getting worse as time passes.

Let me start by saying I did not vote for President Trump. Now, to your point, I wonder if the recent election of Mr. Trump is an early, albeit possibly misguided, attempt to do just that. Take control back from the "political class" and place it where it belongs, "We the people..." As I remember that was a big "selling point" in Trump's campaign....

 

[usmbguest5318]

OT:
??? What does any of this live you've started, task0778, have to do with the erosion of congressional legislating and evolving closer to parliamentary legislating? I understand what you wrote and its implications, but I don't see any correlation between his/her topic and the thread theme, aside perhaps from a vague allusion to a viable three (or more) party model.

("Perhaps" because he didn't write enough for any reader to be certain just what more complete body of thoughts he had in mind....I'm not chiding you, task0778, I'm merely noting that not having known you intimately for a score or more years, as I have my close friends, I can't know what you may have had in mind given the complexity and scope of the thread topic.)

The wingnuts in both parties have taken over too much control, if a politician doesn't accede to their dictates he/she finds themselves losing in the next primary. At least sometimes. Maybe what we need is a coalition of moderates from both parties that work together to arrive at solutions that most of us can live with. Maybe that isn't realistic but we gotta do something cuz we got major problems that are getting worse as time passes.

Let me start by saying I did not vote for President Trump. Now, to your point, I wonder if the recent election of Mr. Trump is an early, albeit possibly misguided, attempt to do just that. Take control back from the "political class" and place it where it belongs, "We the people..." As I remember that was a big "selling point" in Trump's campaign....

The wingnuts in both parties have taken over too much control...Maybe what we need is a coalition of moderates from both parties that work together to arrive at solutions that most of us can live with.

I wonder if the recent election of Mr. Trump is an early, albeit possibly misguided, attempt to do just that.

How could it be? In what substantial way? Trump and his cabal are among the "wing nuts," and he's done little to unify moderates behind him. At best, he's relied on nothing other than an arbitrary taxonomic correlation as the basis for his imprimatur.

Take control back from the "political class" and place it where it belongs, "We the people..."

What? The "political class" is nothing other than people who run for and hold elected or appointed political office.

What? "The people?" Who do you think "the people" are and when did whomever those people be ever, as a class, hold the reigns of power in the U.S? Did anyone who matters ever think "the people," as a universal body of citizens, ever should control political decision making? I dare say, "No." Certainly the founders didn't think that, not even of the whole of the non-slave population.

Roger Sherman of Connecticut in 1787 remarked that a scattered population could never be informed of the character and capability of the leading candidates. In one dimension, that is no different today; most voters have never met and do not know well anyone who runs for or becomes president. Many also have no personal relationship with their Congresspersons and Senators. The same dissociation simply didn't exist among the leaders and qualified voters of the 18th and 19th centuries. Leaders lived and worked among the people whom the led. The world was a "smaller" place.

Today, our population isn't scattered geographically as Mr. Sherman meant, but there is another context in which Sherman's notion rings true even now. Ironically, the population is predominantly scatterbrained, not in the sense of being plumb moronic, but in the sense of being willfully ignorant about much that, in our vastly more complicated world with its accompanying larger body of knowledge than was available in Sherman's day, one must not be uninformed to make optimal decisions.

That wouldn't be problematic but for the fact those very same ill informed people are given to having and airing whatever opinions they have on the matters of which they are thus largely ignorant, and they are given to vociferously attempting to refute and reject conclusions drawn by people who are very well informed. It's fine to be ignorant on something, but if one is, then chill let the folks who are well informed do their jobs and make decisions on one's behalf. Or, get very well informed and, then, contribute substantively to the debate among other well informed parties.

Thinking something about a given topic and knowing that topic well enough such that what one thinks is legitimate and rational are not the same things. They never were and the never will be. The majority of "the people" these days seem to think that merely because they have a viewpoint, it is thus legitimate. It's legitimate as a context from which one might embark upon a quest to actually get well informed on the topic in question. That's it.

 

[saveliberty]

A political system that had three parties would require more negotiation and compromise. This would render the majority vote more legitimate on issues such as Supreme Court appointments.

It was wrong of Democrats to open the door to the nuclear option and equally wrong for Republicans to walk through that door.

Also on the table for poor governing is Obama who simply failed to compromise in meaningful ways, which has led us to Trump who Democrats will not compromise with in any helpful way.

Layer upon layer of partisanship leading to ineffective leadership. Americans need to stop thinking in terms of a two party system and vote their opinions/positions.

 

[martybegan]

A political system that had three parties would require more negotiation and compromise. This would render the majority vote more legitimate on issues such as Supreme Court appointments.

It was wrong of Democrats to open the door to the nuclear option and equally wrong for Republicans to walk through that door.

Also on the table for poor governing is Obama who simply failed to compromise in meaningful ways, which has led us to Trump who Democrats will not compromise with in any helpful way.

Layer upon layer of partisanship leading to ineffective leadership. Americans need to stop thinking in terms of a two party system and vote their opinions/positions.

I would have preferred them to invoke Rule 19, which limits each senator to 2 speeches per "day", where a day in the Senate can be defined to include as many hours as the party in charge so desires.

It would have taken a few weeks, but would have returned us to the time of an actual filibuster, not the threat of a filibuster situation we have now.

 

[percysunshine]

A reasonably thought comment;

Karma, Precedent, and the Nuclear Option

In my opinion, Krauthammer is right. In todays hyper polarized politics, removing the supermajority rule in the Senate is the only thing that will allow the legislature to function. I don't like it, but the conservative Democrat no longer exists as a political entity. They were purged from the party over the past 30 years.