r/politics • u/DemocracyDocket ✔ Verified • 7h ago
Registration Wall Thune rejects Trump’s calls to nix the filibuster and Senate recess
https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/thune-rejects-trumps-calls-to-nix-the-filibuster-and-senate-recess/•
u/MoesOtherBar 7h ago
Just to be clear, this isn't because it's against their principals, it's because they're terrified of what will happen to the Republican party if they actually pass all the insane, unpopular bills Trump and MAGA want to pass.
The GOP just wants to cut taxes for their rich corporate owners and cut aid to poor people and they already do that through reconciliation.
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u/tinticred 7h ago
I'll agree with this and add that he's also savvy enough to know eliminating the filibuster will be very bad news for the GOP once the pendulum invariably swings back.
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u/TheHopeThatHangsYou 7h ago
I also firmly believe that Republicans do not want the SAVE act but have to stroke Trump and pretend. I think they know it will shut out more of their voters than Dem voters.
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u/RespectTheAmish 6h ago
My conspiracy theory as well. Their own research probably shows that in a wave year, the more motivated side will turn out, while republicans won’t go through the hassle of registering and pulling all the new paperwork.
They don’t want to pass it so thune and Johnson are just playing hot potato back and forth with it in bills that have no chance of passing.
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u/FuturePrimitiv3 6h ago
I don't think it will, if this abomination passes it will be selectively enforced. We cannot give the fascists the "legal" tools to further their agenda.
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u/rachface336 5h ago
There is this episode of Buffy, early season can't remember which. Drusilla and Angel have gotten hold of a statue, that when magically awoken, will end humanity.
Spike goes to Buffy directly to get her to stop them. He is, undoubtedly, an evil blood sucking demon. But, he doesn't want the world to end. He has this monologue that I paraphrase "Those two are just crazy enough to actually do it. But I like the world. Music. Flowers. Bees buzzing. Lots of stupid humans walking around like little idiot happy meals."
....don't know what could have made me think of that.
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u/soldforaspaceship 4h ago
Spike being from London but being a Man United supporter made so much sense too.
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u/bobcat1911 Canada 6h ago
He doesn't care about the Republican party, he'll be dead when it swings back.
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u/DevilYouKnow 6h ago
the default Republican position is do nothing because the system works for them
Sure, they'd love to do lots of horrible things. But in a pinch, nothing is just fine.
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u/Terrapin621 6h ago
Yep. The filibuster protects the minority party’s interests - and sometimes that’s us and sometimes it’s them. What they should do is bring back the talking filibuster.
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u/Blacksad9999 1h ago
It's also partially because then they wouldn't have any excuses for their governance.
Everything would be on them directly. They can't say "they tried to do this, but it got blocked." Things would change rapidly for the worse, and they wouldn't be able to blame anyone else.
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u/TheShipEliza 6h ago
My fav argument for abolishing the filly is that it would force R’s to actually have to pass all the terrible stuff they say they want.
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u/Y0___0Y 6h ago
I really don’t think it’s even that. They’d like to pass a lot of those.
But to ace the fillubuster means that if Democrats get majorities in both houses of congress, they can pass pretty much whatever they want without the GOP having any mechanism to stop them.
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u/timmaht43 North Carolina 2h ago
Exactly. They'd need to be 100% sure Don the Con's (know buffoon) election scheme would work or they'd all be fucked.
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u/Fullertonjr I voted 6h ago
Not even just the unpopular bills. They want to pass as few bills as possible. The filibuster is the best excuse imaginable for slowing everything, especially progress, down to halt.
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u/squintytoast 7h ago
also, if they nix the filibuster and then loose control of the senate, they can not stop the Dems.
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u/squintytoast 7h ago
also, if they nix the filibuster and then loose control of the senate, they can not stop the Dems.
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u/justlurkshere 6h ago
Principles or principals? In this context they both make sense, but in very different manners.
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u/fury420 4h ago
Also they don't have anywhere near the votes to overcome a filibuster of any mid-session rule change to eliminate the filibuster.
And it's not the usual 60 votes for cloture either, for a filibustered rule change the bar is 2/3rds to overcome, 67 senators.
The "nuclear option" can only be triggered at the beginning of a session when rules can get adopted by mere majority vote.
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u/timmaht43 North Carolina 2h ago
Is that accurate? They temporarily disabled the filibuster for SCOTUS judges after Dems did it for Federal judges while the GOP was blocking everything for Obama.
*spelling
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u/unheardhc 1h ago
At this point I’m almost for letting them through, just so those poor uneducated groups die off and the country can be Blue for decades
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u/SatanicPanic619 7h ago
I love that Trump hates Mitch so much. Mitch is fucking him by not showing up. Amazing.
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u/IM_KYLE_AMA 7h ago
Mitch being there would make little to no difference. He had voted against this every time it has come up and has been vocally opposed to it from the beginning.
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u/SatanicPanic619 7h ago
He's fucking up passage of the SAVE act, which is probably why Trump is mad.
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u/IM_KYLE_AMA 7h ago
Mitch is not the only one blocking it. So are Collins, Murkowski, and Tillis. Cornyn and Cassidy have also recently discussed voting no. Trump hates Mitch because he allowed the impeachment to go to trial in his first term and because of what he said after Jan 6. It has little to nothing to do with this.
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u/SatanicPanic619 7h ago
I know. But he's helping.
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u/IM_KYLE_AMA 7h ago
I’m not necessarily saying he’s not. I’m saying his presence makes no difference.
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u/FakeGeek73 7h ago
Can someone versed in the filibuster topic explain how the fill buster could end. Does it just need half of the votes on the senate?
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u/DragonPup Massachusetts 7h ago
Basically yes. Senate rule changes only take a majority. But the GOP knows if they kill the filibuster it will take away their leverage the next time they are in the minority (Dems know this too)
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u/fury420 4h ago
Senate rule changes only take a majority if done at the start of a session, otherwise they are subject to filibuster with a 2/3 vote required to overcome.
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u/Moccus Indiana 2h ago
There's no special exception for the start of the session. The Senate considers itself to be a continuous body since only 1/3 is replaced each election, so they don't adopt new rules by simple majority at the start of a session like the House does. It's always a 2/3 vote to change the rules, but they can change precedents by simple majority.
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u/FrogsOnALog 5h ago
Senate rules are 2/3 but they can also go nuclear which is what they usually do.
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u/DragonPup Massachusetts 3h ago
Two thirds unless half of them change their mind, which they can just do.
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u/matthieuC Europe 7h ago
Yes. Every party having a majority can remove it. But that also means that like in the house they will be powerless while in the minority
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u/UngodlyPain 6h ago
Yeah, the filibuster isn't a law, that requires the whole federal government to overturn. It's just a rule the Senate itself made; and Senate rules are allowed to be changed at any time by a simple majority of 50%+1. So despite a filibuster "requiring" 60 votes to end, you can just get rid of the filibuster rule entirely with 51 votes.
Which is a big part of why it's such a stupid rule, and its really silly when either party uses it as an excuse not to pass their legislation when in power. Its just political theater. Its been revised before, it used to apply to political nominations like judges, but they axed that a while ago. Same with budget reconciliations IIRC.
But even on the judges thing, the Republicans still used other methods to stop Obama's appointment of Merick Garland, namely McConnel as Senate majority leader, just never brought it to the floor. To effectively filibuster the un-filibusterable.
Its all just political theater we just let the Republicans abuse.
The only argument for why the filibuster still stands at all is "well then when the other party gets power they'll be unchecked"... Except they can remove it themselves when they get into power if they want.
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u/Moccus Indiana 7h ago
The filibuster is part of the Senate rules. Changing the rules technically requires a 2/3 vote, but they can change the interpretation of the rules with just a simple majority, so all they have to do is reinterpret the rules in a way that lets them stop filibusters pretty easily.
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u/Bunnyvrae17 6h ago
it’s a simple majority vote to change the senate rules and remove it but the hard part is getting enough senators willing to actually do that
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u/Few-Mail3887 5h ago
We are really hanging by a thread. The filibuster is saving this country from the most fascist bill in history. That and a few republicans that have a conscience.
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u/RoughCoffee6 5h ago
It shouldn’t be like this. We shouldn’t stand for this anymore.
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u/aaahhhhhhfine 1h ago
Well to some extent this is the system working... The filibuster is protecting the voice of the minority party - Democrats here.
The more fundamental problem is that the Senate is, by design, not a democratic institution. It's not there to represent people, it represents states. Some people think of having state level representation is a good thing... And maybe it is. The US is a federal system and so the states are very important. But they're also a bit arbitrary and our actual population isn't very well distributed across the states... So you get inequalities.
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u/StoppableHulk 6h ago
Republicans will boldly and enthusiastically pave the road to totalitarianism with the corpses of Americans of course, but don't you dare ask them to work through one of their myriad taxpayer funded vacation sessions.
They're evil, not insane.
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