Democrat wins Va. House seat in recount by single vote; creating 50-50 tie in legislature

[u/slaysia]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/democrat-wins-va-house-seat-in-recount-by-single-vote-creating-50-50-tie-in-legislature/2017/12/19/3ff227ae-e43e-11e7-ab50-621fe0588340_story.html?utm_term=.82f2b85b50fa

[u/foxden_racing]

Eh. The filibuster is fine, the problem is that they all decided that actually filibustering was hard work, and decided to change the rules to give every single senator veto power.

The Filibuster, as designed, is one of those things that's supposed to be so serious you stake your career on it because making the news for shutting down the legislature over something has a very strong chance of pissing off the people able to vote on you. It's you saying "This matter is so goddamned important that it's worth grinding the entire legislature to a halt over", and you believe so strongly in it that you're willing to take a stand that forgoes food, sleep, even toilet breaks until one of three things happens: You back down, they back down, or you annoy so many senators that they collectively make you back down (via a Cloture Motion, which requires a 2/3rds majority).

The problem is, it's also hard work. To actually Filibuster, you have to be granted the floor and then refuse to return it when your allotted time is up. If you leave the floor, stop talking for more than a certain period of time, etc...game over. The floor gets returned, and business continues as usual.

So, during GW's term, a bunch of powerful senators got together and decided to change the rules. That's too much like work, so instead now all a senator has to do is declare their "intention" to filibuster, they skip actually seizing the floor/etc and go straight to a Cloture motion. If that can't pass, the measure dies immediately.

It theoretically saves everyone a ton of time, but it also has three side effects: one, Filibusters become trivial, something that requires no skin in the game, no risk, and no effort. Two, it means that a Filibuster can't be busted by the person doing it giving up.

Three, and most importantly, it effectively gives every single senator the power to unilaterally kill an order of business, be it a bill, a nomination, whatever. While not technically identical, it's close enough for government work ^(HA!) to call it the same as senators having veto power...a power that's supposed to be reserved for the POTUS. Getting 67 votes in the senate on anything is effectively impossible given how deeply partisan it's become, so in practice "I intend to filibuster" is no different from "I veto this bill".

That's the bullshit that needs to go, but don't ever expect a body able to change its rules in its own self-interest to ever make things harder on themselves.

[u/blue_2501 → u/foxden_racing]

That's the bullshit that needs to go, but don't ever expect a body able to change its rules in its own self-interest to ever make things harder on themselves.

It's very very easy to change. Only the majority is needed to change the rules, but it has to be done at the beginning of the year.

Harry Reid was too chickenshit to change it throughout Obama's legacy. It would have been fine to change it to the old "Mr. Smith-style" filibuster. The GOP generally doesn't have the passion to uphold filibusters like that.

[u/foxden_racing → u/blue_2501]

It's an easy change, but not one either party is going to willingly choose unless they think they can weaponize it by having a super-majority and holding it down for a term or two. They simply don't want it used against them for as long as having it used against them seems plausible.