How Should Either Party Leverage Ending the Filibuster?
Are they actually going to vote on something real?
Discussions about the filibuster tend to flare up whenever a party wins unified control of the federal government and then runs into the reality of the Senate’s 60-vote threshold. At that point, attention usually turns to whether major legislative priorities are being blocked by minority opposition or by the rules of the chamber itself. That tension has become a recurring feature of modern Senate politics.
For some, the filibuster is the main reason governing majorities struggle to translate election results into legislation. For others, it is a guardrail that prevents rapid policy swings when power changes hands. That disagreement is familiar and well covered, and it is not really what I am trying to settle here.
For the sake of discussion, assume a majority does decide to get rid of the legislative filibuster. That would not be unprecedented, the Senate has already done this in narrower contexts, such as judicial nominations, and those changes stuck. Given that premise, the more interesting question to me is what a majority should actually use that moment on.
Instead of arguing whether abolishing the filibuster is good or bad, I want to tee up these general questions:
What legislation would be the best for both the Republicans or Democrats to pursue if they entertained nuking the filibuster, within the context of trying to retain the senate going into future elections?
Would nuking the fillibuster inherently benefit or hurt certain ideologies or governing strategies present within the senate?
To what extent should the risk of retaliation under a future majority influence how a party uses this power?
Are they actually going to vote on something real?
Discussions about the filibuster tend to flare up whenever a party wins unified control of the federal government and then runs into the reality of the Senate’s 60-vote threshold. At that point, attention usually turns to whether major legislative priorities are being blocked by minority opposition or by the rules of the chamber itself. That tension has become a recurring feature of modern Senate politics.
For some, the filibuster is the main reason governing majorities struggle to translate election results into legislation. For others, it is a guardrail that prevents rapid policy swings when power changes hands. That disagreement is familiar and well covered, and it is not really what I am trying to settle here.
For the sake of discussion, assume a majority does decide to get rid of the legislative filibuster. That would not be unprecedented, the Senate has already done this in narrower contexts, such as judicial nominations, and those changes stuck. Given that premise, the more interesting question to me is what a majority should actually use that moment on.
Instead of arguing whether abolishing the filibuster is good or bad, I want to tee up these general questions:
What legislation would be the best for both the Republicans or Democrats to pursue if they entertained nuking the filibuster, within the context of trying to retain the senate going into future elections?
Would nuking the fillibuster inherently benefit or hurt certain ideologies or governing strategies present within the senate?
To what extent should the risk of retaliation under a future majority influence how a party uses this power?
How Should Either Party Leverage Ending the Filibuster?
Are they actually going to vote on something real?
Discussions about the filibuster tend to flare up whenever a party wins unified control of the federal government and then runs into the reality of the Senate’s 60-vote threshold. At that point, attention usually turns to whether major legislative priorities are being blocked by minority opposition or by the rules of the chamber itself. That tension has become a recurring feature of modern Senate politics.
For some, the filibuster is the main reason governing majorities struggle to translate election results into legislation. For others, it is a guardrail that prevents rapid policy swings when power changes hands. That disagreement is familiar and well covered, and it is not really what I am trying to settle here.
For the sake of discussion, assume a majority does decide to get rid of the legislative filibuster. That would not be unprecedented, the Senate has already done this in narrower contexts, such as judicial nominations, and those changes stuck. Given that premise, the more interesting question to me is what a majority should actually use that moment on.
Instead of arguing whether abolishing the filibuster is good or bad, I want to tee up these general questions:
What legislation would be the best for both the Republicans or Democrats to pursue if they entertained nuking the filibuster, within the context of trying to retain the senate going into future elections?
Would nuking the fillibuster inherently benefit or hurt certain ideologies or governing strategies present within the senate?
To what extent should the risk of retaliation under a future majority influence how a party uses this power?
0 Comments
0 Shares
55 Views
0 Reviews
