I’ve been wondering for a bit why during the time the Democrats controlled the legislature, executive, and judicial branches during Obama’s first term in 2008 more wasn’t accomplished. Shouldn’t that have been the opportunity to make Row V Way law and fix the electoral college? I understand the recession was going on but outside of Obamacare getting passed which didnt go far enough it seems like they didn’t really do much with all that power. Are there other important accomplishments from this time that didn’t get the news they deserved? It seems like the voters have done their job in the past to elect people to fix things and yet we are still here begging people to vote to fix issues like abortion rights.
Right, which is why I’ve been saying that the Democrats should restore the filibuster. What they have now is not a filibuster, in practice, it’s more akin to an administrative hold. One Senator indicates an intent to filibuster via email, and they move on to other business.
Make 'em do it. Pick a popular issue, and lean into it. Make the Republicans actually stand up there at the podium and talk for hours. Get them on camera on the news every night as obstructionists, blocking the will of the people. Yes, it will waste Senate session time; that’s a perfect opportunity for all of the Democrats to roast them non-stop to reporters. It’ll be painful for a while, but at least has a chance of breaking the log jam. (And if the GQP doesn’t take the bait, hey, popular thing gets passed!)
Filibustering is dumb and it shouldn’t exist - if we want the ability for a narrow minority to block law making we should just increase the threshold to pass laws - we shouldn’t allow a weird procedural rule to block discussion of a law whether through talking a long time or just doing so by email.