lpetrich
Contributor
The book:
Kill Switch | Adam Jentleson | W. W. Norton & Company - "The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy"
Ro Khanna on Twitter: "One of the truths we should tell is that the filibuster was the brainchild of John C Calhoun, a father of the Confederacy, to protect slave states. Doing away with the filibuster is a moral issue, not just a practical one. Check out @AJentleson book as well." / Twitter
then
Adam Jentleson on Twitter: "@RoKhanna Thanks Congressman. It’s true, the filibuster was not invented until after the Framers had all passed away. They (including Madison) warned against giving a minority veto power. Calhoun reshaped the Senate to boost the power of reactionaries. For more: (link)" / Twitter
Kill the Senate Filibuster or Watch Biden’s Agenda Die
With this nice tidbit:
Kill Switch | Adam Jentleson | W. W. Norton & Company - "The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy"
Ro Khanna on Twitter: "One of the truths we should tell is that the filibuster was the brainchild of John C Calhoun, a father of the Confederacy, to protect slave states. Doing away with the filibuster is a moral issue, not just a practical one. Check out @AJentleson book as well." / Twitter
then
Adam Jentleson on Twitter: "@RoKhanna Thanks Congressman. It’s true, the filibuster was not invented until after the Framers had all passed away. They (including Madison) warned against giving a minority veto power. Calhoun reshaped the Senate to boost the power of reactionaries. For more: (link)" / Twitter
Kill the Senate Filibuster or Watch Biden’s Agenda Die
With this nice tidbit:
The Senate has a position comparable to House Speaker: the President pro tempore. But the Majority Leader has emerged as the de facto leadeer, and a co-prime minister along with the House Speaker.I didn’t realize that the positions of majority leader and minority leader came so recently in historical terms. How has the Senate evolved in the last hundred years?
The Senate created those two positions because the institution was growing and finding its workload expanding dramatically. From the time the Senate was created in 1789 until the 1920s, it didn’t have leaders. It was generally organized by party, and the committee chairs controlled what bills were reported out and made it to the floor. The number of senators grew as more states were added, and the parties wanted to have a caucus secretary who would keep track of things but not really exercise control over bills.
It's a Taste of Armageddon filibuster: putting in a hold.Today’s Senate doesn’t have deliberation. I don’t mean that in a cynical way, but the Majority Leader and Minority Leader make the important decisions. Senators are not going to the floor to convince anyone to change their mind.
That’s exactly right. The two main forces that have shaped the Senate are the rise of the filibuster and the rise of a top-down leadership structure. It’s the combination of those two things that’s what is really suffocating the Senate. People think of the filibuster as Jimmy Stewart talking for hours in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, but that’s not today’s filibuster.