End the filibuster?

[Elixir]

make them stand and not campaign if they wish to filibuster, and make them stand present if they wish to count against cloture.

That would be a good start.

 

[Rhea]

Trausti’s quote of a tweet:

Dems used the filibuster 2 block it because they…

That’s not why they did it, of course; the person who wrote this tweet is lying and Trausti is repeating that lie.

 

[Jarhyn]

Trausti’s quote of a tweet:

Dems used the filibuster 2 block it because they…

That’s not why they did it, of course; the person who wrote this tweet is lying and Trausti is repeating that lie.

Now the bigger question is: will they double down? Or will they cease to make the claim and find a similar one to replace it with ad infinitum? Or will they retract the claim.

I feel like if they retract the claim, I may also win the lottery* today, Mitch McConnell might realize how much of a piece of shit he is and donate all his ill-gotten donor money to real charities while voting for cloture on every dem bill, and Donald Trump might say "hey guys I lost the election".

*This would be a real trick, in fact, as I don't play the lottery nor buy tickets, and other forms of "lottery" I would use all power and true magic that might exist in my sphere to not win any time soon

 

[lpetrich]

Senator Kyrsten Sinema's filibuster speech was maddening

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., helped deliver a lethal blow on Thursday to desperately needed legislation to protect voting rights in America.

It wasn’t exactly surprising, given her previous positions on reforming the filibuster. But the way she did it — with a dramatic Senate floor speech that argued that it would be too divisive to pass voting rights protections by creating an exception to the filibuster — was a blow to our political culture as a whole. Sinema counseled her party to show tolerance of anti-democratic politics — an outlook that will not save this republic, but accelerate its decline.

...
Sinema rejected it. (As did Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, but more quietly in a statement issued later in the day.) When she took the Senate floor Thursday, she voiced support for the voting rights bills, but she rejected the idea of the filibuster carve-out. And her argument on behalf of the filibuster, delivered in a tone that conveyed tremendous distress, was, well, maddening.

Greg Price on Twitter: "SINEMA: "There's no need for me to restate my longstanding support for the 60-vote threshold to pass legislation."

There it is. (vid link)" / Twitter

Her main argument was that supporting an exception to the filibuster would “worsen the underlying disease of division infecting our country" by allowing the laws to pass without bipartisanship. “We have but one democracy,” she said. “We can only survive, we can only keep her, if we do so together.”

Here’s the problem: The Republican Party — from its most influential leader to its federal lawmakers to its state politicians — is unified in the belief that making voting universally accessible threatens its electoral strength, and that making it harder for people who aren’t Republicans to vote is crucial for maintaining power.

 

[Trausti]

She persisted. Hurrah for strong independent women.

 

[lpetrich]

Manchin and Sinema's love of the filibuster doesn't make them allies

They have not teamed up on major legislation beyond the bipartisan infrastructure bill that became law last year.

...
And looking at their policies, there’s not a clear area for them to cooperate on in the future either. ...

(about Build Back Better)
“Manchin and Sinema want very different things, both in terms of revenue and programs,” said a source close to Biden who spent the last few days talking to senior White House officials. “If you just took their currently presented red lines you wouldn’t have enough left to get this past progressives in the House and Senate. It wouldn’t raise enough money and it wouldn’t do enough big programs.”

There are two main places where the split is the most apparent: taxes and climate change.

JM has been willing to accept more taxes on the wealthy, while KS hasn't.

On the climate front, yes, Manchin is responsible for nixing the Clean Electricity Payment Program, a provision that experts say would have the greatest single impact on reducing U.S. carbon emissions. That still would have left a multitude of climate provisions on the table, which Manchin has expressed openness to supporting. “There’s a lot of good things in there,” he said last month. “I’ve always said, you know, we have a lot of money in there for innovation, technology, tax credits for basically clean technologies and clean environment.”

Sinema, on the other hand, at least theoretically supports more action on preventing and mitigating climate change. A review from E&E News last year suggested “she generally favors climate action, though often through clean energy tax breaks and targeted spending rather than pushing major regulatory action to curb emissions — the route favored by many Democrats.” But she’s made silence into an art form, dodging press interviews and constituents alike, leaving nobody knowing exactly where she stands these days.

 

[lpetrich]

Manchinism can help the Democrats. Sinema’s politics are a dead end. - The Washington Post by Matthew Yglesias

A reputation for independence, by itself, can have some electoral allure. But Manchin’s departure from the Democratic mainstream — however much it infuriates progressives — offers something of a road map for appealing to less-educated and rural voters, especially White ones, whom the party badly needs to win if it wants to hold future Senate majorities. Sinema, by contrast, offers little beyond vague fiscal conservatism. She chooses politically perverse topics on which to make a stand, blocking some of Biden’s most popular ideas, and offers nothing for the party to build on.

MY then notes the difference between the two legislators' styles.

Manchin is a proud gun owner, a supporter of the Hyde Amendment — which bans the use of federal funds to pay for abortion — and someone who talks exclusively about brass-tacks economic issues rather than racial politics or other social and cultural matters. He seems like the kind of guy who wouldn’t introduce himself with his pronouns. And however you feel about this personally, it’s proved to be a winning formula in the very red state of West Virginia, where Manchin massively overperforms national Democrats.

Thus acting much like the right-wing idea of a Real American.

Sinema, by contrast, has all the personal style cues of a stereotypical urban educated liberal, and breaks with her party primarily to defend unpopular business interests.

 

[lpetrich]

So by Matt Yglesias's analysis, it's hard to think of a good political home for Kyrsten Sinema. The Libertarian Party?

I went to senate.gov and I couldn't find anything on the vote in "Votes". I'd have to search through "Floor Proceedings", and I'm not sure that I'd be willing to do that.

 

[Trausti]

 

[lpetrich]

Kyrsten Sinema's activist supporters are turning against her. EMILY’s List Statement on Voting Rights | EMILY's List -- EL was one of her biggest donors in 2018, and that PAC won't support her if she continues to place some arcane procedural rule above voting rights.

NARAL on Twitter: "There's no reproductive freedom without the freedom to vote. With both freedoms at stake, we’re changing our endorsement criteria. We’ll only endorse U.S. senators who support changing the Senate rules to pass the critical legislation that will protect voting rights." / Twitter

Top donors threaten to cut off funding to Sinema - POLITICO - "The donors said they will support a primary challenge, and demanded that the senator refund their contributions."
Many of them feel betrayed by her recent stances. They didn't knock on lots of people's doors and contribute large sums of money just to be stabbed in the back by her.

They composed this letter: Final Sinema Letter - donor-letter-to-sen-kyrsten-sinema.pdf making these points:

• First, you do not acknowledge the gravity of the threat to fair elections, and that it is a result of a unilateral Republican campaign being conducted in broad daylight.
• Second, we disagree with your contention that legislation passed unilaterally by one party is itself a form of extremism.
• Third, we disagree that both parties are equally to blame for the present failure to find compromise on the voting bills, and that Democratic leadership did not try hard enough to forge consensus with Republicans.
• Fourth, you hold that the filibuster incentivizes cooperation and compromise, while we believe the opposite to be true.
• Fifth, we believe Republicans will end or modify the filibuster as they see fit regardless of what course Democrats may take.
• Sixth, and more fundamentally, the founding framers required supermajorities for only a handful of exceptional cases like treaty ratification.
• Finally, the bipartisan dialogue you and we want to be the norm will become less likely, not more, if you let these two bills die.

The escalating threats against Sinema have also come from some of Sinema’s colleagues. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Tuesday he is open to endorsing primary challengers to Sinema and Manchin. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) also did not rule out supporting such a challenge, saying that “we'll address that when we get past this week” when asked if Sinema and Manchin should be primaried.