“ I think some of our members may have thought the default issue was a hostage you might take a chance at shooting. … Most of us didn’t think that. What we did learn is this — it’s a hostage that’s worth ransoming. And it focuses the Congress on something that must be done.”
— Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell
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Posts tagged with senate
A Slow (Non-Majoritarian) Parade
Of course most people only care about the policy and not the sausage factory floor, but it sure seems like we’ve recently watched a long parade of pundits decry the filibuster and opine that the US Senate is broken.
Maybe it’s obvious, but if you can’t handle Wisconsin, you surely can’t handle a 51-vote Senate. Seth Masket sums it up: “What happened in WI wasn’t a coup. It was unified government.”
“ When you get here, the pressure by the two caucuses to kind of go along with ‘the team’ is pretty constant. And it’s gotten more so over the years… Any deviancy from party orthodoxy is viewed as an act of betrayal or a lack of moral fiber.”
— Evan Bayh (via @pwire and NBC News)
“ The first four years are for God and country. The last two are for the folks back home.”
— Hubert Humphrey (via Wags)
“ It might be that the Senate of 2010 is the perfect Senate. But it’s not the Senate that the Founders created, and it’s not a Senate that’s been preserved in amber for the past 100 years. It’s an institution in a continual state of flux. Going back to the Senate that the Founders envisioned would require a more radical series of reforms than anything currently being contemplated.”
— Ezra Klein
Suggested titles: Historical Civility in US Politics – OR – The Assault in the U.S. Senate Chamber on Senator Sumner.
Costs of the Supermajority Senate
Among other things, Ezra Klein argues that the filibuster contributes to legicide: “It encourages Congress to outsource its responsibilities to independent commissions, the executive branch and its associated agencies, and the courts…”
Understanding the Filibuster
On NPR’s Fresh Air, political scientist Greg Koger explains the politics involving the Senate’s filibuster rule and how maybe possibly potentially (and probably why not) it could be changed (via The Monkey Cage).
House and Senate Health Care Bill Comparison
Something gained, something lost.
