Senate The US Politics 2.0 Discussion Thread

She was a Green Party member and previously a Mormon. Greens in particular are sometimes funded by Republicans to siphon votes from Democrats for the same reason Kanye West was.

 

I'm sure this effort is as sincere as the effort to defund legislators who opposed certification of the election results.

 

Big corporations or the rich being full of lies ("We're so moral too!...hahaha you idiots we played you dumbasses again!") isn't new.

Activist groups are a different fish.

 

Sinemas ideology is “boy I sure do enjoy being rich and going on international wine tasting tours with other rich people.” There is nothing else there, if there ever was it’s long gone.

 

@MagnarTheGreat Sinema made a name for herself going after Joe Lieberman. How fitting she is turning into him though unlike him, she won't win as a independent in Arizona. Lieberman was an institution in Connecticut. Sinema has convinced herself she is a institution in Arizona like McCain was but she isn't and will find out the hard way.

 

Re: Emily's list, turns out when you endorse a candidate based on their identity, you don't always get good ones.

I've said it before and I'll say it w million times. The Democratic party is not owed your vote. If a voter is voting green over democratic, that's because the Democratic party has failed.

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/20/ted...-tim-cook-for-40-minutes-about-antitrust.html

That is forty minutes of Tim Cook's life he won't get back.

 

Looks like Biden is hard at work protecting the courts from GOP takeover.



In her list of 10 important litigation matters she included in the questionnaire, Rearden highlighted a case where she represented New York real estate company LeFrak against allegations that they had discriminated against tenants living with HIV/AIDS. Rearden got the complaint dismissed in that case. In a section highlighting her pro bono work, Rearden helped a charter school organization overturn a New York Department of Labor ruling that charter schools were subject to “prevailing wage” requirements.

Rearden’s corporate clients have included Home Depot, Uber, Lehman Brothers, Barclays Capital, and Patriarch Partners. Her firm represented Chevron in its lawsuit against environmental and human rights attorney Steven Donziger, and The Intercept reports that Rearden worked on the case.

 

What our the chances now for Trump to face prison or running again for re election in 2024 now that the Supreme Court threw out trumps case to hide his records to the January 6th insuraction?

 

Found this rather striking, because for all the broken institutions in this country, the Senate is very likely the most damaged, and I don’t have much faith in it getting reformed or fundamentally changed within any of our lifetimes:




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The Senate is a House of Lords and the only way to deal with it is to severely weaken or abolish the institution. Its whole purpose is to blunt popular will.

 

The right politician(s) could lead to a call, push, etc, for a Constitutional Convention, backed by enough support from other citizens/residents. It’s really the only way out that could realistically occur.

 

The problem with changing the makeup of the Senate lies in Article 5 of the US Constitution (emphasis added):

So basically, three-fourths of the states would not be enough for ratification of such an amendment. You can't make the Senate proportional like the House is, or abolish it altogether, without the unanimous consent of all 50 states, which will never happen.

I have a few reasons I hate the Founding Fathers, but this clause is near the top of the list.

 

I think that with enough popular support the House and President could kill the power of the Senate without a constitutional amendment. A lot of changes that have happened with governance have been extra-constitutional even if they technically shouldn't have been. It's all hypothetical, of course, like the VP having the power to unilaterally destroy the filibuster or the United States government helping ordinary people above the bare minimum needed to keep society from completely imploding (arguably not even that).

 

Ive said it before: time for a new Constitution.

It wont happen because everyone has romantic feelings for a piece of paper. God forbid you update how people think, feel and act after 200+ years.

 

Honestly, I think a question like this is tough to answer in our modern political context.

First, it's hard for Biden to argue that we need to pass federal voting reform if the GOP isn't trying to undermine the vote (and they are) and the upcoming elections will be completely legitimate. Without a dire threat to our voting system, then what's the point of the federal voting reform?

But that leads to another set of problems -- explaining how the election results would be illegitimate is a hard to navigate rhetorical minefield.

Take voter suppression. Personally, I would say that the elections in many states would not qualify as legitimate because of the extensiveness of voter suppression. I don't think Biden can say this outright because that would mean that the election results from every election cycle since Washington's presidency should be tossed out. (i.e. FL results b/c of felony disenfranchisement, unfair/biased voter ID laws, limited voting locations in minority areas, lack of election day voter registration, etc.). Also, some would argue that this wouldn't make the vote illegitimate, just imperfect. In addition, making such an extensive critique of the US voting system would sound conspiratorial to most Americans, even though it's the truth.

Then, there's the new GOP strategy of giving state legislatures the power to override any election results or packing state election boards with Trump loyalists. I think most any rational person would agree that these types of measures would lead to an outcome that constitutes an illegitimate state election result. And as far as know, states like AZ and GA are working to pass just this type of legislation. However, it's hard for Biden to say if these future results would be legit because he doesn't know if these laws will pass.

So, in the 1st scenario, that's arguably a case of an illegitimate election. In the 2nd, that's certainly a case of an illegitimate election that will possibly happen in the future depending on what legislation states pass. If Biden doesn't explain it just right, then he would be accused of using the same type of language that undermines our election system that Trump has used (even though the GOP really is trying to undermine our elections through suppression and through state legislative power plays, while Trump lost fair and square). Furthermore, even if he did explain it just right, rightwing media would distort what he said and claim that Biden's words reinforce Trump's claims that the 2020 results were illegitimate.

I think that's why the Democrat's fallback position has been to say that we need to beat them in polls, and Biden just did that in apparently a muddled way. It's a simple one line statement that can help get out the vote. I don't think the Democrats really think that's all they need. Most of them surely believe we need a complete overhaul of our voting system, and that's what all but 2 holdouts in the Senate have been trying to do.

I'd also add. I don't think what they're doing is enough. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems the John Lewis Voting Rights Act only deals with eliminating voting suppression, making voting easier, and increasing voter enfranchisement. It doesn't deal with the other part of problem: state legislative overreach. It doesn't matter if every Democrat goes to the polls and every Republican stays home if a state legislature single-handedly has the power to nullify the election results and appoint their own set of electors or to do other nonsense like that.

 

@Darth Nerdling those are some very interesting observations, I agree with a lot of it. I think the main problem facing Democrats, from a messaging standpoint, is that when they tell their base elections are compromised, it can have the opposite effect they want. They want people to “vote harder,” but many people will just be disillusioned by the whole notion of voting. Exaggerating the issue seems to provide little benefit, and certainly failed to secure federal legislation.

 

Irony or historical tradition given that the filibuster was used to try to stop civil rights bills.

 

No irony involved whatsoever, just a return to Lincolnian belief.

 

They probably wouldn't mind. They are the ones at an objective numerical disadvantage and who need to mobilize their own electorate in higher proportion. A materialized filibuster allows them a scenography of their "sacrifice".