Change the damn Senate rules already!

[Ken Burch]

It can be done by majority vote. Just get rid of the filibuster and "holds".

Then, the logjam ends.

REAL healthcare reform will pass.

Labor law can be reformed(not just EFCA, repeal of Taft-Hartley and restoration of the rights of the American worker).

Wars can be stopped.

All remaining discrimination can be ended.

Electoral College abolition can be sent to the states.

It's time for the Senate Majority we elected to remove the last taints of the 18th Century, the last vestiges of slavery's influence on this country.

Change the rules. Make the Senate democratic.

Let the people rule.

We have NOTHING to lose but history's chains.

There IS no argument against this.

[AlinPA]

1. Suppose those one liners were written by the republicans and we were in minority.

[Posteritatis]

2. It's only okay when we do it, you see. (nt)

[Ken Burch]

42. The rules never defend Democratic voters.

All slowing down legislation does is give the rich more power. Delay is never progressive.

And Social Security privatization wouldn't have passed anyway.

[Ken Burch]

8. If our party never used the filibuster in the past, it's never going to in the future.

What matters is being able to get past the logjam. The filibuster has never had any positive or progressive effect at any point in this country's history. It's never helped workers, the poor, the Rainbow or the female majority to use the Senate to stop legislation.

Why defend something that only helps the enemies of what's good?

[Igel]

47. So what you're saying

is that the party will use the filibuster again in the future.

I just don't think you know that's what your statement entails.

[Ken Burch]

54. They used it on two issues, Social Security and the appointments you guys harp about.

Our caucus caved to Bush on everything else from 2001 to 2006. There WAS no wholehearted caucus resistance to the Bush agenda. It was only the activists who fought it. Those exception to the rule Senators who did stand up were ignored and disrespected by most of their caucus colleagues.

They will never use the filibuster to defend workers, the poor, the Rainbow, women, LGBT people. They didn't use it to kill Taft-Hartley in the 40's. They never used it to resist ANY of Reagan's bloodshed in Central America or his assault on social services.

And the real answer to the question of "what if we're in the minority again?" is to build a strong enough coalition that it's difficult to put us INTO a minority, and to pass such a massive quantity of social change legislation while we have a majority that it takes decades to repeal it. Meanwhile, we mobilize from below to make the cost of repealing it too high. That's what actually saved Social Security...mobilization from below. Not your precious powdered-wig rules.

[W_HAMILTON]

56. Good.

Stop protecting the Republicans from themselves. They will self-destruct even quicker if they go through with some of their policies that are prevented through threat of a filibuster.

[excess_3]

3. Biden us not up to the task ....nt

[Hippo_Tron]

4. Had it been ended in 2005, your Social Security would've been handed to Wall Street

[Ken Burch]

9. Compared to not getting real healthcare, that's trivial

The filibuster doesn't help people who work for a living. All it does it stop progress.

[anigbrowl]

20. What?! That's ridiculous

you think it would have been trivially bad to privatize social security and then see it implode on Wall Street, bankrupting the nation's retirement fund? I give up, you have lost all sense of proportion.

[Ken Burch]

32. If we don't get healthcare, there will be no progressive social change in the future

Seen in that light, Social Security, by that measure, only matters to those who are going to die in the next twenty or thirty years. It's not so important that it's worth letting social change be impossible.

And there won't be any comparable fights like that in the future.

The difference between you and I is that I want politics to be a living process in which gains can be made. You've settled for just not losing too much.

[anigbrowl]

45. Whatever. Enjoy your empty catchphrases

You want to change all the senate rules to make it easier to get healthcare, instead of getting healthcare the difficult way. You don't care that people point out how unwise it would be to change the senate rules, you just accuse them of not caring about healthcare or not trying hard enough. You are a classic authoritarian in sheep's clothing, using cheap rhetorical bully tactics to make up for your lack of critical thinking.

For some reason, all you guys go in for the multiple rely thing as well. It's laughable. I have worked in socialized healthcare system, which is probably more than you can say, and I am strongly in favor of having one in this country. What I'm not in favor of is idiotic proposals to change the rules because you can't see an instant solution.

[Ken Burch]

53. The rules helped exactly twice. They will never help again, and you know it.

It's not about "the difficult way"(which you know is actually the impossible way, as reducing it to tiny increments is the same as not getting it at all).

[Ken Burch]

40. If you think Social Security is the only thing that matters, you HAVE given up

If all you care about is defensive battles, you are no longer interested in trying to make gains.

What matters is what we can DO, not what we can stop. If all we focus on is what we can STOP, we lose the ability to ever actually win.

[Hippo_Tron]

22. The Senate is in general a hurdle to enacting the will of the masses

Unfortunately the masses sometimes do stupid things, like elect Republicans.

[Ken Burch]

27. Being able to stop the right when we're in opposition is meaningless

If we can't defeat them when we're in the majority.

The filibuster means nothing progressive can happen.

[liberalpragmatist]

14. There were never 50 votes in favor of social security privatization

The whole thing fell apart without it even clearing a single committee.

For that matter, Clinton wouldn't have gotten health care reform even if the filibuster weren't there - Democrats were simply too split at the time.

Personally, I'm all for ending the filibuster - yes, it will hurt us at times, but in the aggregate it hurts progressives more because it stymies any attempt to actually CHANGE or REFORM anything.

[Hippo_Tron]

21. I'm not sure I agree

Looking at the composition of the Senate in 2005, I think there almost certainly could've been 50 votes for SS privatization. The White House didn't want to lose the battle, which they inevitably would have since it requires 60 votes. But if it only required 50 I'm pretty certain they could've found them.

[W_HAMILTON]

57. And in 2008...

...the Republican party as we know it would be non-existent.

Social Security would have been switched back to how it was, and we would have solid healthcare reform passed by now.

Let the Republicans and their shitty ideas run wild. It might hurt the first few years, then they will be purged indefinitely. And we will be better for it. We will be able to undo the damage the Republicans did, pass Democratic legislation this country needs, and write off the Republicans as a national party forever.

[Codeine]

5. Of course there is an argument against it.

The first six years of the Bush administration comes to mind immediately. We used the rules to our advantage.

[Ken Burch]

10. Not on anything that mattered

Not on the war. Not on cuts in social services. Not on saving the environment. Social Security was the only time, and even that wasn't that important.

Checks and balances never help the powerless or the workers.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

18. You're right. Social Security isn't important.

Neither are judicial nominations. Geez.

[Ken Burch]

29. Slowing them down is never worth letting them STOP us.

It's useless to base your political strategy solely on being in the minority. You've given up on making gains, since you've accepted the Right having the permanent power to reduce change to meaningless increments(which is the same as preventing change).

It's thanks to your mindset that lynching was legal for 180 years.

[Codeine]

23. Social Security is one of the basic underpinnings of society.

It would have disappeared in a flash when the credit crash occurred. I can't imagine a more devastating possibility for our most vulnerable.

[Ken Burch]

25. If we don't get healthcare, having saved that(if the rules did save that)doesn't matter

NOTHING could ever be worse than healthcare not going through this year, especially since we know it will never go through if it doesn't go through in THIS Congress.

[Codeine]

28. Never? Hardly.

It's an historical inevitability. I'd prefer it now, but "never" is an extraordinarily silly statement.

And yes, saving that did matter. Tremendously.

[Ken Burch]

30. There's no way it was so important that it was worth permanently hamstringing future Dem majorities

Only bloated Southern egotists have gained from the way the Senate works. Social Security privatization(which didn't have the votes anyway, since the Senate didn't want to commit political suicide)isn't more important than healthcare and labor law reform.

You've given up on change. You're a defeatist if all you care about is slowing down the other party when they have temporary majorities. Checks and balances don't work for the poor.

[Ken Burch]

36. 1994 proved it WASN'T a historic inevitability

And you sound like one of those smug Dem senators in the 1950's or early 1960's telling black people that Jim Crow would end sometime, so they shouldn't sweat the lynchings or church bombings or bus bombings or the occasional burial under an earthen dam.

You take a satisfied, detached, white middle class suburban view of life. Obviously healthcare doesn't affect you or anyone you've ever met.

[Codeine]

38. You are so full of shit.

Don't presume to tell me anything about who I am. Your willingness to throw Social Security under the bus is ridiculous, and your armchair revolutionary attitude is laughable.

[Ken Burch]

39. Why are you willing to give up on everything else just because of one fight that will never recur?

I believe in change. You've surrendered to the right. Defensive battles are never so important that they're worth giving up on the chance to make gains. The filibuster means nothing can change. It means the people can't win. If we can't make gains there's no reason for us to bother doing anything in politics. Focusing on defense equals surrender.

[Ken Burch]

37. Not enough that it was worth making Democratic Senate majorities powerless

n/t.

[Ken Burch]

35. For Social Security, you're willing to give up on everything else.

Holds and the filibuster mean no meaningful progressive legislation can ever pass again.

Only tiny, trivial increments. And increments are NOT social change. The poor and the workers and those without healthcare can't WAIT for increments. Increments are just slow defeat, since increments are always easier to get rid of than real sweeping legislation.

[WillowTree]

49. Judicial appointments didn't matter?

Stopping the appointments of Miguel Estrada, Charles Pickering and Janice Rogers Brown didn't matter to you? Really??

[Ken Burch]

51. Compared to all the GOOD things the rules stop, those were minor

The balance sheet on the rules never comes up on the side of the people.

[anigbrowl]

6. Also, ponies for everyone

No, nothing could possibly go wrong with this idea.

[Ken Burch]

13. Nothing bad could come from changing the rules that could possibly be worse than keeping them

Why keep rules that only benefit the white, the wealthy, and the dominant?

The Senate rules have never defended the people, therefore they can't in the future?

You're stuck in trying not to lose, rather than trying to win.

Those rules would only have been worth keeping if they'd ever served those with no voice. History shows us that the voiceless were always crushed by the rules.

[anigbrowl]

16. Another fact-free diatribe

You've already been given the example of Bush privatizing social security, which he might have achieved with a Republican senate. If we instituted your proposed changes and then lost a few elections you'd be screaming that we had to find some way to change it all back.

Sorry, Ken. You live in an unrealistic fantasy world and ignore anything that doesn't fit in with the way you would like things to be, rather than the way they actually are.

[Ken Burch]

26. You've just given up and accepted that we have no right to make gains

n/t.

[cark]

7. Dumb

What happens when the party you don't like running the senate?

What rights need to be restored to workers and who is going to stop the wars?

[Ken Burch]

11. Since the rules have never defended anything progressive in the past, they never will in the future

Every minority leader we'll ever have will be a gutless wonder. It'll always be the Reids, it'll never be the Wellstones.

None of it has ever been worth the fact that the rules make social change almost impossible.

The rules kept slaves in chains. The rules kept lynching legal until criminalizing it no longer mattered. The rules kept us in Vietnam. The rules keep the Electoral College in place.

The rules only serve the rich.

The answer is to fight like hell not to get IN to the minority.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

17. Since the rules have never defended anything progressive in the past, they never will in the future

That's a foolish statement.

[Ken Burch]

31. The past always predicts the future.

Nothing that was ever used for bad in the past can be used for good in the future, either.

Checks and balances only serve the rich and the white. They just make the powerless MORE powereles. The people CAN'T use them.

[TroglodyteScholar]

12. The argument against this is...

...that 99.9% of our elected representatives don't WANT to fix everything.

[Ken Burch]

15. That's the reason, not the argument.

There's no reason that anything that was drafted to appease slaveowners should live on in this country a minute longer.

[librechik]

19. sorry, to make those changes we need a sooper dooper POOPER majority

99 Dems and one Lieberman.

Why? JUST BECAUSE!!!

and don't pull out your copy of the Constitution. They own that and use it for kitty litter.

[SpartanDem]

24. By majority you mean 2/3's right?

because that's how many votes it takes to change Senate rules. Do have any idea how fucked up the Bush years would've been without the filibuster? This shortsighted and foolish as soon the GOP gets back in power I have a feeling you'll be ranting against the tyranny of the majority.

[Ken Burch]

33. Senate rules can be changed by a simple majority.

And the Bush years are over. Stopping the bad isn't going to matter as much as making the good possible. Why have you given up on anything but defensive politics? You clearly aren't interested in change if all you care about are defensive battles, battles which never matter to the workers or the poor anyway.

[SpartanDem]

41. No requires it two thirds per Senate Rule XXII

Without debate, the Presiding Officer shall then submit to the Senate by a yea-and-nay vote the question: "Is it the sense of the Senate that the debate shall be brought to a close?"

If that question is decided in the affirmative by three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn -- except on a measure or motion to amend the Senate rules, in which case the necessary affirmative vote shall be two-thirds of the Senators present and voting

It takes 2/3's to clear cloture.

Good for how long? Parties come into power, they leave it and you clearly want don't want to have a check on a GOP majority that will go about undoing everything we;ve done. Making positive changes does no good if you can't protect them long term.

[anigbrowl]

46. Facts have well known class-enemy affiliation, apparently

What we need is a full-on dictatorship of the proletariat, although somehow it will turn out that Ken is the only one who is sufficiently proletarian to do the dictation.

[Ken Burch]

52. Er, no. What we need is democracy

And the Social Security fight and a few judicial appointments, if it was the rules that did work in those two solitary instances, don't balance out the fact that they worked against the working class, the poor, the Rainbow and women.

Why are you such a fan of obstruction? And why were two small pieces of good worth letting the forces of reaction have permanent control of the legislative process?

By the time any healthcare bill is safe enough to get through the Senate and save your precious rules, will that bill still be worth anything?

Why let so much be stopped in the name of so little?

What you've said in your argument here is that Social Security was SO important, it was worth making the rest of any progressive agenda unattainable. That's what the rules do. They stop good. They will never again stop anything like Social Security privatization. That was a one off. And that wasn't worth letting everything else be impossible(not just "difficult") as it is now.

You're obviously comfortable and healthy enough that it doesn't matter to you if the healthcare bill is reduced to nothing. That's what you have to be to take the position you take on the filibuster.

[anigbrowl]

55. No Ken. Unlike you I don't think exclusively in the short term.

You have zero grasp of anything resembling strategy, or how the senate works. Demanding the rules be changed because it's not moving as fast as you'd like is immature and short-sighted, while your contention that the senate rules can be changed with a simple majority is flat wrong, and shows you are arguing from a position of ignorance.

[Ken Burch]

58. Its not about ME as an individual.

It's not about things moving "as fast as I'd like". Your "strategy" here is to infantalize me, and to pretend it's about me rather than about reality. My own personal situation is not part of this.

You are so focused on defensive battles you seem to have forgotten the idea of actually making gains for the people.

[anigbrowl]

59. No, it isn't.

The reason I'm criticizing you this way is to point up the fact that you respond to every disagreement with ad-hominem attacks on those who disagree with you, asserting variously that I'm focussed on defensive battles, or rich and healthy and healthy enough not to care about health reform (even though you know nothing whatsoever about either my medical or financial life) and so on. When it was pointed out above that you were simply factually mistaken on the requirements to change the senate rules, you just responded by attacking that poster as well.

It would be a lot easier to take you seriously if you had bothered to do some basic research and present a strategy for healthcare reform that took account of the actual facts, but instead you have consistently opted for guilt-tripping anyone who dares to point out the flaw in your argument and dismissing counter-examples as unimportant. Most people would prefer to retain the legislative institutions we have which proceed by representation and negotiation rather than acclamation, notwithstanding their flaws.

[Canuckistanian]

34. I don't care what the rules are

Just let debate and voting happen. Anything that halts debate or prevents voting should be abolished.

A filibuster is fine by me as long as it's done "old school".

You know, like reading the phone book with a tube attached your johnson at 3:00 in the morning.

[FLDCVADem]

43. The following statement alone illustrates your ignorance

"Electoral College abolition can be sent to the states."

[Ken Burch]

44. It has to be abolished through a constitutional amendment

Which must be passed by state legislatures. What's ignorant about saying THAT?

[Posteritatis]

48. "Just changing the Senate rules" won't make that happen. (nt)

[Ken Burch]

50. Not by itself. The amendment would have to pass the Senate

But without the filibuster, nothing would stop it.