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Adam Jentleson 🎈 Profile picture
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9 Oct, 8 tweets, 3 min read
This by @mattyglesias is the strongest case for reconciliation I've read. But IMO reconciliation is a mirage for a few reasons. All paths lead to the filibuster; you either nuke it or you don't. Even an ambitious use of reconciliation leads you there. 1/ vox.com/21499869/joe-b…
The appeal of reconciliation is that it's fast. It can be, but probably won't be for large-scale bill like this.First you have to write and pass a budget. Then, making a bill of this scope comply with reconciliation rules will be extremely hard, and guaranteed to contain errors.
Small errors can be fatal; any provision that doesn't survive the test of compliance (called a "Byrd bath") gets struck from the bill by the parliamentarian. If a major provision gets struck, you either have to abandon it or go nuclear to change the rules. So, back to square one.
If you go nuclear to amend the Byrd rule to allow reconciliation to be used for a broader range of bills, you're going nuclear, period. A surgical strike for some classes of legislation but not others is not going to happen. Can't pick winners/losers.
Others see reconciliation as a steam valve, a way to get things done without going nuclear. But it's bad for the Senate. Reconciliation bills will be massive, leadership-driven mega-packages with no oversight. Lobbyists' dreams. Healthier to go nuclear, then use regular order.
A faster and simpler way to deliver the needed stimulus is simply to write a bill using regular order- and if Republicans block it, nuke the filibuster. The bill will be more effective and there's no better way to explain to senators and the public why the filibuster needs to go.
When I say nuke the filibuster I mean the supermajority threshold. How that got to be conflated with the filibuster is a long story (buy my book!). But I have no problem with talking filibusters as long as bills no longer face supermajority thresholds.
Anyway, I bet this debate will continue because reconciliation is tempting and there's a good case for it, as Matt lays out. But it could very easily end up being *more* complicated, take longer, deliver poorly-designed legislation and lead to going nuclear anyway.

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More from @AJentleson

Adam Jentleson 🎈 Profile picture
9 Oct
A word about @SenAngusKing's comment that "the 60 vote majority requires some level of consensus," which reflect a common myth about the Senate. The Framers designed the Senate to promote compromise, but the filibuster was not a part of that design. mainebeacon.com/sen-king-seen-…
The Framers designed the Senate as a venue for compromise but were extremely clear that it should be, and remain majority-rule. They had seen how supermajority thresholds led to gridlock in the Articles of Confederation and explicitly warned against them - over and over.
The Framers were familiar with the idea that supermajority thresholds promote compromise but had seen that in practice, they provided an irresistible temptation for the minority to "embarrass" the majority. They warned us about what would happen. Here's Hamilton in Federalist 22. Image
Read 11 tweets
Adam Jentleson 🎈 Profile picture
5 Oct
McConnell made clear that tomorrow he'll seek consent to adjourn for ~2 weeks. Before a bunch of Rs got Covid a big benefit to keeping the floor open was the ability to force Rs off the trail & onto the floor. But that’s dangerous when we don’t know how many of them are infected.
By adjourning to pro formas Dems lock in that there'll be no floor vote on ACB for the next 2 weeks. It deprives them of tactics like forcing live quorums but also increases the chances they don’t get covid. With a real covid outbreak among Senate Rs, the pros outweigh the cons.
On quorums: To vote or conduct any business in the Senate you need a quorum of 51 senators physically present on the floor. It appears Dems can deny a quorum right now, but the real question is whether they can do so when Republicans are ready to vote on Barrett. That’s TBD.
Read 12 tweets
Adam Jentleson 🎈 Profile picture
22 Sep
This is a Copernican moment. Democrats are realizing the old ways no longer apply. Our democracy has tilted to minority rule by white conservatives who are imposing their will on the diverse majority. That’s unsustainable and it is Dems’ responsibility to rebalance our democracy.
Republicans are imposing minority rule by white conservatives through the most undemocratic elements of our system, many of which have mutated far beyond anything the framers envisioned. Reforming those elements & bringing our democracy back into balance is absolutely essential.
This generation of elected Democrats is being called on to reform the system so it can continue to function. Minority rule by white conservative judges and senators wielding veto power over the will of a diverse majority is not a healthy or sustainable dynamic for democracy.
Read 5 tweets
Adam Jentleson 🎈 Profile picture
21 Sep
🚨 It's not just Mark Kelly who could be seated in November: if Dems win the GA special election for Loeffler's seat the winner could be seated in Nov, too. @ReverendWarnock is the guy but Joe Lieberman's son @LiebermanForGa is playing spoiler. Drop out. ajc.com/politics/polit…
This is an uphill battle: Warnock has to win *with* 50% in November to avoid a Jan runoff. But if he does, GA elex law says the winner can be seated immediately. In a fight like this, with these stakes, being in position to win every seat and catch every break is critical.
@ReverendWarnock is the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta - Martin Luther King Jr.'s former congregation. DSCC endorsed. He's clearly the right candidate for this race and Lieberman has no business except as a spoiler. Give to Warnock here: secure.actblue.com/donate/wfg_ads…
Read 4 tweets
Adam Jentleson 🎈 Profile picture
15 Sep
If a whistleblower filed a formal complaint with an Inspector General about women in prison camps getting forced hysterectomies but the victims were predominantly white women, there would be a lot more coverage.
Letters to IGs often generate news, but in this case there’s a formal whistleblower complaint. One study found: “news about murder is the product of journalistic assessments of newsworthiness firmly grounded in long-standing race and gender typifications.” jstor.org/stable/3648888
Judgments about newsworthiness are made mostly by white reporters and editors. Historically, they have judged news about white victims to be more “newsworthy” than news about black or brown victims. We appear to be watching an example of this play out on the ICE hysterectomies. ImageImage
Read 6 tweets
Adam Jentleson 🎈 Profile picture
26 Aug
Reading @anneapplebaum's book, it's striking how easy it is to see what's happening in the US. We are hampered by our belief that the onset of neo-fascism occurring in many other western nations can't happen here. Right now we have a leader unaccountable to the law. So why not?
For me this is what the debate over press. coverage is about. The press covers (and uncovers) Trump scandals aggressively. But on balance, there is an editorial desire to shoehorn it all into normal two-party politics ("rough edges," etc). That can lead to missing the real story.
There is a dangerous tendency to get tunnel-visioned. Everything has to be “uniquely American,” with reference points more rooted in What It Takes than global trends. At a time when fascism is on the rise across western democracies, a wider lens and broader vocabulary are needed.
Read 4 tweets

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