Share this page!

Max Kennerly Profile picture
Twitter logo
2 Mar, 5 tweets, 4 min read
Manchin's hero, Robert Byrd, believed presiding officer + 51 votes = cloture.

But if Manchin disagrees, he leaves @SenSchumer & @VP with no choice: end the "two-track" system and enforce Senate rules for debate.

There's a reason filibusters before 1972 usually failed.

/1
Talk back to the presiding officer? Fail (1837)

Poisoned eggnog? Somebody stepped out? Fail (1908)

Impugn another Senator? Fail (1948)

Need to pee? Trolled by a Senator with a drink? Fail (1957)

That's the real tradition of the filibuster.

getrevue.co/profile/maxken…

/2
.@Sen_JoeManchin talks about Robert Byrd as if he was a Republican obstructionist. The reason cloture is 3/5 now instead of 2/3 is because Dems, including Byrd, used the nuclear option in 1975.

Byrd's own view was chair + 51 votes = cloture.
getrevue.co/profile/maxken…
/3
And speaking of "bipartisanship" and "tradition" and "the Byrd rule," where was that when Republicans fired the Senate Parliamentarian in 2001 to get better rulings? Or in 2017 when they used reconciliation to evade a filibuster of drilling in ANWR?

/4
Whatever @Sen_JoeManchin's idea of the filibuster is, it's not the Senate's history nor its current practice. Lifetime appointments can't even be filibustered anymore, nor trillion-dollar tax cuts.

But if he wants real filibusters, @SenSchumer should give him some.

/end

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Max Kennerly

Max Kennerly Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @MaxKennerly

Max Kennerly Profile picture
26 Feb
Reminder about all the supposed "norms" of the Senate: in 2001, when the Senate Parliamentarian "made it harder for the GOP to push President Bush's budget and tax cut proposals through the evenly divided body," Republicans simply fired him: washingtonpost.com/archive/politi…
I don't blame the Senate Parliamentarian, the "rules" of reconciliation are a joke.

In terms of "what now?" both options—VP Harris ruling otherwise or a standalone minimum wage bill—boil down entirely to whether 50 Dems would do it, i.e. Manchin & Sinema.
It's not really up to Harris. Sure, she can disregard the Parliamentarian—but she'll immediately face an appeal of her ruling. If she doesn't have 50 votes to back it up, it's an embarrassing defeat for no reason. The problems here are Manchin & Sinema.
Read 8 tweets
Max Kennerly Profile picture
6 Feb
I want to pick up on the 'emergency relief' aspect, because this is yet another example of SCOTUS's "shadow docket" where they decide cases without full proceedings.

Unsurprisingly, they botched the facts of COVID restrictions in California.

/1
Gorsuch, joined by Thomas & Alito, couldn't figure out the rules for singing in movie productions, so inexplicably decided the issue in the church's favor.

Barrett, joined by Kavanaugh, held it was "unclear," but recognized the church bore the burden.

They're all wrong.

/2 ImageImageImage
As California pointed out in its brief, and the Ninth Circuit recognized, the film industry has onerous safety protocols that the church doesn't have and never said they'd adopt. It's not comparable.

And anyway they've also been prohibited from singing indoors since November.
/3 ImageImageImage
Read 4 tweets
Max Kennerly Profile picture
6 Feb
Once again, Silver reveals that he has no idea what he's talking about. The J&J / Janssen vaccine uses a technology (adenoviral vector) that is entirely different from Moderna & Pfizer's (mRNA).

Let's talk for a second about what the FDA is doing and why.

/1
First, Silver's (and Yglesias's) whole argument is premised on FDA review of J&J's vaccine delaying distribution. That's questionable. J&J keeps a lot of this stuff confidential, but we know they've had delays and are not ready to distribute yet.

/2
At this very moment, the Biden admin is working to speed up J&J's production line. @aslavitt46 is on it. There is no benefit whatsoever in yelling at the FDA for doing its job to ensure the safety and efficacy of the vaccine.

/3 reuters.com/article/health… Image
Read 8 tweets
Max Kennerly Profile picture
3 Feb
It's hardly surprising to see something thoughtless and outrageous from Greenwald & Dore, but I want to discuss one particular undercurrent of misogyny here, because it's widespread.

That is: if a woman is impolite to a man, the man is absolved of all responsibility.

/1
Let's assume Ted Cruz, a champion of deregulation who voted to rollback much of Dodd-Frank and is married to a managing director at Goldman Sachs, was sincere. 🙄

Is there a valid reason why Cruz's support for an investigation should depend on AOC's response? Of course not.

/2
For comparison, many members of the Obama admin had a hostile relationship with Warren over the CFPB's formation.

It would've been weird, gross, and pathetic if Obama had withdrawn support over that. But he's a grown man, so the work continued.

/3
Read 6 tweets
Max Kennerly Profile picture
19 Jan
Yeah. The "power-sharing" is more "procedure-clarification" in lieu of a week pointlessly voting 50/50->Harris tie-breaker on each piece. Senate Dems still hold committee chairs, set calendars, and won't have bills blocked from the floor—which was McConnell's primary weapon.
An *excellent* question. McConnell would not do it in this document. He would do it later by violating a rule, getting rejected by the presiding officer, then appealing the ruling to the full Senate, which would vote his way, 50-50 plus VP tie-breaker.
If this sounds ridiculous—huh? McConnell agrees to Senate rules that he then reinterprets???—it's *exactly* what he did in April 2017 to eliminate filibusters for nominees, to move Gorsuch through: fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R…

This time around, however, the deciding vote would be...
Read 4 tweets
Max Kennerly Profile picture
14 Jan
Hawley's argument is: starting in 1937, Pennsylvania has repeatedly violated its state constitution—including with an October 2019 bill supported by 132 out of 137 Republican state legislators that not one person claimed was unconstitutional until after Biden won.

Seriously.
/1
PA Constitution, Article VII: legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/LI/CT/…

§ 4, from 1901, says voting "methods" other than ballot are as "prescribed by law," i.e. legislature can alter. § 14 says what absentee ballots must be allowed. They've expanded that a couple times, 1957, 1967, 1985, 1997.
/2
Beginning in 1937, the Pennsylvania has had its own qualifications for absentee ballots, broadening eligibility beyond Art VII, § 14 of the PA Constitution. This, too, has been amended a bunch of times: 1963, 1968, 1980, 1998, 2006, 2012.
/3 legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/L…
Read 8 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Like this author's thread?

Get emails when @MaxKennerly has new unrolls!

Check out other threads from @MaxKennerly!

Read all threads by @MaxKennerly