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17 Mar, 6 tweets, 2 min read
Suggests that Manchin's version of a "talking filibuster" change would be inconsequential. 60-vote threshold is what matters.
Basically there are various ideas of what a "talking filibuster" rules change would look like.

But if at the end of the talking you still need 60 votes to advance legislation then Democrats still can't advance legislation.

Dunno exactly how it would be structured but Manchin doesn't seem to be inclined toward the "Trojan horse to let Dems slip stuff through with a majority" version of the talking filibuster.

He seems to be saying "make 'em talk but Ds still need 60."

Tester also says he's interested in the talking filibuster but would keep the 60-vote threshold.

politico.com/news/2021/03/1…
Seems like if Democrats want to spend a lot more floor time on bills that won't end up passing, they are certainly able to do so under current rules

But we seem to be at the "intuitions" stage of reform. Key senators share the intuitions of "filibustering is too easy now!" and "we should keep the 60-vote threshold." Those don't actually make much sense together in practice, but that's where we are.

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More from @awprokop

Andrew Prokop Profile picture
15 Mar
The GA election call most people think of is the Raffensperger call which broke (with accurate audio) 1/3. Capitol-storming was 1/6. The incorrectly-quoted (deservingly corrected) story was on 1/9 about a separate GA call. Didn't really shape narrative

The report on the Trump/Raffensperger call, with audio, was a bombshell and shaped the narrative. It was totally accurate.

The (now-corrected) 1/9 report on Trump's call with another GA official was more of a follow-up. Oh, he did a similar thing in this other call too.
Trump was indeed doing a similar thing in this separate call, but the exact quotes the Post's source (a state official) attributed to Trump were wrong.

Substantively, "find the fraud" vs. find "dishonesty" in Fulton seems immaterial. "National hero" seems more off.
Read 8 tweets
Andrew Prokop Profile picture
12 Mar
Let's go through the filibuster state of play:

1) Dem opposition to reform may be broader than Manchin and Sinema. But many you'd expect to be skeptics are on board or open. And if you win over Manchin and Sinema, you've probably won over everybody else

vox.com/22319564/filib…
2) Historical path to reform is clear. Get the majority convinced that the minority is abusing powers, so they're outraged enough to go nuclear.

Put another way: find a specific issue for which a GOP filibuster will motivate/pressure Manchin and Sinema to back a rules change
3) It is currently unclear what the filibustered bill that would motivate Manchin and Sinema to flip is — or whether it even exists.

Voting rights, labor rights, government funding + debt ceiling are all possibilities. But, not yet clear whether they'd be moved.
Read 5 tweets
Andrew Prokop Profile picture
8 Mar
"Talking filibuster" rules change intuitively feels right to a lot of people, but I doubt it would practically play out in the way its adherents hope
The devil's in the details, I guess, but if doing "shifts" are allowed it would be easy for the 50 Rs to trade off shifts on a talking filibuster. And they'd get laudatory coverage on Fox and conservative media outlets for doing so.
"Require 40 votes to block a bill, not 60 to advance a bill" is similarly unimpressive. There are 50 Republicans! They will manage to do that easily.
Read 10 tweets
Andrew Prokop Profile picture
12 Feb
Collins/Murkowski question to Trump’s team: “Exactly when did President Trump learn of the breach of the Capitol? What specific actions did he take to bring the rioting to the end and when did he take them? Please be as detailed as possible.”
Trump attorney blusters, gives a non-answer. Cites Trump's tweets only. Says the real issue is that the House hasn't investigated this enough (?)
The answer to the "what was Trump doing" question from reporting or secondhand sources seems to be — he was watching it all on TV. He was happy that it was happening. He resisted urgings from staff to condemn the mob.

washingtonpost.com/politics/trump…

vox.com/2021/1/8/22220…
Read 8 tweets
Andrew Prokop Profile picture
10 Feb
The cherry-picking to suggest the Capitol rioters were mostly well-off doesn't seem to have held up

washingtonpost.com/business/2021/…
Where are the excuses? Their behavior was inexcusable. But there was a popular narrative on here based on a few examples that they were mostly rich, which seems inaccurate.

This does not of course mean that the rioters were all desperately poor either. There was a mix of people with different backgrounds, some well-off, a substantial amount seem to have had significant money troubles.
Read 4 tweets
Andrew Prokop Profile picture
5 Feb
So at the heart of the Summers op-ed is the political assumption that if you spend a ton on stimulus now then inevitably deficit mania will kick in and Congress will get cold feet on doing anything more, killing the rest of Biden's agenda.

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
In 2009 this sort of is what happened. Progressives often frame the stimulus mistake as going "too small." But at the time there was an assumption in the White House that if they needed more stimulus later, they could go back and get it from Congress. That proved untrue.

But...
Congress is different now. In '09 the constraint was a caucus of deficit-worrying Democrats + Republicans.

There are few D deficit worriers left, and hardly anyone expects GOP support for Biden's agenda. A second bill will be reconciliation again.
Read 5 tweets

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