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15 Aug, 10 tweets, 5 min read
"I have requested that the Rules Committee explore ... a rule that advances both the budget RESOLUTION and the bipartisan infrastructure package" (emphasis mine)

I told y'all 6 wks ago washingtonmonthly.com/2021/07/02/nan… Pelosi had in mind tying BIB to the resolution, not reconciliation...
...To refresh, on June 30 I flagged comments from Pelosi that gave her wiggle room to treat the resolution as sufficient for moving forward on BIB...
...Pelosi's spox quickly reacted to that tweet to say "No change in position here"...
...But as I read the tweet more closely, along with Pelosi's full remarks, it was clear her spox didn't actually negate the point that Pelosi had left the door open to treating the resolution as sufficient, which I explained for @monthly... washingtonmonthly.com/2021/07/02/nan…
@monthly ...As I also noted in my @monthly article, Pelosi has a history of climbing down from progressive demands once moderate pushback changes the math, which is what happened in 2009/2010 with ACA & public option... talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/pelosi-a-bi…
@monthly ...And just last week I noted that "If ... the House mods exert their power, Pelosi has no reason to stick with AOC and let all bills die."...

And on Friday, that's exactly what happened when 9 mods threatened to tank the resolution...
...Granted, this isn't the end of the story. As noted by @emrwilkins, this doesn't guarantee a final BIB vote. But by putting both BIB and the resolution in the same rule, it feeds the Moderate Nine position and acknowledges their leverage.

Here is Pelosi's spox insisting there is no change in the Speaker's insistence that the Senate reconciliation bill must be passed first. So again, the story isn't over. But we are still one procedural step closer to the outcome the Moderate Nine want.
Of note..

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More from @billscher

Bill Scher Profile picture
1 Jul
House punting the budget resolution to the Senate, reports @lindsemcpherson rollcall.com/2021/07/01/hou…

The budget resolution is going to effectively determine the infrastructure toplines. And House isn't going to directly weigh in.

Point for Team Manchin.
@lindsemcpherson Why isn't the House putting forth their own resolutions? Because it would be too hard to reach consensus: "The panel's chairman, John Yarmuth, D-Ky., had hinted as much earlier in the week, noting the split within his party on the subject..."

Disunity weakens leverage...
The Senate is also not unified: "[Yarmuth] heard that Sanders is struggling to unify his committee around a proposal. Yarmuth said he was told that Sanders has only locked in support of nine of the 11 Democrats on [the budget cmte]"...
Read 4 tweets
Bill Scher Profile picture
7 Jun
Some *major* historical context missing here

Byrd backed a compromise lowering cloture threshold to 60 for legislation while *keeping* it at 67 for rules changes

Byrd voted *against* a nuclear option attempt, which would be needed to lower the threshold to 55

Story time...
In February 1975, a bipartisan coalition led by Walter Mondale and James Pearson proposed lowering cloture to 60 across the board...

legislativeprocedure.com/blog/2019/3/8/…
They tried to get around the 67-vote cloture threshold through a "nuclear option" maneuver (though it wasn't called that), blowing past cloture and overruling a point of order by simple majority...
Read 29 tweets
Bill Scher Profile picture
7 Jun
The filibuster didn't start to foster bipartisanship, and it didn't start to perpetuate slavery or Jim Crow.

It started in Ancient Rome.

I explain here
realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/… but first a thread...
The person who deserves the most credit for inventing the filibuster is Cato the Younger, though the Romans called it "diem consumere" or to consume the day. (See @GoodmanRob1 & @jimmyasoni theatlantic.com/politics/archi… & politico.com/magazine/story… ) ...
Cato's (talking) filibusters were not designed to foster compromise. They were obstructionist tactics designed to stop wealth consolidation and authoritarianism.

He tried to slow Caesar's roll. When he failed, rather than live under Caesar's rule, he killed himself...
Read 18 tweets
Bill Scher Profile picture
11 May
Only 3 times since Reconstruction has the president's party gained House seats in the midterm.

But what's the common thread through those 3 times?

Crisis.

I wrote about it for @monthly washingtonmonthly.com/2021/05/10/dem…

But let's look at those 3 cases...
@monthly 1934: FDR begins to dig out the Great Depression with the New Deal. Net gain 9 seats.

1998: GOP launches impeachment inquiry during economic boom, boosting Clinton. Net gain 5 seats.

2002: Post 9/11 national security concerns boost Bush & GOP. Net gain 8 seats.

...
@monthly We have also one more case of the president's party losing less than 5 House seats.

1962: JFK's Democrats lose just 4 seats one month after the Cuban Missile Crisis.

...
Read 8 tweets
Bill Scher Profile picture
10 May
"Roughly 4 in 10 of [Biden's] votes came from people of color ... Trump’s voters, by contrast, were overwhelmingly white, 85% ... with just 15% coming from people of color, mostly Latinos"
"Biden also gained from increased support for Democrats among white voters with college educations ... Biden didn’t improve among whites without a college degree ... but he didn’t lose any further ground among a group that remains a majority of voters in many key states."
"In 2020, Latino and Asian voters increased as a share of the electorate, while the white share declined. The share cast by Black voters remained steady."
Read 4 tweets
Bill Scher Profile picture
20 Apr
In my latest for @monthly, which talks of the value in threatening to court-pack (but not actually doing it), I delve into the debate over the impact of FDR's court-packing attempt. I include some details you may not know...

washingtonmonthly.com/2021/04/20/sho…
@monthly ...Some argue FDR's court-packing bill instigated the "switch in time that saved nine," as the Court flipped from anti-New Deal to pro-New Deal rulings after that.

But the "switch" happened before the bill's introduction...
...FDR announced his bill on Feb. 5, 1937 presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/mess…

But as Justice Owen Roberts explained in a 1945 memo academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/history/johnso… he cast the "switch" vote on Dec. 19, 1936, so FDR's announcement could not have pressured him...
Read 17 tweets

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