This logic from Sinema is fatally flawed, insofar as it implicitly assumes that our founders were wrong about the idea that hard questions are best decided by the will of the majority. Brief thread: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
1/ Today, with the filibuster in place the Senate is prohibited from DEBATING bills that are opposed by the minority. Not voting. Debating. It serves no purpose but to sustain ignorance.
2/ But since the Senate can't vote on a bill until they've debated it, it also blocks the vote. Ergo, our founders idea that hard questions should be resolved by the will of the majority has been inverted. Hard questions are now resolved by the will of the minority.
3/ Hamilton said supermajority requirements: "embarrass the administration, destroy the energy of government, and substitute the pleasure, caprice or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junta to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority."
4/ In other words, while framed as creating greater agreement, in practice they simply substitute the will of the minority for the will of the majority.
5/ So as we sit here today, numerous issues that are supported by the majority of Americans can't even get debated in the Senate. From voting rights to gun control to climate change, the Senate has rendered themselves functionally irrelevant.
6/ If we got rid of the filibuster, the majority could pass things that are supported by the majority of the Senators and the majority of the American public. That is a good thing, and should be done yesterday.
7/ Sinema's argument is essentially, "yes, but if we got rid of the filibuster and the Republicans were in the majority, they could also pass things that were not supported by the majority of the American public but were supported by a majority of Senators".
8/ This is of course true as a purely procedural matter. And it's how we got Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett on SCOTUS (when McConnell eliminated the filibuster for SC appointments) politico.com/story/2017/04/…
9/ But here's the thing about democracy. If you vote in support of the things that the majority of the American people don't like, you tend not to get re-elected. You may recall that the control of the Senate changed hands after those SCOTUS votes.
10/ In other words, our founders' idea was right! On hard questions, the only politically robust way to solve them is to submit the question to the will of the majority.
11/ To accept Sinema's logic you have to instead believe that our founders were wrong, and that you would prefer a government subject to the "caprice or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junta". Count me in the former camp. /fin

• • •

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

Keep Current with Sean Casten

Sean Casten 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 @SeanCasten

4 Sep
This is a good read to understand what to make of the conversations about whether it is fiscally prudent to spend $3.5T on additional infrastructure spending, but leaves out one important point (brief thread): cbpp.org/research/feder…
1/ First, the $3.5T we are talking about is gross spending. It is not a net amount. Focusing on that number alone is one hand clapping, akin to judging whether someone is paying too much for rent and groceries without knowing their income.
2/ Second, this is a 10 year figure. The current federal budget is about $5T/year, or $50T/10 years. $3.5T (net of offsets, per prior) is not especially large relative to current annual federal spending, or to our ~$21.4T/yr ($214T/10 yr) total GDP
Read 6 tweets
2 Sep
Read Sotomayor's dissent. She understands the stakes, both for women and for the very legitimacy of the Supreme Court. I wish I could say the same of the majority of the justices. supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf…
"the Texas Legislature has deputized the State’s citizens as bounty hunters, offering them cash prizes for civilly prosecuting their neighbors’ medical procedures"
"By prohibiting state officers from enforcing the Act directly and relying instead on citizen bounty hunters, the Legislature sought to make it more complicated for federal courts to enjoin the Act on a statewide basis."
Read 8 tweets
2 Sep
This is heartbreaking and going to become ever more common. Moral issues inseparable from economic issues inseparable from climatological issues. No easy answers but one: we'll get it wrong if we keep punting on hard questions. Thread: nytimes.com/2021/09/02/cli…
1/ Per the latest IPCC report, 1-2 feet of sea level rise by mid-century is already locked in. (That's a global average, so higher in some spots). Huge parts of the SE US and eastern seaboard are underwater at that level. This is within our lifetime.
2/ As just one example, here's Louisiana. biotech.law.lsu.edu/climate/ocean-…
Read 20 tweets
29 Aug
16 years ago, the company I was running had just shipped a power plant to a factory in Pearlington MS. We were waiting to schedule commissioning when we heard that a storm, headed for New Orleans had veered east and our customer was now right in the target.
That was bad for us but widely understood at the time to be good for New Orleans because it meant Katrina wouldn't be quite as bad for the folks who lived there.
Sharing only because this sentence scares me: "The powerful Category 4 storm made landfall on the same date Hurricane Katrina ravaged Louisiana and Mississippi 16 years earlier, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of where Category 3 Katrina first struck land."
Read 4 tweets
29 Aug
This thread is worth reading. But it's also really important to understand that this scientific precision describes a *political* distinction without a difference if it justifies inaction that we would never tolerate in any other milieu. Consider:
1/ Your grades in high school didn't affect your current employment / job satisfaction / salary. But it's virtually certain they contributed to the trajectory of your life up to this point.
2/ A business' decision to pay out dividends that took away their cash cushion didn't cause their subsequent bankruptcy when a surprise downturn came, but it's virtually certain that decision contributed.
Read 11 tweets
27 Aug
Let's talk a bit about how we estimate the greenhouse gas impacts of federal legislation. Cause if we're about to pass a big infrastructure bill that is responsive to the IPCC report, it's important we get our numbers right. Thread:
1/ Here's the short version: we should, but we don't. We calculate the fiscal impact of legislation, but not the climate impact. That's a problem.
2/ And I'm glad my friend @RepJoeNeguse has introduced a bill to fix that, which I was proud to co-sponsor. congress.gov/bill/117th-con…
Read 17 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!

:(