232 years ago, in 1790, a simple majority could end any debate.

The current form of filibuster that Manchin is protecting—in which votes can't happen until 60 Senators agree—didn't exist until 1975. Hundreds of exceptions have been made to it, including one last month.

1/9
The filibuster arose by accident: in 1805, the Senate streamlined its rules at the urging of Aaron Burr. Nobody thought they were creating a vehicle for obstruction, and no one used it that way until 1837, after the Framers were dead.
2/9
brookings.edu/testimonies/th…
The first filibuster, in 1837, failed. It included a Senator being dragged into the Senate by the Sergeant-at-Arms then dragged back out again when he got saucy with the presiding officer. “Am I not permitted to speak in my own defense?” he cried, and the answer was no.
3/9
Up until the 20th Century, most filibusters failed. They required holding the Senate floor and compliance with every rule. An 1893 filibuster on a silver bill went on for 46 days and failed. A 1908 filibuster failed by an accidental yielding to a Senator who had stepped out.
4/9
Even after the initial cloture rule in 1917, filibusters were still rare, and still typically failed except in the lone area of civil rights laws.

When Joe Manchin was born in 1947, the Senate still operated almost entirely by majority-rule.
5/9
getrevue.co/profile/maxken…
The few successful filibusters had a theme: anti-lynching legislation in 1922, 1935, and 1938. Anti-poll-tax legislation in 1942, 1944, 1946, 1948, and 1962. Civil rights legislation in 1946, 1950, 1957, 1960, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1968, 1972, and 1975. Some tradition, huh?
6/9
The very first time in American history that Senators could block legislation *without* indefinitely holding the Senate floor (while also complying with all Senate rules) was 1972: scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewconten…

It's all been downhill since then.
7/9
There's no "tradition" to the current filibuster, and it has been constantly modified. The only real Senate tradition, as Byrd himself recognized, was that a majority could invoke cloture whenever it wanted by changing the rules. Which it has. Repeatedly. Like last month.
8/9
There's no principled or historical justification for the current filibuster in which GOP priorities—judges, tax cuts, drilling on fed land, regulatory rollbacks—go to a majority vote but voting rights, minimum wage, and immigration can't get a vote until 60 Senators agree.
9/9

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More from @MaxKennerly

12 Jan
The shorter process does, however, present an opportunity to bring back the real filibuster—the talking filibuster—the way every filibuster had to be done up until the 1970s. The presiding officer just has to say, "the rules and precedents will be applied strictly."
1/5
Real filibusters are hard. That's why you don't hear much about the filibusters of the 1893 silver bill or the Hatch Act or Alaska & Hawaii statehood: they failed.

Riddick's Senate Procedure is unforgiving. If debate ends by error or rule violation, the bill goes to a vote.
2/5 ImageImage
The endgame of all this wouldn't be a rule change but a simple majority vote on a procedural point of order. That's how filibustering SCOTUS nominations was eliminated in 2017.

Manchin & Sinema both (absurdly) say they'd never go against the Parliamentarian's advice. So...
3/5 Image
Read 5 tweets
12 Nov 21
I agree with the conclusion: the verdict probably won't be the product of rulings by Judge Schroeder, but rather [insert whatever you think drives the outcome here other than the judge].

Nonetheless, there have been some 'balls and strikes' issues here worth discussing.

/1
Despite what Justice Roberts says, SCOTUS isn't an umpire calling balls and strikes. They are MLB, deciding the rules of the game, who can own a team, and who can play.

But trial judges often are calling balls and strikes, and it can make a difference.

/2
For example, the video, filmed 2 weeks before Kenosha, in which Rittenhouse sees people leaving a CVS and says "Bro, I wish I had my (expletive) AR, I’d start shooting rounds at them."

That video is not obviously admissible or inadmissible.
/3

kenoshanews.com/news/local/sta…
Read 9 tweets
11 Nov 21
Unfortunately, the bill to make parents give an "observed urine sample" based on anonymous reports passed the Pennsylvania House. Bizarrely, it's one of the fastest-moving bills in the General Assembly: in two weeks it passed two committees and the House floor.

/1
It's unclear who is even pushing for this bill, and no hearings have been held. Several organizations objected to it.

For the floor vote, at least some PA Dems did the right thing and voted no, like @jessicalbenham @AmenBrownPHL @RepDonnaBullock @RepBurgos @RepCephas
/2
Read 7 tweets
11 Nov 21
A couple notes:

1) The judge didn't have to entertain this. The defense lawyer obviously has no genuine basis—hence the "logarithm" and "AI"—he's just hoping to jam up the prosecutor's presentation. The judge could've said "do your homework and raise a real objection."

/1
2) We can dunk on all three for misunderstanding image scaling, but it shouldn't matter. As the prosecutor said, they've been zooming and cropping digital images the whole trial, and the defense has no genuine basis to suggest this is different. Judge could've denied on that.

/2
3) In this situation, the burden should be on the defense to call an expert. The prosecution has the burden of proving the crime; the prosecution doesn't have the burden of proving the absence of stealth Apple AI tech that performs LCD interpolation in a nonstandard way.

/3
Read 4 tweets
8 Oct 21
Odd how this "only thread" wasn't recognized by the founding generation, rarely occurred until the 1880s, almost always failed before the 1950s (because it required actual continuous filibustering), and today uses a procedure invented in 1972 and modified repeatedly up to 2017.
There's no honest way to look at the Constitution or the history of the Senate and say "the filibuster is the only thread we have in America to keep democracy alive and well." When Manchin was born, filibusters were a rare event limited to civil rights. getrevue.co/profile/maxken…
Senate votes on cloture, 1917–1970: 49

Senate votes on cloture, 2021 (so far): 100

"The filibuster is the only thread we have in America to keep democracy alive and well." — @Sen_JoeManchin 🙄

senate.gov/legislative/cl…
Read 5 tweets
13 Sep 21
Gah. Well, congrats to the headline-seeking researchers behind that VAERS / myocarditis study, they found the audience they were looking for!

But let's talk for a second about the study.

/1
VEARS is cool, just like FAERS is cool. It's a simple system for collecting adverse event reports from anywhere. Typically, these are used to flag events with disproportionate reporting frequency, which can then be analyzed with other methods that have validated medical data.

/2
I will grant the authors of the paper ( medrxiv.org/content/10.110… ) one thing, they set up a link to make it easy to comb through the VAERS reports included in their analysis: bit.ly/CAEmRNA

So let's take a look at some of them.
/3
Read 11 tweets

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