this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2025
1311 points (98.8% liked)

Memes

48463 readers
3445 users here now

Rules:

  1. Be civil and nice.
  2. Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml 1 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

The senate doesn't actually need a supermajority to end a filibuster; they approve the rules that set how many votes are needed to break a filibuster with a simple majority.

Similarly they can replace the parliamentarian at will, as republicans have done in the past, but chose to keep a parliamentarian that prevented them from using budget reconciliation to fulfill their promises to the voters.

[โ€“] Charapaso@lemmy.world 2 points 19 hours ago

Well sure, the Democrats could kill the filibuster with a simply majority (if they could get 51 senators on board) but they filibuster a lot as well, to prevent some Republican legislation. So I can see why they're too pragmatic - or cowardly - to remove it. Not the best source/graph, but a source: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-are-so-many-democrats-considering-ending-the-filibuster/

As for the parliamentarian: they haven't been removed in a while, and the one before that also served for a pretty long time...I think the Democrats (again, cowardly or pragmatically) are simply trying not to escalate and make the parliamentarian a puppet of the current simple majority. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentarian_of_the_United_States_Senate

I'm all in favor of nuking the filibuster, mind you: which would make the whole budget reconciliation thing a moot point. but I can understand the desire for some in the party to retain it as a tool. Fat lot of good it's doing us now, of course.