However many Republicans have already said out loud they thought democracy was overrated. They appear to want a one-party dictatorship along the lines of Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.
There are also plenty of Republicans who were happy to say things in public like "we've got to do something about these high levels of turnout - with that sort of turnout you'll never elect a Republican again" which is completely contemptuous of democracy.
However many Republicans have already said out loud they thought democracy was overrated. They appear to want a one-party dictatorship along the lines of Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.
There are also plenty of Republicans who were happy to say things in public like "we've got to do something about these high levels of turnout - with that sort of turnout you'll never elect a Republican again" which is completely contemptuous of democracy.
And totally admits they have nothing the majority of Americans want, and no intention to change that fact.
However many Republicans have already said out loud they thought democracy was overrated. They appear to want a one-party dictatorship along the lines of Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.
There are also plenty of Republicans who were happy to say things in public like "we've got to do something about these high levels of turnout - with that sort of turnout you'll never elect a Republican again" which is completely contemptuous of democracy.
And totally admits they have nothing the majority of Americans want, and no intention to change that fact.
Which is another way in which Democrats are at a disadvantage -- they actually want to do something for the majority of Americans, whereas most of the Republicans in Congress are dedicated primarily to remaining in power. I want to scream at every Democrat who talks about working with Republicans to get things done -- just shove the legislation down their throats already, we won! -- and I think they should dump the filibuster in the Senate, pronto, so they can actually get their legislation passed. Yes, the Republicans will take advantage of that the minute they're back in the majority, but with the filibuster in place they're in charge even when they're in the minority, because they don't give a flying fuck about what happens to most of us.
The problem, as I read the article Miss Amanda linked to, is that they will need a supermajority to get rid of the filibuster requirement for a supermajority, which of course they won’t get.
The problem, as I read the article Miss Amanda linked to, is that they will need a supermajority to get rid of the filibuster requirement for a supermajority, which of course they won’t get.
(Happy to be corrected if I’m wrong.)
From what I understand it just takes a simple majority to fiddle with filibuster rules because they're rules not laws.
From what I understand it just takes a simple majority to fiddle with filibuster rules because they're rules not laws.
My understanding was that the first thing the Senate does, in a new session, is to pass the rules under which it will operate for this session, which requires a simple majority. Changing the rules mid-session is a thing that would have to be done under whatever rules were existing. So I believe (but am not certain) that you can change the rules at the start of a Congress with a simple majority vote, but it may be that mid-year rule changes could be filibustered.
The Congressional Research Service describes eight different ways to change Senate procedure, most of which require a supermajority of some size (3/5ths, 2/3rds, or unanimity.) Option 4 however - "Establish a new precedent" - is a kind of esoteric parliamentary procedural maneuver that requires only a simple majority; the Brookings Institute describes how it was used in the recent past to limit the filibuster, and how it might be used now to eliminate it.
(I too recall hearing something about an initial opportunity to change the rules, but that aspect isn't mentioned in these references; the "re-interpretations" that limited the filibuster in 2013 and 2017 did not take place at the start of a new Congress.)
It seems to be complicated, to put it mildly. AIUI the rules normally continue in effect from session to session unless changed by a 2/3 majority vote. But... the Senate can vote to “create a new precedent” as per what happened in 2013 and 2017. But in both cases these were specifically about confirming appointments, and there seems to be some debate about how far this can be extended.
The idea seems to be that the Senate could, by a simple majority vote, create a precedent that “interprets” the 3/5ths requirement in Rule 22 out of existence, notwithstanding the fact that actually amending that rule would normally require a 2/3 supermajority. I admit this kind of makes my head explode. At least, it explains why this hasn’t happened yet...
There have been court challenges to gerrymandering. Eventually, I think the courts will rule gerrymandering is unconstitutional.
The courts had a chance and decided to pass [PDF]. John Roberts fell back on that old standby that if an electoral system is biased people should vote to change it. The obvious problem with such a solution was left to Kagan's dissent to point out. I fear that the courts will not find any but the most blatant anti-democratic voting "reforms" unconstitutional as long as John Robert is Chief Justice.
A quick rundown of the status of the Biden cabinet.
Three Biden appointees have already approved by the Senate: Austin (Defense), Yellen (Treasury), and Blinken (State). Those are three of the "Big Four" cabinet posts, the fourth being Attorney General. These are the cabinet positions that date back to the Washington administration.
Three appointees, Mayorkas (Homeland Security), Buttigieg (Transportation), and Raimondo (Commerce) have had appearances before the relevant Senate committees but have not been voted on, either by those committees or the full Senate.
Three appointees, Granholm (Energy), McDonough (Veterans Affairs), and Fudge (Housing & Urban Development) have committee hearings scheduled for a future date.
Six appointees do not have committee hearings or votes scheduled yet. They are Garland (Justice), Haaland (Interior), Vilsack (Agriculture), Walsh (Labor), Becerra (Health & Human Services), and Cardona (Education).
Seriously, what the fuck does Merrick Garland have to do to get a hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee?
When you are voting to decide who will be the president of the USA, it doesn't make sense to vote for anyone who couldn't possinly win.
That's too strong a statement. If you live in a swing state, sure. If you live in a state that isn't in contention, then your third party vote is "free" - there's no risk that your vote, or the vote of people like you, will alter the outcome. In which case you're quite free to signal your support for envirotnmental issues, hardcore nutjobbery, or whatever else is promoted by third party candidates in your area.
Or if you genuinely don't care which of the major parties wins, because you think they're both completely ignoring your concern, then voting for a third party that promotes your interest is entirely rational.
But if you, for example, prefer Green over Dem, and Dem over GOP, then in a swing state, you should vote Dem.
I am starting to understand that this way of voting might be risky. The question is whether you pay enough attention to realise when your state is safe one way or another, and when it is in contention. Georgia is the case in point. Texas is often talked about as going purple. Arizona (love to Arizonan shipmates) was until recently considered hard-core Republican. And California is deep deep blue, but Republican Arnie was governor in the living memory of Millennials.
However many Republicans have already said out loud they thought democracy was overrated. They appear to want a one-party dictatorship along the lines of Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.
There are also plenty of Republicans who were happy to say things in public like "we've got to do something about these high levels of turnout - with that sort of turnout you'll never elect a Republican again" which is completely contemptuous of democracy.
And totally admits they have nothing the majority of Americans want, and no intention to change that fact.
Which is another way in which Democrats are at a disadvantage -- they actually want to do something for the majority of Americans, whereas most of the Republicans in Congress are dedicated primarily to remaining in power. I want to scream at every Democrat who talks about working with Republicans to get things done -- just shove the legislation down their throats already, we won! -- and I think they should dump the filibuster in the Senate, pronto, so they can actually get their legislation passed. Yes, the Republicans will take advantage of that the minute they're back in the majority, but with the filibuster in place they're in charge even when they're in the minority, because they don't give a flying fuck about what happens to most of us.
Preach it sister.
What happens here is that a major reform, say the imposition of an indirect tax (the GST) is raised and debated. The party proposing the reform is defeated, because it is a new and scary thing and people listen to the arguments against. After a few election cycles over, say, a decade, with debate simmering below the surface, the GST policy becomes just another issue to talk about, and the party proposing it is elected because the other mob have been in Govt too long. The GST is passed despite fierce opposition because the new Govt has the numbers and uses the "mandate to do it" argument to get independent and 3rd party people to support it. The policy is instituted, systems are set up, and people see that its effect is not as bad as they first thought. So the party that opposed it shrugs, says OK that's not a winner anymore, and the policy becomes more or less settled.
That's what I hope will happen if the Dems end the filibuster and implement a reformed health care system and changes to the way welfare works, using Covid as the pretext for massive structural change. People will see that these new systems work. People will hopefully also make the connection that voting improves their lives (a step not required in Australia), and will turn out to vote for the Dems across the country. Eventually, if the Republicans get over their flirtation with authoritarianism, they will have to move towards the new centre in American politics - the present centre-left - to get power. There was peace and light and love and lots of flowers. Then I woke up.
Also, I am now a massive Stacy Abrams fan. I'm going to get a t-shirt. She has a plan, something like my impossible dream but more insightful, more achievable, more possible in America's circumstances and she has proven that she can make real change happen.
She is the woman for me, the American politician of my dreams.
I’d have thought if you wanted independence for Puerto Rico, statehood would be a good first step. The current situation seems like the worst of all worlds.
I’d have thought if you wanted independence for Puerto Rico, statehood would be a good first step. The current situation seems like the worst of all worlds.
Trying to achieve independence from statehood doesn't have a good history.
I think stabilizing and boosting their economy will be necessary groundwork for anything else they want to do. From what I've heard in the news, on and off, for the last several years, they don't have much money (individually or as a government); the infrastructure is fragile (e.g. roads, schools, emergency services); and it's right where it gets the brunt of natural disasters (hurricanes).
They do get tourists; but probably not so many the last several years. Now that the Araceibo telescope there has broken to bits, there will probably be fewer scientists and staff (at least, from off the island), who will be spending less money. OTOH, I heard there's a move to rebuild it. If the funding can be pulled together, that will probably mean some jobs for local people, money spent at local businesses, and tax revenue.
I'm guessing good, stable Internet connections may be hard to get and maintain there, due to cost, weather, and maybe terrain. Fixing that, or finding a work-around, might give Puerto Ricans more opportunities for remote work.
I don't know how Puerto Ricans *want* to live; but ISTM that the above might help them, whatever status they choose for PR.
I’d have thought if you wanted independence for Puerto Rico, statehood would be a good first step. The current situation seems like the worst of all worlds.
Trying to achieve independence from statehood doesn't have a good history.
Hawai'i hasn't (yet) managed it. Their best bet might be to go for a "sovereign nation" arrangement, like federally-recognized Native American tribes have. (There are many tribes that aren't recognized.)
Barnabas62Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
It is beginning to look as though both the GOP in Congress and the conservative judiciary are not interested either in bipartisan politics or in cleansing the party of anti-democratic Trumpism. Frustrating the new President may not be a concerted policy, more a demonstration about just how diseased the GOP now is.
It is beginning to look as though both the GOP in Congress and the conservative judiciary are not interested either in bipartisan politics or in cleansing the party of anti-democratic Trumpism.
I am starting to understand that this way of voting might be risky. The question is whether you pay enough attention to realise when your state is safe one way or another, and when it is in contention. Georgia is the case in point.
I'm beginning conclude that Georgia wasn't a "red state" so much as it was a "voter suppressed state". Hopefully the current Republican efforts to reinstate the clampdown on certain voters there can be thwarted.
Also the home state of Presidents Nixon and Reagan. California's swing towards the Democrats is actually pretty recent, dating to the 1990s.
Does that mean that California hasn't so much swung to the Dems as the GOPs constant strive to move ever more to the right has simply left California behind?
I think it's increasingly clear that the US doesn't have one Overton window. It has several and the GOP has put itself outside of the window in many states but the combination of rural-bias in the constitution, Foxification of the news and strategic gerrymandering gives them a decent shot at power anyway.
I suspect that AFZ is referring to the allocation of two senators per state, regardless of population, and the subsequent allocation of electoral college votes for the presidential election, resulting in citizens in sparsely-populated states getting significantly more representation per capita (both in the Senate and in the election of the President) than citizens in more densely-populated states.
If you start with the assumption of one person, one vote, then this looks like bias. But you don't have to start with those assumptions, of course.
Also the home state of Presidents Nixon and Reagan. California's swing towards the Democrats is actually pretty recent, dating to the 1990s.
Does that mean that California hasn't so much swung to the Dems as the GOPs constant strive to move ever more to the right has simply left California behind?
I think it's increasingly clear that the US doesn't have one Overton window. It has several and the GOP has put itself outside of the window in many states but the combination of rural-bias in the constitution, Foxification of the news and strategic gerrymandering gives them a decent shot at power anyway.
A lot of American politics is local (if you can consider a state with the size and population of California to be a single "locality"). The decline of the Republican party in California can probably be traced to Proposition 187. Whether you regard it as cause or symptom is a matter of personal preference, but that's the point where the California Republican party decided to go all-in on being anti-immigrant, largely for racist reasons. This fueled a vicious cycle of moderates leaving while the party had to make up those numbers by dredging for ever-more-racist voters, a limited pool though not as limited as one would have hoped.
(Although it's worth noting that if you take away electoral college votes caused by senators, and just allocate electoral college votes to representatives, making them proportional to population, Trump would still have won the 2016 election by a margin of 50 electoral college votes, despite losing the popular vote by almost 3 million votes.
His victory was caused by the winner-takes-all allocation of electoral votes, and the fact that he narrowly won the swing states, and not by the extra electoral college votes allocated to sparsely-populated, generally Republican, states.)
[ Trump's 2016 ] victory was caused by the winner-takes-all allocation of electoral votes, and the fact that he narrowly won the swing states, and not by the extra electoral college votes allocated to sparsely-populated, generally Republican, states.
I'm pretty sure that counts as part of the structural counter-majoritarian bias of American presidential elections too.
I suspect that AFZ is referring to the allocation of two senators per state, regardless of population, and the subsequent allocation of electoral college votes for the presidential election, resulting in citizens in sparsely-populated states getting significantly more representation per capita (both in the Senate and in the election of the President) than citizens in more densely-populated states.
If you start with the assumption of one person, one vote, then this looks like bias. But you don't have to start with those assumptions, of course.
True, you could choose a different bias, such as giving those under 25 more power as they have more life ahead, or those with more education as they may be better able to assess the candidates claims or any other undemocratic bias.
Why should votes of people (in the 21st century) living in more sparsely populated states count for more than those living in big cities or 'big' states?
If DC and Puerto Rico were to become bona fide states:
a) How exactly would that happen?
b) How long would it take?
c) Is there any indication whether they would be reliably Democrat? (I am guessing the answer is "yes" with regards to DC)
And just like that Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) has introduced the Washington, DC Admission Act. Something like this has been a mainstay of the House of Representatives and usually goes nowhere. I'm not sure but I think this is the first time it's been introduced in the Senate.
Why should votes of people (in the 21st century) living in more sparsely populated states count for more than those living in big cities or 'big' states?
Do you think that democracy is an end in itself, or is merely a useful tool to create government that's most likely to protect people's rights, or what?
If you start with the argument that protecting the right of minorities from being trampled by majorities is important, then you could decide that having a voice from each minority group was more important that having a dozen extra largely-interchangeable majority voices.
Of course, if you think that, and then you think that the only minority deserving of special representation is rural people, then you might reasonably be accused of special pleading.
[ Trump's 2016 ] victory was caused by the winner-takes-all allocation of electoral votes, and the fact that he narrowly won the swing states, and not by the extra electoral college votes allocated to sparsely-populated, generally Republican, states.
I'm pretty sure that counts as part of the structural counter-majoritarian bias of American presidential elections too.
Any kind of first-past-the-post, winner-takes-all vote allocation certainly makes your overall result vulnerable to gerrymandering, or to geographical vote clumping that has the same effect (it's only gerrymandering if the electoral boundaries were constructed to build a couple of sacrificial districts of pure X voters and several ones where Y voters modestly outnumber X voters. Sometimes, these splits happen without nefarious intervention.)
In general, the effect is to amplify a small majority (if you look, for example, at the ratio of seats to vote share for Labour and the Tories in the UK over the last few decades, you find that the party that wins the election is always awarded significantly more seats than its fair share, which is the swing-seat winner-takes-all effect. You also see that on occasions that Labour wins, it has an even more extreme share of the seats than the Tories do when they win - that's a combination of a lot of different modest-sized effects that act to give Labour a small advantage in elections.)
It is true that, since the beginning of the Dem / Rep 2-party split in US politics, all the winners of presidential elections who have lost the popular vote have been Republicans, and two of them (Bush - Gore and Trump - Clinton) have been recent. But JFK only beat Nixon by a whisker in the popular vote. Really, the only recent example of the popular vote and the electoral college being significantly out of line is Trump, because he won all of the swing states by a whisker, but did badly in the states where Democrats dominate.
I like when yesterday, during the Q and A the president had with reporters, as he was leaving one reporter called out asking what he talked about with Putin. Biden replied "We talked about you. He sends his best regards."
Why is this significant? Well, this president can joke, and he does not accuse reporters of being fake news.
Do you think that democracy is an end in itself, or is merely a useful tool to create government that's most likely to protect people's rights, or what?
If you start with the argument that protecting the right of minorities from being trampled by majorities is important, then you could decide that having a voice from each minority group was more important that having a dozen extra largely-interchangeable majority voices.
Except we're not talking about the protection of minority rights, we're discussing allocation of power and minority rule, which is a very different proposition.
Any kind of first-past-the-post, winner-takes-all vote allocation certainly makes your overall result vulnerable to gerrymandering, or to geographical vote clumping that has the same effect (it's only gerrymandering if the electoral boundaries were constructed to build a couple of sacrificial districts of pure X voters and several ones where Y voters modestly outnumber X voters. Sometimes, these splits happen without nefarious intervention.)
"Any kind of first-past-the-post, winner-takes-all vote allocation"? U.S. gubenatorial elections (single position elected on a statewide popular vote basis) don't seem to fall prey to gerrymandering or geographic clumping. Since this is the state-level post that's the closest equivalent to the American president I'm not sure this handwaving about any possible electoral system falling prey to the distortions of geographic distribution is all that convincing.
I like when yesterday, during the Q and A the president had with reporters, as he was leaving one reporter called out asking what he talked about with Putin. Biden replied "We talked about you. He sends his best regards."
Here's the video. The reporter in question was Peter Doocy of Fox News. He's the son of Steve Doocy from Fox & Friends so he's either a legacy hire or going in to the family business, depending on how you want to look at it.
Except we're not talking about the protection of minority rights, we're discussing allocation of power and minority rule, which is a very different proposition.
You have to draw your lines quite carefully to come to this conclusion. Small states don't rule the US. The largest 11 states hold a majority of the electoral college votes (CA, TX, FL, NY, PA, IL, OH, GA, NC, MI, NJ), and a majority of the House of Representatives.
You seem to be specifically talking about the fact that Trump was elected President with 3 million fewer votes than Clinton - which is perfectly true. And if you call your minority "Trump voters", then sure - we had minority rule for the last 4 years.
And sure - I agree that if 48% of the country gets to dictate to the other 52%, then there's a problem - I'm just not convinced that 52% dictating to the other 48% is better than 4% better.
And sure - I agree that if 48% of the country gets to dictate to the other 52%, then there's a problem - I'm just not convinced that 52% dictating to the other 48% is better than 4% better.
This is perilously close to an argument I have been seeing on the webs, generally by conservatives, to the effect that minority rule is better than majority rule because in majority rule the "tyranny of the majority" means the minority runs a risk of being run roughshod over.
I suspect that AFZ is referring to the allocation of two senators per state, regardless of population, and the subsequent allocation of electoral college votes for the presidential election, resulting in citizens in sparsely-populated states getting significantly more representation per capita (both in the Senate and in the election of the President) than citizens in more densely-populated states.
If you start with the assumption of one person, one vote, then this looks like bias. But you don't have to start with those assumptions, of course.
True, you could choose a different bias, such as giving those under 25 more power as they have more life ahead, or those with more education as they may be better able to assess the candidates claims or any other undemocratic bias.
Why should votes of people (in the 21st century) living in more sparsely populated states count for more than those living in big cities or 'big' states?
That is what I meant and everything since supports what I was getting at.
Whether or not, the Federal arrangements are overall a good thing; whether or not protecting minorities from the tyranny of the majority is desirable or achieved by the current Federal arrangement is not actually relevant. But the 2 Senators per state provision means that in the Senate the GOP have a big advantage.*
The advantage in the electoral college is less marked but still there.**
The effect of this is that the Republicans need less support to be successful than they would otherwise thus they are able to be successful without appealing to most of the electorate. Given this, they can be in power despite being on the edge of the Overton Window. I was positing that the fact that states vary a lot in terms of the political spectrum combined with this rightwards shift means that the GOP can be successful nationally but still a long way behind in California.
A similar variation in the Overton Window can be seen between England and Scotland.
Indeed, despite their current 47-53 deficit in the Senate, Democratic senators actually represent slightly more people than Republicans. If you divide the U.S. population by which party represents it in the Senate — splitting credit 50-50 in the case of states such as Ohio that have one senator from each party — you wind up with 167 million Americans represented by Democratic senators and 160 million by Republicans.
**It is worth noting that despite losing by 7 million votes, Trump was 43,000 votes away from an Electoral College tie. In that event, the House decides but each States' Representatives vote as a block, once again returning to the Republican advantage.
The system isn't designed to give one particular party an advantage over another, though....the GOP advantage in the Senate only exists because the Democrats have made a conscious decision to court urban voters at the expense of rural voters.
If the Democrats offered policies that rural voters could get on board with, then they'd be the ones with the advantage, like they had in the 1930s and 40s.
But the Republicans don't do anything for rural voters either. Similarly the congresscritters that fight hardest for veterans and for quality of life for enlisted service people are Democrats, but the military votes overwhelmingly GOP. Or as has been said over and over, these people are not voting for their own best interest.
The system isn't designed to give one particular party an advantage over another, though....the GOP advantage in the Senate only exists because the Democrats have made a conscious decision to court urban voters at the expense of rural voters.
If the Democrats offered policies that rural voters could get on board with, then they'd be the ones with the advantage, like they had in the 1930s and 40s.
I don't think that's particularly accurate. Not least because the ONE thing that would benefit rural voters the most is an expansion of access to healthcare.
Either way it's beside the point. At no point have I suggested the system is designed to give the GOP an advantage. My point is simply that it does. Which is why the GOP is able to wield significant power on minority support.
The GOP's move rightwards is not particularly controversial. And whilst I think they have essentially moved out of the Overton Window for California, they haven't for enough of the country (combined with the skews in the system I've described) and thus remain electorally competitive.
As I said, my contention is not that California has swung to the Dems, it's that the GOP has swung away from California. And they have, in-part done this because the national picture means that moving away from California has not led to the electoral wilderness.
And sure - I agree that if 48% of the country gets to dictate to the other 52%, then there's a problem - I'm just not convinced that 52% dictating to the other 48% is better than 4% better.
Then I suppose your problem isn't with any specific electoral system per se, but rather with democracy itself.
If the Democrats offered policies that rural voters could get on board with, then they'd be the ones with the advantage, like they had in the 1930s and 40s.
I don't think that's particularly accurate. Not least because the ONE thing that would benefit rural voters the most is an expansion of access to healthcare.
I guess that depends on what's meant by "rural". Things like the Affordable Care Act have been critical in not just providing health insurance to rural Americans but it's also helped insure that rural hospitals stay open. The recent wave of hospital closures in rural America were largely concentrated in states that opted out of the ACA's Medicaid expansion. Joe Biden's plan to expand broadband internet to rural areas (kind of an REA for the digital age) would also seem to fall under this category.
On the other hand "rural" is often used as a euphemism for "white" in American politics. For example, the Democratic New Deal programs of the 1930s and 40s that @Powderkeg suggests serve as a template were often deliberately constructed to omit non-white Americans. (e.g. The decision to exclude agricultural laborers and domestic servants from Social Security benefits increased the popularity of the program because those jobs were coded "black" in the 1930s.) If that's the basis of @Powderkeg's argument (and it seems to be) then I'm not sure the Democrats would gain much by (re-)embracing herrenvolk democracy. The Republicans are already there and have established brand recognition on that front.
"Any kind of first-past-the-post, winner-takes-all vote allocation"? U.S. gubenatorial elections (single position elected on a statewide popular vote basis) don't seem to fall prey to gerrymandering or geographic clumping. Since this is the state-level post that's the closest equivalent to the American president I'm not sure this handwaving about any possible electoral system falling prey to the distortions of geographic distribution is all that convincing.
It's hard to gerrymander elections for governor when the whole State is one electorate.
"Any kind of first-past-the-post, winner-takes-all vote allocation"? U.S. gubenatorial elections (single position elected on a statewide popular vote basis) don't seem to fall prey to gerrymandering or geographic clumping. Since this is the state-level post that's the closest equivalent to the American president I'm not sure this handwaving about any possible electoral system falling prey to the distortions of geographic distribution is all that convincing.
It's hard to gerrymander elections for governor when the whole State is one electorate.
Comments
There are also plenty of Republicans who were happy to say things in public like "we've got to do something about these high levels of turnout - with that sort of turnout you'll never elect a Republican again" which is completely contemptuous of democracy.
And totally admits they have nothing the majority of Americans want, and no intention to change that fact.
Which is another way in which Democrats are at a disadvantage -- they actually want to do something for the majority of Americans, whereas most of the Republicans in Congress are dedicated primarily to remaining in power. I want to scream at every Democrat who talks about working with Republicans to get things done -- just shove the legislation down their throats already, we won! -- and I think they should dump the filibuster in the Senate, pronto, so they can actually get their legislation passed. Yes, the Republicans will take advantage of that the minute they're back in the majority, but with the filibuster in place they're in charge even when they're in the minority, because they don't give a flying fuck about what happens to most of us.
(Happy to be corrected if I’m wrong.)
From what I understand it just takes a simple majority to fiddle with filibuster rules because they're rules not laws.
My understanding was that the first thing the Senate does, in a new session, is to pass the rules under which it will operate for this session, which requires a simple majority. Changing the rules mid-session is a thing that would have to be done under whatever rules were existing. So I believe (but am not certain) that you can change the rules at the start of a Congress with a simple majority vote, but it may be that mid-year rule changes could be filibustered.
(I too recall hearing something about an initial opportunity to change the rules, but that aspect isn't mentioned in these references; the "re-interpretations" that limited the filibuster in 2013 and 2017 did not take place at the start of a new Congress.)
Wikipedia is helpful on the basics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option
The idea seems to be that the Senate could, by a simple majority vote, create a precedent that “interprets” the 3/5ths requirement in Rule 22 out of existence, notwithstanding the fact that actually amending that rule would normally require a 2/3 supermajority. I admit this kind of makes my head explode. At least, it explains why this hasn’t happened yet...
The courts had a chance and decided to pass [PDF]. John Roberts fell back on that old standby that if an electoral system is biased people should vote to change it. The obvious problem with such a solution was left to Kagan's dissent to point out. I fear that the courts will not find any but the most blatant anti-democratic voting "reforms" unconstitutional as long as John Robert is Chief Justice.
Three Biden appointees have already approved by the Senate: Austin (Defense), Yellen (Treasury), and Blinken (State). Those are three of the "Big Four" cabinet posts, the fourth being Attorney General. These are the cabinet positions that date back to the Washington administration.
Three appointees, Mayorkas (Homeland Security), Buttigieg (Transportation), and Raimondo (Commerce) have had appearances before the relevant Senate committees but have not been voted on, either by those committees or the full Senate.
Three appointees, Granholm (Energy), McDonough (Veterans Affairs), and Fudge (Housing & Urban Development) have committee hearings scheduled for a future date.
Six appointees do not have committee hearings or votes scheduled yet. They are Garland (Justice), Haaland (Interior), Vilsack (Agriculture), Walsh (Labor), Becerra (Health & Human Services), and Cardona (Education).
Seriously, what the fuck does Merrick Garland have to do to get a hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee?
Fantastic
The Bush family is going to hate that.
Do they own a prison?
Oh yes, Mother Bush, in particular, was a major investor in private prisons.
I am starting to understand that this way of voting might be risky. The question is whether you pay enough attention to realise when your state is safe one way or another, and when it is in contention. Georgia is the case in point. Texas is often talked about as going purple. Arizona (love to Arizonan shipmates) was until recently considered hard-core Republican. And California is deep deep blue, but Republican Arnie was governor in the living memory of Millennials.
Preach it sister.
What happens here is that a major reform, say the imposition of an indirect tax (the GST) is raised and debated. The party proposing the reform is defeated, because it is a new and scary thing and people listen to the arguments against. After a few election cycles over, say, a decade, with debate simmering below the surface, the GST policy becomes just another issue to talk about, and the party proposing it is elected because the other mob have been in Govt too long. The GST is passed despite fierce opposition because the new Govt has the numbers and uses the "mandate to do it" argument to get independent and 3rd party people to support it. The policy is instituted, systems are set up, and people see that its effect is not as bad as they first thought. So the party that opposed it shrugs, says OK that's not a winner anymore, and the policy becomes more or less settled.
That's what I hope will happen if the Dems end the filibuster and implement a reformed health care system and changes to the way welfare works, using Covid as the pretext for massive structural change. People will see that these new systems work. People will hopefully also make the connection that voting improves their lives (a step not required in Australia), and will turn out to vote for the Dems across the country. Eventually, if the Republicans get over their flirtation with authoritarianism, they will have to move towards the new centre in American politics - the present centre-left - to get power. There was peace and light and love and lots of flowers. Then I woke up.
She is the woman for me, the American politician of my dreams.
Trying to achieve independence from statehood doesn't have a good history.
I think stabilizing and boosting their economy will be necessary groundwork for anything else they want to do. From what I've heard in the news, on and off, for the last several years, they don't have much money (individually or as a government); the infrastructure is fragile (e.g. roads, schools, emergency services); and it's right where it gets the brunt of natural disasters (hurricanes).
They do get tourists; but probably not so many the last several years. Now that the Araceibo telescope there has broken to bits, there will probably be fewer scientists and staff (at least, from off the island), who will be spending less money. OTOH, I heard there's a move to rebuild it. If the funding can be pulled together, that will probably mean some jobs for local people, money spent at local businesses, and tax revenue.
I'm guessing good, stable Internet connections may be hard to get and maintain there, due to cost, weather, and maybe terrain. Fixing that, or finding a work-around, might give Puerto Ricans more opportunities for remote work.
I don't know how Puerto Ricans *want* to live; but ISTM that the above might help them, whatever status they choose for PR.
Hawai'i hasn't (yet) managed it. Their best bet might be to go for a "sovereign nation" arrangement, like federally-recognized Native American tribes have. (There are many tribes that aren't recognized.)
I hope I’m wrong.
And yes, the GOP is diseased.
I'm beginning conclude that Georgia wasn't a "red state" so much as it was a "voter suppressed state". Hopefully the current Republican efforts to reinstate the clampdown on certain voters there can be thwarted.
Also the home state of Presidents Nixon and Reagan. California's swing towards the Democrats is actually pretty recent, dating to the 1990s.
Does that mean that California hasn't so much swung to the Dems as the GOPs constant strive to move ever more to the right has simply left California behind?
I think it's increasingly clear that the US doesn't have one Overton window. It has several and the GOP has put itself outside of the window in many states but the combination of rural-bias in the constitution, Foxification of the news and strategic gerrymandering gives them a decent shot at power anyway.
AFZ
"Rural bias in the Constitution"?
I suspect that AFZ is referring to the allocation of two senators per state, regardless of population, and the subsequent allocation of electoral college votes for the presidential election, resulting in citizens in sparsely-populated states getting significantly more representation per capita (both in the Senate and in the election of the President) than citizens in more densely-populated states.
If you start with the assumption of one person, one vote, then this looks like bias. But you don't have to start with those assumptions, of course.
A lot of American politics is local (if you can consider a state with the size and population of California to be a single "locality"). The decline of the Republican party in California can probably be traced to Proposition 187. Whether you regard it as cause or symptom is a matter of personal preference, but that's the point where the California Republican party decided to go all-in on being anti-immigrant, largely for racist reasons. This fueled a vicious cycle of moderates leaving while the party had to make up those numbers by dredging for ever-more-racist voters, a limited pool though not as limited as one would have hoped.
His victory was caused by the winner-takes-all allocation of electoral votes, and the fact that he narrowly won the swing states, and not by the extra electoral college votes allocated to sparsely-populated, generally Republican, states.)
I'm pretty sure that counts as part of the structural counter-majoritarian bias of American presidential elections too.
True, you could choose a different bias, such as giving those under 25 more power as they have more life ahead, or those with more education as they may be better able to assess the candidates claims or any other undemocratic bias.
Why should votes of people (in the 21st century) living in more sparsely populated states count for more than those living in big cities or 'big' states?
And just like that Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) has introduced the Washington, DC Admission Act. Something like this has been a mainstay of the House of Representatives and usually goes nowhere. I'm not sure but I think this is the first time it's been introduced in the Senate.
Do you think that democracy is an end in itself, or is merely a useful tool to create government that's most likely to protect people's rights, or what?
If you start with the argument that protecting the right of minorities from being trampled by majorities is important, then you could decide that having a voice from each minority group was more important that having a dozen extra largely-interchangeable majority voices.
Of course, if you think that, and then you think that the only minority deserving of special representation is rural people, then you might reasonably be accused of special pleading.
Any kind of first-past-the-post, winner-takes-all vote allocation certainly makes your overall result vulnerable to gerrymandering, or to geographical vote clumping that has the same effect (it's only gerrymandering if the electoral boundaries were constructed to build a couple of sacrificial districts of pure X voters and several ones where Y voters modestly outnumber X voters. Sometimes, these splits happen without nefarious intervention.)
In general, the effect is to amplify a small majority (if you look, for example, at the ratio of seats to vote share for Labour and the Tories in the UK over the last few decades, you find that the party that wins the election is always awarded significantly more seats than its fair share, which is the swing-seat winner-takes-all effect. You also see that on occasions that Labour wins, it has an even more extreme share of the seats than the Tories do when they win - that's a combination of a lot of different modest-sized effects that act to give Labour a small advantage in elections.)
It is true that, since the beginning of the Dem / Rep 2-party split in US politics, all the winners of presidential elections who have lost the popular vote have been Republicans, and two of them (Bush - Gore and Trump - Clinton) have been recent. But JFK only beat Nixon by a whisker in the popular vote. Really, the only recent example of the popular vote and the electoral college being significantly out of line is Trump, because he won all of the swing states by a whisker, but did badly in the states where Democrats dominate.
Why is this significant? Well, this president can joke, and he does not accuse reporters of being fake news.
Except we're not talking about the protection of minority rights, we're discussing allocation of power and minority rule, which is a very different proposition.
"Any kind of first-past-the-post, winner-takes-all vote allocation"? U.S. gubenatorial elections (single position elected on a statewide popular vote basis) don't seem to fall prey to gerrymandering or geographic clumping. Since this is the state-level post that's the closest equivalent to the American president I'm not sure this handwaving about any possible electoral system falling prey to the distortions of geographic distribution is all that convincing.
Here's the video. The reporter in question was Peter Doocy of Fox News. He's the son of Steve Doocy from Fox & Friends so he's either a legacy hire or going in to the family business, depending on how you want to look at it.
You have to draw your lines quite carefully to come to this conclusion. Small states don't rule the US. The largest 11 states hold a majority of the electoral college votes (CA, TX, FL, NY, PA, IL, OH, GA, NC, MI, NJ), and a majority of the House of Representatives.
You seem to be specifically talking about the fact that Trump was elected President with 3 million fewer votes than Clinton - which is perfectly true. And if you call your minority "Trump voters", then sure - we had minority rule for the last 4 years.
And sure - I agree that if 48% of the country gets to dictate to the other 52%, then there's a problem - I'm just not convinced that 52% dictating to the other 48% is better than 4% better.
This is perilously close to an argument I have been seeing on the webs, generally by conservatives, to the effect that minority rule is better than majority rule because in majority rule the "tyranny of the majority" means the minority runs a risk of being run roughshod over.
That is what I meant and everything since supports what I was getting at.
Whether or not, the Federal arrangements are overall a good thing; whether or not protecting minorities from the tyranny of the majority is desirable or achieved by the current Federal arrangement is not actually relevant. But the 2 Senators per state provision means that in the Senate the GOP have a big advantage.*
The advantage in the electoral college is less marked but still there.**
The effect of this is that the Republicans need less support to be successful than they would otherwise thus they are able to be successful without appealing to most of the electorate. Given this, they can be in power despite being on the edge of the Overton Window. I was positing that the fact that states vary a lot in terms of the political spectrum combined with this rightwards shift means that the GOP can be successful nationally but still a long way behind in California.
A similar variation in the Overton Window can be seen between England and Scotland.
AFZ
*This is a detailed breakdown of the Senate situation: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-senates-rural-skew-makes-it-very-hard-for-democrats-to-win-the-supreme-court/ - referring to the previous Senate, the article notes the following:
**It is worth noting that despite losing by 7 million votes, Trump was 43,000 votes away from an Electoral College tie. In that event, the House decides but each States' Representatives vote as a block, once again returning to the Republican advantage.
If the Democrats offered policies that rural voters could get on board with, then they'd be the ones with the advantage, like they had in the 1930s and 40s.
I don't think that's particularly accurate. Not least because the ONE thing that would benefit rural voters the most is an expansion of access to healthcare.
Either way it's beside the point. At no point have I suggested the system is designed to give the GOP an advantage. My point is simply that it does. Which is why the GOP is able to wield significant power on minority support.
The GOP's move rightwards is not particularly controversial. And whilst I think they have essentially moved out of the Overton Window for California, they haven't for enough of the country (combined with the skews in the system I've described) and thus remain electorally competitive.
As I said, my contention is not that California has swung to the Dems, it's that the GOP has swung away from California. And they have, in-part done this because the national picture means that moving away from California has not led to the electoral wilderness.
AFZ
Then I suppose your problem isn't with any specific electoral system per se, but rather with democracy itself.
I guess that depends on what's meant by "rural". Things like the Affordable Care Act have been critical in not just providing health insurance to rural Americans but it's also helped insure that rural hospitals stay open. The recent wave of hospital closures in rural America were largely concentrated in states that opted out of the ACA's Medicaid expansion. Joe Biden's plan to expand broadband internet to rural areas (kind of an REA for the digital age) would also seem to fall under this category.
On the other hand "rural" is often used as a euphemism for "white" in American politics. For example, the Democratic New Deal programs of the 1930s and 40s that @Powderkeg suggests serve as a template were often deliberately constructed to omit non-white Americans. (e.g. The decision to exclude agricultural laborers and domestic servants from Social Security benefits increased the popularity of the program because those jobs were coded "black" in the 1930s.) If that's the basis of @Powderkeg's argument (and it seems to be) then I'm not sure the Democrats would gain much by (re-)embracing herrenvolk democracy. The Republicans are already there and have established brand recognition on that front.
It's hard to gerrymander elections for governor when the whole State is one electorate.
Which is why Kentucky has a Democratic governor.