2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker

[theprestige]

That is reassuring. As alluded to above, there can't really be a fix for deliberate misrule, but if the problem is a bunch of bastards it's less serious than a single bastard in a position of overwhelming control.

I don't know about a fix for deliberate misrule. But I am convinced there's no real fix for democratic misrule.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I don't know about a fix for deliberate misrule. But I am convinced there's no real fix for democratic misrule.

Complete fix? Probably not. But improvements and safeguards are always possible, in anything.

I suspect the future democracy will utilize mass communication and AI to advantage.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I disagree that the system is broken, just because the Supreme Court occasionally has less than 9 sitting justices. I also disagree that the system is broken, just because the President can choose not to nominate, and the Senate can choose not to vote on confirmation.

But even if we stipulate that these are breakdowns, the system already has a fix. If the President won't nominate, replace the President. If the Senate won't confirm, replace the Senators. What else are you asking for?

Require the president to nominate somebody, require the Senate to vote upon candidates. I don't know how your job works, but mine has requirements for me to perform certain duties. I can't not do them and keep the job.

Considering your apparent disdain for government im surprised you appear to want to let them behave like aristocrats and occupy positions whether they perform their duty or not. I see government as employees of the people, and that they should fulfill their duties or get out. In the case of a decision-making body I think they should be required to make decisions: they could choose yes or no, but I wouldn't let them refrain from choosing entirely.

 

[Belz...]

They didn't prevent the president from doing his job. The president's job was to nominate, and the president did that. There's nothing Congress did, or could do, to prevent the President from doing his job.

And I don't agree that the Senate didn't do its own job.

Again, this is all just technically true. There was no reason to block Garland. He wasn't a nutcare or a legal crusader, but that's what they wanted, and they were going to do everything in their power to make it happen. That's not doing your job. When the other party is in power, your job is not to do the exact opposite reflexively.

 

[Belz...]

I disagree that the system is broken, just because the Supreme Court occasionally has less than 9 sitting justices.

But that's not the reason why people are saying there's a problem. The problem is not that there are fewer than 9 people on the court. It's the cause of that lack: the deliberate refusal of the Senate to even consider a nominee for no other reason than partisan considerations.

 

[theprestige]

But that's not the reason why people are saying there's a problem. The problem is not that there are fewer than 9 people on the court. It's the cause of that lack: the deliberate refusal of the Senate to even consider a nominee for no other reason than partisan considerations.

If 8 people on the bench isn't a problem, then choosing to leave the bench at 8 people can't be much of a problem either.

---

If Obama had nominated a conservative justice, guaranteed to fire up McConnell's base, and took to the bully pulpit urging Americans to tell their Senators what's what, would you have supported the justices confirmation? Would you have urged McConnnell to stop obstructing and fill the seat?

Or would you have crossed your fingers and hoped McConnell would be too stupid or too partisan to take the opportunity, and let things ride until after the election?

 

[Mumbles]

If 8 people on the bench isn't a problem, then choosing to leave the bench at 8 people can't be much of a problem either.

---

If Obama had nominated a conservative justice, guaranteed to fire up McConnell's base, and took to the bully pulpit urging Americans to tell their Senators what's what, would you have supported the justices confirmation? Would you have urged McConnnell to stop obstructing and fill the seat?

Or would you have crossed your fingers and hoped McConnell would be too stupid or too partisan to take the opportunity, and let things ride until after the election?

Worth note: McConnell once took to the senate floor to rail against a bill that he had coauthored, the day after Obama said that he would sign it. And this is because he is fundamentally dishonest, corrupt, and antidemocratic.

And this is all I will say to you in this thread.

 

[The Atheist]

I like legislative bottlenecks. I'd rather a government be bogged down because it can't get enough broad consensus to move forward, than a government that can move forward on contentious policies with a bare majority.

Hell yeah. Those ridiculous democracies in Europe, Oceania and elsewhere that work exactly that way, with bare majorities, are just such lousy places.

I think they're the ones Trump was talking about when he mentioned ****-hole countries.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Yeah, why can he do that?

It's the rule the Majority Leader controls the calendar. It's also true in the House, the Speaker controls the calendar.

Congressional procedural rules are a bit murky so don't take this as gospel, but I'm not 100% sure he can in the sense that he could do it if the rest of the Republicans were willing to just... not listen to him.

There's a difference between "Mitch McConnell can just straight up order something to not happen" and "Mitch McConnell can functionally do that because the Republicans aren't going to turn on one of their own" and my gut is we're a lot closer to the later than the former.

No, see above.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The bottleneck only exists because many members agree to let it exist, and I suspect similar bottlenecks exist in every legislative body in the world. Do you think that anything moves forward in the House of Representatives that doesn't have Nancy Pelosi's seal of approval on it? The UN Security Council gives each member veto power. Most parliaments are run by the prime minister.

No, not this either, see above.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

But can't that be taken too far? The Republicans preventing the appointment of any SC justice, for example, merely to deny it to the other party strikes me as beyond the pale of permissible partisan wrangling. That wasn't legislation that wasn't sufficiently popular, it was a deliberate move to steal powers of another branch of government.

It should have been beyond the pale, and it should have been a wake-up call about Senate procedures.

The GOP was too ecstatic about the chance to replace Scalia to stop it. And some of them wanted to use the SCOTUS position as a campaign hammer.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Because you can't have a strong Senate majority leader except by consensus of the Senate that that's how things work, and consensus of the majority that that's how their leader rolls.

The only consensus is that the GOP legislators pick the Majority leader.

I'm surprised how many people here don't appear to know about the calendar control.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I wouldn't call it stealing the powers of the Executive branch.

It's damn close the way McConnell wields his power.

 

[dudalb]

Bernie Sanders seems to be drifint even farther to the left with his recent statements.
GUaranteed, Sanders gets the Democratic Nod, Trump is in for another four years. A lot of people will feel it's a choice between two terrible candiates and sit it out.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

no, it isn't.
There are a lot of laws that need passing, including the budget.
Do you see any hope of Democrats, Republicans and Trump coming to an agreement on that?

McConnell's Bill graveyard:



I'll hunt up a list for people averse to videos.

WA Monthly: McConnell’s Legislative Graveyard
McConnell's POV:

When discussing it with Laura Ingraham, the majority leader embraced his role as the grim reaper killing off “socialism.” The examples he gave weren’t the ones noted by Pelosi and Schumer in the videos above, because they all have broad bipartisan support among voters. Instead, he named proposals that haven’t passed in the House: the Green New Deal, single-payer health care, and discussions about granting statehood to Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico. That last one is especially odd because it has absolutely nothing to do with socialism.

Pelosi's POV:

What McConnell obviously wants to avoid is the fact that he has blocked efforts to limit dark money in politics, net neutrality, background checks for all gun purchases, protections for Dreamers, paycheck fairness, and the Violence Against Women Act. We can now add that he is blocking attempts to protect our elections from foreign interference.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

... I can and do support the power of the Senate to withhold its consent indefinitely until the bench is empty. Just as I can and do support the power of the President to accomplish the same thing.

In both scenarios, there is a higher authority and an obvious remedy, both of which would certainly come into play before all the current justices died of old age. But if the voting public were okay with an empty bench, consistently over the same time period in which several successive Presidents and Senators were working to that end, then I don't see the problem.

Other than the intractable problem of misrule that cannot really be solved, even by a liberal constitutional democracy.

So you don't care about the Constitution as long as the voters can vote the bastards out?

That's rather shortsighted given the time frames involved. And, we are getting a stacked court because a minority voted Trump into office.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

He only has the final say because the other Republican senators agree with him having that power. If they decide they want to let something go forward he cannot stop them. Nancy Pelosi's in the same boat.

Other than voting for a new Speaker or Majority Leader, this simply is not true.

Did any of you think to look it up?

US Senate

The Senate Republican and Democratic floor leaders are elected by the members of their party in the Senate at the beginning of each Congress. Depending on which party is in power, one serves as majority leader and the other as minority leader. The leaders serve as spokespersons for their party's positions on issues. The majority leader schedules the daily legislative program and fashions the unanimous consent agreements that govern the time for debate.

If it ain't on the calendar it cannot come up for a vote.

The Senate rules can be changed at the beginning of every legislative session. No party is likely to give up this power.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Require the president to nominate somebody, require the Senate to vote upon candidates. I don't know how your job works, but mine has requirements for me to perform certain duties. I can't not do them and keep the job.

Considering your apparent disdain for government im surprised you appear to want to let them behave like aristocrats and occupy positions whether they perform their duty or not. I see government as employees of the people, and that they should fulfill their duties or get out. In the case of a decision-making body I think they should be required to make decisions: they could choose yes or no, but I wouldn't let them refrain from choosing entirely.

Until McConnell pulled his very undemocratic stunt, I don't believe any previous Senate had refused to vote on a SCOTUS judge. It was assumed Congress was an honorable body.

Now we have both a POTUS and the Senate Majority Leader making power grabs, including dealing with each other in doing it.

And McConnell is inviting the Russians to interfere away. More than one GOP legislator is in on the take from Russian oligarchs. And given said Russians are funding the NRA, they all are on the take in a way.

Democracy is in danger in this country.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Worth note: McConnell once took to the senate floor to rail against a bill that he had coauthored, the day after Obama said that he would sign it. And this is because he is fundamentally dishonest, corrupt, and antidemocratic.

And this is all I will say to you in this thread.

That's right, I forgot about the "make Obama a one-term POTUS" dishonesty.

 

[angrysoba]

I couldn't think of a word that means stopping someone from doing what they're supposed to do. I thought it was "abrogate" but I looked it up and that's more like "evade". Regardless of terminology, presidents are supposed to nominate appointees.

I wouldn't have had the same objection if they'd held the hearings and voted against every nominee offered; announcing that none would be considered is a different thing entirely.

Obstruction of Justices?