Paul Waldman ably describes the two most common fallacies pundits and politicians use to explain how Democratic presidents can get stuff done in Washington.
One can be called “the Bernie Sanders fallacy.”
It involves leading “a grass-roots movement so powerful that it would force Republicans in Congress to vote for things they despise such as single-payer health care and free college.”
It’s a manifestly absurd campaign promise and it really shouldn’t even qualify as an aspiration–because it’s delusional.
The Republicans will not vote for a progressive vision for America, let alone a Democratic Socialist one.
No amount of citizen pressure could ever convince them otherwise.
The second fallacy can be called “the John Hickenlooper fallacy,” after the former Denver mayor and Colorado governor who just announced his candidacy for president.
In this scenario, you can convince a sufficient number of Republicans to vote for your agenda by having a respectful dialogue with them.
. . . .
As Waldman correctly points out, this is every bit as ridiculous as the Bernie Sanders fallacy.
. . . .
The only way to pass progressive legislation in Congress is to do it without any Republican votes.
But that is not how Congress works.
Congress includes the Senate, and the Senate requires sixty members to overcome a legislative filibuster.
There are two things that will not happen between now and Inauguration Day, 2021: The Senate Republicans won’t become responsive to citizen pressure or presidential cajoling, and the Democrats will not get enough votes in the Senate to end a filibuster on their own.
Any presidential candidate who promises to accomplish anything legislatively needs to explain how they’ll go about overcoming this problem.
They’ll need a better answer than the ones Sanders and Hickenlooper have provided thus far.
If this is right, any moderate Democrat who disses the AOC/Bernie agenda saying "That's not going to happen; that's just too radical" needs to explain how his plans to expand Medicare and firm up Obamacare are the least bit more realizable.
But maybe it's not right, in which event the Dems could as well pass the AOC/Bernie agenda as the moderate one of, say, Ed Rendell, if they can unite for it.
According to the Supreme Court's ruling in United States v. Ballin (1892), Senate rules can be changed by a simple majority vote.
Nevertheless, under current Senate rules, a rule change could itself be filibustered, requiring two-thirds of senators who are present and voting to end debate. (This differs from the usual requirement for three-fifths of sworn senators.)
However, despite this two-thirds requirement being written into the Senate rules, any Senator may attempt to nullify a Senate rule by making a point of order that the rule is unconstitutional or just that the meaning of the rule should not be followed.
The presiding officer is generally expected to rule in favor of the rules of the Senate, but any ruling from the chair may be appealed and overturned by a simple majority of Senators.
This happened in 2013, when Harry Reid of the Democratic Party made a point of order that "the vote on cloture under rule XXII for all nominations other than for the Supreme Court of the United States is by majority vote."
Although there is no simple majority vote provision in the text of rule XXII, Reid's point of order was sustained by a 52-48 vote, and that ruling established a Senate precedent that cloture on nominations other than those for the Supreme Court requires only a simple majority.
On April 6, 2017, that precedent was further changed by Mitch McConnell and the Republican majority to include Supreme Court nominations.
More briefly,
The nuclear option is a parliamentary procedure that allows the United States Senate to override a rule – specifically the 60-vote rule to close debate – by a simple majority of 51 votes, rather than the two-thirds supermajority normally required to amend the rules.
The option is invoked when the majority leader raises a point of order that only a simple majority is needed to close debate on certain matters.
The presiding officer denies the point of order based on Senate rules, but the ruling of the chair is then appealed and overturned by majority vote, establishing new precedent.
This procedure effectively allows the Senate to decide any issue by simple majority vote, regardless of existing procedural rules such as Rule XXII which requires the consent of 60 senators (out of 100) to end a filibuster for legislation, and 67 for amending a Senate rule.
But would enough Democrats agree to end the filibuster?
As many as needed to constitute a majority of 51?
Perhaps it is this that Boo is pessimistic about (I took him to be thinking the Democrats would not alone be able to contribute the 67 votes allegedly needed to change a rule in the senate).
Anyway, Boo himself in the past has opposed scrapping the filibuster and opposed elimination of the Electoral College.
Don't recall off-hand whether he has opposed proportional representation in the senate, but I would expect him to.
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