Jim Halpert Explains

I thought the Republicans were all Originalists now? Ain't no Filibuster in the constitution.

Article I, Section V: "Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two thirds, expel a member."

Right. And a house is looking to change those rule of proceeding in accordance with the Constitution.

I seem to remember that being ignored when Republicans wanted to pretend that there had to be a vote to start an impeachment.

Are Democrats trying to remove the filibuster because it is stopping them from passing legislation? Duh. But if they don't Republican's will continue the "do nothing Democrat" mantra.

Wait a second - you claimed that Republicans were hypocrites because they use the filibuster, even though it's not mentioned in the Constitution. I showed you the specific section of the Constitution which allows Congress to make its own rules of proceedings. Now you're pivoting to a different issue without even admitting that your first accusation was wrong?

Come on, man. Be intellectually honest.

I'm not calling Republicans hypocrites for using filibuster. it is currently allowed and both sides have used it.

I am saying that eliminating it is fully in line with the constitution as each house sets their own procedures (as you cited). Pretending its a power grab is just drama.

You're not calling the Republicans hypocrites for using the filibuster? Because you literally said, "I thought the Republicans were all Originalists now? Ain't no Filibuster in the constitution." In other words, you clearly implied that Republicans are violating their own claims of being "Originalists" because they use the filibuster, which is not mentioned by name in the Constitution.

I understand it if you made the comment in haste and you realize you made a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes.

As for the "power grab", I think it clearly is a power grab. The reason is because Democrats actually *used* the filibuster plenty of times - in fact, a record number of times - when Trump was in office, but now they are going so far as to claim it's a "tool of white supremacy".

Any sane and level-headed person can see the underhandedness of the Democrats here.

Perhaps it wasn't as clear in writing as it was in my head.

My interpretation of what you said: Democrats are looking to adjust the internal procedures of Congress in accordance with the constitution. "it's the only thing standing between them and absolute power"

An originalist would look at this action, look to the intent at the time of the framing and see whether this was constitutional. If congress acting within the constraints of the constitution is a power grab, I don't know what to tell you.

Filibuster isn't in the constitution, so I imagine an originalist would further look and see that the first rules put in place by congress allowed 'moving on' with a simple majority, and its removal wasn't to allow Filibuster, but was because they thought it redundant and it hadn't been used more than once in the 4 years since it was put in place. It has been left in place and used by both parties.

It isn't absolute power. They still won't be able to pass a constitutional amendment without a 2/3 vote and that isn't happening.

You're right it's not "absolute power" in one sense, but another sense it's kind of close. For example, they might not be able to pass a constitutional amendment, but they could still eliminate the law which sets the number of SCOTUS members at nine. Then, they could easily confirm as many Democrat-friendly justices as they wanted. In such a case, they might not need any constitutional amendments in order to do whatever they wanted, because they would control the Supreme Court, which interprets the Constitution. They would effectively have "absolute power", or something close to it.

Of course, this isn't just my imagination. Democrats have openly discussed packing the court. We are dangerously close to a one-party state, one which is increasingly totalitarian. Our only hope is that enough people wake up before it's too late.

With the narrow margins we have right now? Sorry, but there would be enough dissenters on something like that. Unless you are a nut who thinks everyone on the left hates America.

They have discussed packing the court - in response to some shady dealings by Republicans which have resulted in the court being skewed to the right. I doubt it will go anywhere though. The optics would be bad even if you ignore the moral side of things.

I sympathize. Refusing to even vote on Garland, and then pretending that the nearly identical situation was different when Trump was in office? It was 100% within the rules, but hypocrisy based on why they said they did it. I don't know why they can't just say "We were elected in, we have the power, suck it." but they didn't. they tried to tie it to some higher ideal instead of the real reason - they could.

But I'm against stacking the court. Its short sighted. Removing Filibuster might bite us, but it wouldn't be an ongoing arms race of adding more people with each administration.

I did hear an interesting idea from one of the Democratic nominees to stabilize the supreme court - add 4 justices and make their placement contingent on a 100% vote by the sitting members of the SC. That way you get people chosen who the existing court agrees on. It would in theory bypass a lot of politics and get moderates in the court. I'm not saying that's what should happen, but from one of the people who dropped pretty early in the primaries, it was interesting.

The "narrow margins" right now are all that it takes for the Democrats to win. Yes, it's possible that there might be one of them to go against the party, but then again, in another two years the Democrats could add another 3-4 senators. In other words, we're far too close to a move to the extreme left than one might think.

As for the "packing the court in response to what Republicans did" argument, I think that's like comparing a football team that tries to run out the clock at the end of the game, with another team that tries to change the overall rules of the game in order to change the outcome. I can understand why Democrats are upset about Republicans sitting on the Garland vote, but what they did affected only a single judicial seat. What the Democrats are proposing with packing the court would affect the entire Supreme Court, and our nation, potentially forever.

I agree on packing the courts. I honestly think I’d they overturn roe v Wade (I hope they don’t) it will actually help democrats in the long run. Most people alone and voting today have always had it be the law of the land. If overturned at The state level, those red states are going to see taxes go up as more low income children are born. I looked up Texas’s child services budget and it’s already in the billions. I think there are enough “all tax is theft” liberations whose charity will stop at their wallet. I suppose we’ll see.

A far as potentially forever... maybe but it’s been done before. Not for a while though. Like I said, honestly you could argue Republicans did nothing wrong. It was shady, but not illegal.

But they tried to spin it like it was some sort of moral stand. Boy of boy. The timing of rbg’s death might as well have been a giant neon hypocrite sign from heaven.

Requiring 50% simple majority instead of 60% supermajority is absolute power to you?

I don't think you know what that means

Think for a moment. Why weren't Democrats ever clamoring to get rid of the filibuster just a few months ago when they didn't control both houses of Congress? I think we all know why.

Now in answer to your question, it's not a mere "50% simple majority" which constitutes "absolute power"; rather, it's "50% simple majority of Democrats who now hold office".

The Democrats aren't targeting the filibuster because they think it's bad; rather, they're targeting it because it *currently* prevents Democrats from passing their agenda.

Yeah, so, this is what you're missing: it's "50% simple majority of Democrats who now hold office AFTER THEY WON ENOUGH ELECTIONSY TO GET THOSE OFFICES.

That is not absolute power, that's the exact amount of power they are supposed to have!

We gave them 50% majority power for a go***mn reason. We read the platforms of all parties and we made a decision and now it's time for them to govern with our consent.

There WAS a time when the Democrats would say "thanks for giving us the election win but we're just too gosh tootin' nice to do anything with it" and that was the problem! That's why we're still dealing with a lot of Reagan's bullshit forty years later! But for better or for worse, two really truly awful Republican presidents have taught Democrats the hard way that it isn't just OK to use the power the people gave them - IT'S WHAT'S F**KING EXPECTED OF THEM!

So absolute power? No! Not even close! Do you see Xi Jinping trying to build a 51% coalition?

Ok, I will grant that using the term "absolute power" is hyperbole. However, the point is that according to our rules, the filibuster exists, and it was used a record number of times against Trump. In fact, it was used almost twice as many times against Trump as it was used against Obama (and I'll remind you that Trump served only one term).

So complaints about the filibuster are NOT about the filibuster itself. Democrats love the filibuster. The reason they're attacking it now - as a "tool of white supremacy" (lol) - is because they're mad that something stands in front of their grab for power.

I'll ask you to be intellectually honest about this.

"Ok, I will grant that using the term "absolute power" is hyperbole."

Great. That's all I wanted. I'll get round to the rest of what you wrote some other time.

Ok. The rest is basically that the Democrats are just mad because they are prevented from getting much *more* power, even though they loved the filibuster when they were in the minority. If you can agree to that we're good here.

Sez the guy who thinks people with Y chromosomes are women.

So true - Democrats just use their dollars to try to win elections and govern the country! They really don’t care about anything else!!

Good one!

You're forgetting the part about how the Democrats promote anti-white racism, burden the economy with higher taxes, spend vastly more money than they should, create massive government bureaucracy, weaken national security, enable the genocidal killing of the unborn, and so forth.