Thanks to a Republican vote to stop California from setting its own auto emissions, Democrats can challenge virtually any Trump administration action, and eat up time on the Senate floor.
And once again, they will snatch Defeat from the jaws of Victory.
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It’s refreshing in a way that we no longer have to spend much time thinking about the Senate parliamentarian, the shadowy figure whose rulings supposedly decide what the chamber can and cannot do. Republicans put that to bed last week by overruling the parliamentarian over whether a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution could nullify the Environmental Protection Agency’s waiver allowing California to set its own air pollution standards on vehicles.
Oh, you mean the thing we were pissed off that the Dems didn’t do? Repubs did it, no problem? Oh, wow.
For this reason, Democrats could subject the Senate to time-consuming resolution votes repeatedly, to such a degree that the Senate would not have time to do anything else for the rest of this session of Congress. In other words, Democrats could respond to the waiver vote by paralyzing the Senate, and stopping the giant Trump tax bill from ever reaching the floor.
Georgia State University assistant professor and former House Oversight Committee staffer Todd Phillips laid this out in a Prospect piece earlier this month. Any 30 senators can force a CRA resolution onto the floor, with a required ten hours of debate time. These resolutions would need the president’s signature, and nearly all of them wouldn’t even get the Republican votes necessary to pass the Senate. But according to Senate procedure, they have to be dealt with if enough senators force them onto the floor. They must be debated and voted upon ahead of other Senate business if brought up for consideration. This means that Democrats can tie up the Senate floor for upwards of ten hours with any single CRA resolution.
Let me save you the suspense. They won’t do it. Repubs are willing to break the system to get what they want. Dems want decorum. This is why we’re completely fucked.
You are right, they won’t do it. Dems not an actual opposition party. Half of them want the same exact thing as the magas, and the other half want to let the magas break everything just to prove a point.
Dems don’t have to lie, cheat, and steal like the Republicans to win, they just have to play Hard Ball, and force the MAGA Nazis to follow the laws, established rules, and the Constitution, without exception.
Malicious Compliance is a perfectly acceptable and ethical form of resistance, and Dems should be using it at every single opportunity.
If your opponent is cheating and you can’t stop them, then they’re not cheating and those are just the rules. If you don’t use those rules, you will lose.
Yet they won’t. This is why I have no faith in them.
they just have to play Hard Ball, and force the MAGA Nazis to follow the laws, established rules, and the Constitution, without exception.
Oh, we’re fucked then.
When you fuck around with the Democrats, they find out about it and do absolutely nothing.
we cant stoop to their level, and do stuff.
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I asked Phillips on Monday whether he had gotten any feedback from Democrats in Washington about his idea. He hadn’t. But we know they’re aware of it; they have said it out loud. They could start the campaign any day now.
Let me know when they start on that, thanks. If we’re relying on Schumer for this, it’s going to be a long wait.
Sure, they should try, but it’s silly to think that this would actually work. The Senate parliamentarian will rule that it doesn’t meet the requirements (and would be correct) and the republican majority won’t vote to override. Attempt quashed and it wouldn’t even be a news story just being a procedural thing.
I know, it’s unfair and that “they set a precedent” and all of that, but if your strategy requires that republicans not be abject opportunistic hypocrites, then it’s almost certain to fail.
Parliamentarians rule on all precedent including recent ones. Analogously, the threshold for filibustering cabinet nominees was only lowered to 51 in the early 2010s by simply overruling the decision of the chair. And you don’t even need a separate overrule motion to overrule the parliamentarian. You just have to not respond. 10 hours of required debate is 10 hours of required debate.
Fair point since rhe overrule would now be precedent. So, a republican objects since this is inappropriate, the parliamentarian deems that the precedent allows the Democratic motion, republicans overrule the parliamentarian, and the strategy is quashed.
Extra steps, sure, but since republicans don’t care about norms or hypocrisy, they wouldn’t even blink at such a move.
The only way that it works is if enough republicans don’t really want to pass the bill. Then, this might give them an out. It wouldn’t work otherwise.
That said, no reason not to make them do the extra work.
Do we have a remindme bot on lemmy yet? I wanna be reminded of this in like a month.
A Gun.
Can, certainly. Should, definitely. Will, unlikely.
Their puppeteers love the current situation, and will make sure to keep the strings short and steady. Can’t have that last democrat with some semblence of morals or sense of duty get in the way of making big money. If those aren’t but a fairy tale by now.
They won’t. They want fascism too.
Fuck off with that. Dems want a stable country, not this shit.
Democrats say they want a lot of shit they work against.
Are you a live example of that right now? Criticizing Democrats is fine if it’s specific and targeted. “Fuck Democrats” in general just helps the goddamn Nazi party.
There are few areas in which democrats haven’t thrown away their credibility.
It’s telling when the two parties are Democrats and Nazis and you spend your time railing against the Democrats.
There are valid reasons to be angry, but they don’t come anywhere near gulaging people off the street for political speech. They don’t come with destroying our economy at Putin’s direction. They don’t come with dismantling the Judicial branch.
The Dems know what Habeas Corpus means.
Fascism is bad for business. The Dems are smart enough to know that.
I absolutely want to get to the point where the neolibs are the thing to rail against. Right now the black SUVs snatching people are the priority. End the Nazis first, and move the Overton window more after that crisis is done.
There are valid reasons to be angry, but they don’t come anywhere near gulaging people off the street for political speech.
They come with exterminating an entire nation of people. Not that Americans care about the lives of foreigners though
They don’t come with dismantling the Judicial branch.
No, just dismantling international law.
End the Nazis first
The Democrats support genocide, they are the Nazis
Nah, they’re gonna break out ol’ reliable…
A strongly worded letter!
