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> It is structurally impossible to reform the government. Not for the reasons you describe (and plenty of government reforms do happen – they may not be the on

> It is structurally impossible to reform the government. Not for the reasons you describe (and plenty of government reforms do happen – they may not be the one you want, but that's not because reform is structurally impossible.) > The filibuster creates a one-way ratchet. This is demonstrably false, and also Senate rules have to be readopted every Congress on a simple majority vote, so if it was actually this big of a problem, a newly elected Republican majority could just eliminate or reform the filibuster on a simple majority vote, and then proceed to do whatever it was preventing them from doing. (And we know this can be done in practice as well as in theory, because the filibuster has been reformed multiple times since created as a result of the elimination of the majority-vote-to-end-debate rule in 1806.)

rayiner 2y ago
Any reform that cuts or substantially restructures government is impossible with the filibuster. The fact that republicans don’t eliminate the filibuster doesn’t change my point. It just means they have other reasons for wanting to maintain it. E.g. if republicans eliminated the filibuster to abolish the department of education, democrats would use that to pack the courts and impose nationwide affirmative action.
- dragonwriter 2y ago
  > Any reform that cuts or substantially restructures government is impossible with the filibuster. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments (among other fundamental reforms of government) were proposed by when the filibuster was stronger (unlimited debate with no cloture available) than today. And, again, a simple majority of any incoming Senate can abolish or reform the filibuster to their taste – as they have, both creating it by abolishing majority-vote-to-end-debate in 1806, and then a century later by creating cloture, and then several times since by revising which matters are subject to filibuster and which are subject to debate limited by majority action. > The fact that republicans don’t eliminate the filibuster doesn’t change my point. The fact that they can by a simple majority vote proves that it is no obstacle, only at most an excuse, to them when they have a majority. > E.g. if republicans eliminated the filibuster to abolish the department of education, democrats would use that to pack the courts and impose nationwide affirmative action. Affirmative action was already established nation-wide, and the Senate already abolished the filibuster for nominees to the federal courts (Democrats did it for lower courts, Republicans for the Supreme Court.) Which, again, demonstrates that the filibuster is not an obstacle to the majority.
  - SllX 2y ago
    If it’s just a matter of Senate rules, the Senate is empowered to effectively do anything they want under the Constitution. The real issue is that once you set a new precedent, there’s no going back. The Democrats invoked the nuclear option for Federal judges below the level of the Supreme Court, so the Republicans took that one step further. Both parties understand that once they use the nuclear option or just adopt new rules at the beginning of the new session of Congress to disarm and disempower the minority because they have the majority, that that same precedent can be used against them the next time it is politically expedient to do so when they are in the minority position. So the politics matter, because at the end of the day Senators still have to get along well enough with each other to get some Bills passed, most importantly the appropriations bills, not the biggest flashiest Acts of Congress they can muster and nobody or at least very few in the Senate truly want the filibuster gone.
    - dragonwriter 2y ago
      > The real issue is that once you set a new precedent, there’s no going back. Cloture rules have both tightened and loosened over the history of the Senate, so this is demonstrably false.
      - SllX 2y ago
        If it were only about the rules, you are correct. If it’s about the politics, you might be correct on a long enough time scale, but it’s irrelevant in the short to medium term. Right now we’re in a holding pattern on the cloture rules because of promises of tick for tack escalation between both parties. It’s not as if one party is going to loosen them for themselves for one session of Congress and be able to reasonably expect that they will be tightened up to their benefit by their opponents once they’re a minority in the next session.

rayiner 2y ago

Any reform that cuts or substantially restructures government is impossible with the filibuster. The fact that republicans don’t eliminate the filibuster doesn’t change my point. It just means they have other reasons for wanting to maintain it. E.g. if republicans eliminated the filibuster to abolish the department of education, democrats would use that to pack the courts and impose nationwide affirmative action.

dragonwriter 2y ago
> Any reform that cuts or substantially restructures government is impossible with the filibuster. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments (among other fundamental reforms of government) were proposed by when the filibuster was stronger (unlimited debate with no cloture available) than today. And, again, a simple majority of any incoming Senate can abolish or reform the filibuster to their taste – as they have, both creating it by abolishing majority-vote-to-end-debate in 1806, and then a century later by creating cloture, and then several times since by revising which matters are subject to filibuster and which are subject to debate limited by majority action. > The fact that republicans don’t eliminate the filibuster doesn’t change my point. The fact that they can by a simple majority vote proves that it is no obstacle, only at most an excuse, to them when they have a majority. > E.g. if republicans eliminated the filibuster to abolish the department of education, democrats would use that to pack the courts and impose nationwide affirmative action. Affirmative action was already established nation-wide, and the Senate already abolished the filibuster for nominees to the federal courts (Democrats did it for lower courts, Republicans for the Supreme Court.) Which, again, demonstrates that the filibuster is not an obstacle to the majority.
- SllX 2y ago
  If it’s just a matter of Senate rules, the Senate is empowered to effectively do anything they want under the Constitution. The real issue is that once you set a new precedent, there’s no going back. The Democrats invoked the nuclear option for Federal judges below the level of the Supreme Court, so the Republicans took that one step further. Both parties understand that once they use the nuclear option or just adopt new rules at the beginning of the new session of Congress to disarm and disempower the minority because they have the majority, that that same precedent can be used against them the next time it is politically expedient to do so when they are in the minority position. So the politics matter, because at the end of the day Senators still have to get along well enough with each other to get some Bills passed, most importantly the appropriations bills, not the biggest flashiest Acts of Congress they can muster and nobody or at least very few in the Senate truly want the filibuster gone.
  - dragonwriter 2y ago
    > The real issue is that once you set a new precedent, there’s no going back. Cloture rules have both tightened and loosened over the history of the Senate, so this is demonstrably false.
    - SllX 2y ago
      If it were only about the rules, you are correct. If it’s about the politics, you might be correct on a long enough time scale, but it’s irrelevant in the short to medium term. Right now we’re in a holding pattern on the cloture rules because of promises of tick for tack escalation between both parties. It’s not as if one party is going to loosen them for themselves for one session of Congress and be able to reasonably expect that they will be tightened up to their benefit by their opponents once they’re a minority in the next session.