It’s hard to pass an organizing resolution for the Senate without some sort of compromise. As it stands, a few committees lack chairs due to retirements, so they are unable to begin Cabinet confirmation hearings even if they wanted to.
Both sides have an incentive to avoid drawing the sort of hard line that inspire Senators such as Manchin, Murkowski, or Collins to switch parties. Are you going to offer Collins a committee chair to jump ship?
Power sharing arrangement?
https://twitter.com/thesopranosclub/status/1279170167524687873?s=21
Roles reversed McConnell would literally come out with a statement like “the people of America spoke by increasing the number of senators to give Republican control and we will honor their wishes by filling all committees with 100% Republicans”
Don’t committees always have dems and republicans?
yes
Yes but the party in power controls a majority of all committee seats.
Also, welcome back.
One thing that can be negotiated is what happens if either side gets to 51, so a compromise allows for hedging if Manchin switches or a Democrat dies and gets replaced by a Republican via appointment or special election.
How do you feel about fading assassination attempts from Trumpers upset over impeachment?
Meh. This is effectively the same as narrow majority Democratic committees, since if all Democrats on a committee vote to advance a bill, it goes to the floor. That is basically the current status quo for Republicans, where committees reflect the partisan breakdown of the Senate overall. Since Republicans actually do have more seats than Democrats, this status quo means they can stand one defection in committee, whereas Democrats will not be able to stand any (assuming unanimous opposition).
In any case, people generally toe the party line, so Dem bills will typically advance. Plus, if it has D defections in the committee, then it will have the same defections on the floor, so it probably wouldn’t pass the 50/50 Senate anyway. I don’t see this mattering much at all.
LOL Democrats indeed.
What the flying fuck!
When you have the stick you beat me as hard as possible; when I have the stick I’ll snap it in half to share with you. Thing should go ok that way, right?
Guaranteed perennial losers.
Harry Reid’s former chief of staff:
https://twitter.com/ajentleson/status/1351356969756598273?s=21
https://twitter.com/ajentleson/status/1351361573848309763?s=21
https://twitter.com/ajentleson/status/1351362837873123330?s=21
That’s why McConnell wants to get the filibuster in the organizing resolution. Would think that would be impossible but fear that Feinstein will be the Yin to John McCain’s Yang.
Not sure if anyone else has watched Night Stalker but Feinstein makes an appearance and she wasn’t competent 40 years ago either apparently.
Stop showing dissent to the Dear Leaders!
Was hoping I’d get to put that one away since trump is gone…
Sorry if this discussed elsewhere, but the power sharing arrangement in the Senate stalled because Rs insist on a “dont change the filibuster” arrangement. Apprantly they can’t come to an agreement tie goes to the last Congress per CNN
The tense standoff over the issue is stalling a power-sharing agreement between the parties in the 50-50 Senate and could impact the confirmation of Biden’s Cabinet nominees. That’s because the Senate operates under the rules of the last Congress – when the GOP controlled the Senate majority and held the committee chairmanships – until a power-sharing deal is agreed.
It’s being discussed in the Biden thread.
Manchin is a no on removing the filibuster. If he’s a hard no, then it costs nothing to agree on not removing the filibuster as part of the organizing resolution because it’s not happening in the next two years anyways and Schumer should be willing to trade that for something meaningful. That he doesn’t appear to be willing to do so suggests that Manchin may be willing to change his vote on the filibuster if Republicans behave badly enough. Being able to credibly threaten to do so is a key piece of leverage for him as it forces Republicans to consider what will piss him off enough.
If it were possible, I would look for a way to trade protecting the filibuster in exchange for letting a certain number of bills through for a floor vote–COVID funding, stimulus, immigration–without firing the one bullet on reconciliation. I would also float the idea of having no nuclear option, but only for the first year.
There has to be more to this because if not agreeing to new rules = old rules then of course Mitch would just never agree to new rules.
If the GOP won’t even vote for COVID relief, which seems pretty clear, they’re basically requiring Dems to nuke the filibuster to do any governing at all.
There is an easy cheat code. They can nuke the filibuster and require 50 votes at any time.