James Fallows. Go read the rest:
I am in Internet range for only a few minutes, so let me just type this right out:
- Today a provision that would increase background checks for gun purchases was blocked in the Senate, even though consideration of the bill was supported by 54 senators representing states that make up (at quick estimate) at least 60 percent of the American population.
- The bill did not fail to “pass” the Senate, which according to Constitutional provisions and accepted practice for more than two centuries requires a simple majority, 51 votes. Even 50 votes should do it, since the vice president is constitutionally empowered to cast the tie-breaking and deciding vote, and Joe Biden would have voted yes.
- It failed because a 54-vote majority was not enough to break the threat of a filibuster, which (with some twists of labeling) was the real story of what happened with this bill. Breaking the filibuster would have required 60 votes.
- Since the Democrats regained majority control of the Senate six years ago, the Republicans under Mitch McConnell have applied filibuster threats (under a variety of names) at a frequency not seen before in American history. Filibusters used to be exceptional. Now they are used as blocking tactics for nearly any significant legislation or nomination. The goal of this strategy, which maximizes minority blocking power in a way not foreseen in the Constitution, has been to make the 60-vote requirement seem routine.
- As part of the “making it routine” strategy, the minority relying on this strategy keeps repeating that it takes 60 votes to “pass” a bill — and this Orwellian language-strategy comes one step closer to fulfillment each time press reports present 60 votes as the norm for passing a law.
Yes, this is the 20 millionth time I have made this point.
We must register to vote. We must register our car. But the conservatives argue that we should NOT be required to register our guns. If we do register them then the government will knock on our door and confiscate them. Why would the goverment do such a thing you might ask? Because, the conservatives tell us, a(our) tyrannical government doesn’t want its citizens to have the firepower to overthrow it. And that’s why the conservatives also want every bill to be passed by at least 60 votes. Anybody who buys the arguements or logic of any Republican or conservative is an idiot.
THIS is the filibuster that Harry Reid originally promised to rewrite out of the rules. Remember that to get to this point of debate took sixty votes and they got 64. Harry had Mitch’s word that the second threshold vote would no longer be used. McConnell is a liar and Reid is a moron. The chamber of Congress which renders “one person, one vote” a joke to begin with, grafts onto its retrograde and rural loaded composition a set of rules designed to thwart popular majority?