A virtually never discussed side effect problem of the filibuster

[dsc]

I am old enough to remember when liberal especially but virtually everyone really, had a great fear of the Imperial Presidency. Carter in particular made a point of not running an imperial presidency. Now, even very liberal people want the President to, by himself, do all kinds of things. This is the rational outgrowth of the realization that we can never get policy through Congress anymore. To take a couple of examples, Immigration policy, we literally can't pass anything on it since it can't be done via reconciliation. The last major overhaul of immigration was when Reagan was President (I was in high school or a frosh in college when it passed). Another example is we want Biden to unilaterally decide that 10k of college debt doesn't have to be repaid. If people had suggested that Nixon had that kind of power we would have lost our damn minds. But again, in an environment in which it takes 60 Senators to name a damn post office, no wonder people are pining for an imperial president. It is one thing for acts of Congress to be hard, it is quite another for them to be just about impossible. I have no idea what measure President Biden thinks he can do unilaterally on voting rights, but I will support pretty much all of them since it is that important and we have the ultimate do nothing Congress. The filibuster has to go, or else we will have an imperial President that even Nixon would blanch at.

[JustAnotherGen]

1. I don't view it as an imperial Presidency

I just view it as simple math.

The filibuster's very existence is a holdover from our racist, slaving past.

[Wounded Bear]

2. Requiring a super majority to do everything is not democratic...nt

[Haggard Celine]

3. That's an interesting take on it.

I hadn't thought about how the filibuster affects the actions of the President, but you're right, it does create a power vacuum that we increasingly turn to the President to fill. And that isn't healthy, especially when we have a bad person in that office. He can do a lot of damage, and can even take over the government. It almost happened!

The Supreme Court has also had to step in and make decisions that really should be decided by Congress, but too many in Congress lacked the courage to take a stand on many issues. Too often, Congressmen and Senators abrogate their duties so that they can be neutral and not offend anyone. All they think about is the next election. They use the filibuster as a shield to hide their positions on issues by making sure that controversial bills don't get brought up for a vote. That way they don't have to say what their opinion is.

[crickets]

4. K&R for the post and the discussion.