Legislative Process
Quick process hit: Senate will vote on a clean DHS bill. Why that looked likely last Monday.
Today Senate Republicans are moving forward on the inevitable. They will vote on a clean DHS funding bill with no immigration riders attached. With time running out they struck a deal with Democrats, which Minority Leader Harry Reid agreed to a couple hours ago. The key point here is that DHS will come up for a
Democrats gained even more power in the DHS/immigration debate, and it happened last week
It’s well known that any Republican attempt to reverse Obama’s executive action would be an uphill battle. Because any congressional response required a legislative fix, Republicans face a likely insurmountable veto, even if they managed to overcome a filibuster in the Senate. All the checks of government disadvantage Republicans’, and today
Flaws in Shutdown Logic
Republicans’ flirtation with a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security intensified over the weekend. Boehner appears entrenched and suggested Sunday that a shutdown is possible. On President’s Day the dynamic changed… possibly. A federal judge in Texas recently halted the President’s executive action on immigration. Several reports suggest that this
Have Republicans Gone M.A.D. (Mutual Assured Destruction) on the Filibuster?
Frustrated House Republicans lashed out against their Senate colleagues Thursday cialis dosierungen. Without a clear path forward on the DHS funding bill, Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID) and others blamed Majority Leader McConnell for failing to save what is a bad legislative strategy. Roll Call’s Matt Fuller reports: “Mitch McConnell can change the
Obama wants filibuster reform. Would it help polarization?
Obama had some interesting things to say about polarization and the filibuster in his interview with Vox. When the question of if government can work in the midst of polarization was posed, Obama mentioned the filibuster: “Probably the one thing that we could change without a constitutional amendment that would make a difference
Why three failed votes is not necessarily a failure
Josh Huder | February 6, 2015
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell received a fair amount of flak this week for his attempts to move forward on the DHS funding bill that expires at the end of the month. Republicans failed to invoke cloture on the DHS funding bill for the third time in three days, raising speculation about a potential shutdown of
The Senate’s Return to Regular Order?
Josh Huder | January 23, 2015
For the past week, Majority Leader McConnell experimented with an open amendment process in the Senate. Members offered amendments on everything from climate change, to federally protected land, to limiting the President’s ability to initiate and sign bilateral agreements with foreign countries. The broader question is can McConnell take a positive step toward a functioning
It’s not all Gridlock: What Republicans can accomplish in the 114th Congress
Can decades of dysfunction reverse course in a single Congress? No. But despite the general pessimism surrounding Congress there are several reason to expect the 114th to be more productive than its recent predecessors, which were historically bad on several fronts. Now that divided congressional control is over a sense of mild optimism
113th Congress: Arguably the least democratic in American history
The 113th Congress may very well go down in history as the least democratic in our nation’s history. Except it probably not in the way you are thinking. This has nothing to do with how much money was spent in campaigns, gerrymandering, voter suppression laws, or other things that distort the electoral process. The 113th Congress, more
Ginsburg, Retirement, and Senate Confirmations
In a recent Elle magazine interview Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg announced that she would not retire because ”[Obama] could not successfully appoint anyone I would like to see on the court… So anybody who thinks that if I step down, Obama could appoint someone like me, they’re misguided.” Several commentators responded to Ginsburg’s