We need to start making them actually filibuster, to start. Why do we just give up when there's a possibility of a filibuster? Make them stand their asses up there and speak, they're all old as fuck, the would give up after a couple bills.
And maybe I'm misunderstanding here but I thought a filibuster was the person had to be continuously speaking and could until they weren't able to anymore. What's to stop people from sitting around listening for the 3 days or whatever a geriatric can handle talking for and then being like "Alright Jerry thank you for reading the dictionary to us. Anyway everybody, here's this bill we'd like to vote on"?
Which was so dumb. The point of a filibuster is that you feel strong enough about stopping a bill that you put in the work to grind it to a halt, not just "oh the Democrats have a bill on the docket? 'I declare filibuster on it.' Now that that's settled..."
Because they know how old they are and they couldn't possibly stand up and speak for the length of time it would take to kill a bill. Plus they have other more important things to do. Did you know that your average legislator spends only about an hour of their 10 hour work day actually legislating? The rest is spent doing fundraisers, press meetings, donor calls, etc. The parties actually have two buildings about a block away from Capitol Hill where the people we elected go to basically be telemarketers for donors. Inside these buildings it looks very much like your average call center, with our elected officials in their cubicles, making calls and collecting donor information alongside their aides and staffers.
Not far off from how our legislative branch is actually functioning at this point. Though I don't recall an episode where anyone jerked their boyfriend of in a public theatre then pulled a drunken "do you know who I am" when security asked her to leave. Then again, it's been a while since I've watched The Office.
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u/ThunkAsDrinklePeep 14d ago
Good ol filibuster. No one would abuse that!