Last week, in part one of our two-part series on filibuster reform, we examined the Constitutional Option to allow majority approval of rules changes. This week, in the 15th and final episode of Season 1,we look at the most prominent package of rules changes discussed to date. Roughly a month ago, Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) circulated a "dear colleague" memo outlining a series of changes that are being strongly considered within current Democratic Caucus deliberations.
Enjoy this first season's finale. It's been a fun season for us and we'll be back in January with a whole slate of brand new bills and other policy proposals to summarize!
*Full disclosure: David Waldman, our Public Affairs Director, is an active advisor to the Fix the Senate Now coalition.
First, let me thank Chris for opening the floor and allowing me to write here. Openleft continually impresses me for its ability to take the initiative on progressive causes, and in actually getting things done. After following Chris and Matt here from MyDD, it quickly reached my "daily must read" list so I'm honoured to be able to contribute.
Ok, so what deck must we "unstack"? In my view, the deck is the various institutions of the US government and the organs governing society itself. This will be the first of a few diaries on a medium and long term vision for progressive reform of government.
Looking at the sweep of US history, what strikes me is how overwhelming the progressive mandate needs to be in order to get anything substantial done. The New Deal required historic majorities in congress and even an attempt to stack the Supreme Court by FDR to survive the entrenched resistance inherent in the US system. Truman couldn't achieve UHC in an era where other industrialized nations were doing so, and it basically took JFK's assassination to ram civil rights legislation through the Senate over the persistent filibuster of the racist Dixiecrats. In between all these flashes of progressive revolution, we have long periods of rightward drift. So if we are sitting at the cusp of a new progressive governing era (as we hope and see some evidence for) let's put some thought into leaving those that follow in better stead to effect progressive change in their time. It just shouldn't be this hard to govern progressively.
So let's dream big for a minute, and think about what needs to happen to realign the steering of the automobile public to correct that rightward bias.
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