Re:Big Tech lobbyist language made it verbatim into NY’s hed...
by pdonis on Friday February 17, 2023 @05:18PM
(#34841381)
> This is literally how the Constitution specifies that the legislature will operate.
Yes, it is: each house of Congress is explicitly permitted to set its own rules of procedure. That is obviously not an anti-majoritarian feature of the Constitution. I didn't say every single provision in the Constitution was anti-majoritarian, or that the founders did a perfect job of implementing their ideas.
> The Senate sets it's own rules, by majority vote. This is how the "nuclear option" to change the Filibuster rule was recently implemented.
And also, of course, how the filibuster rule was put in place in the first place.
The US Senate process to force an end to (previously unlimited) debate on an issue and hold a vote on the matter is not a feature put in place by the Constitution.
It's a rule put in place by the Senate in the 1900's.
> this is an example of too much majoritarian thinking; whoever has the majority in either house of Congress takes that as permission to gerrymander the rules however they like to favor their preferences.
This is literally how the Constitution specifies that the legislature will operate. The Senate sets it's own rules, by majority vote. This is how the "nuclear option" to change the Filibuster rule was recently implemented.
>Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) used the nuclear option Thursday morning, meaning he called for a vote to change the Senate rules by a simple majority vote. It passed, 52 to 48.
https://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/harry-reid-nuclear-op...