A big step forward for the USA would be a vast reduction of federal power over the states.

Not everything is spelled in ink.

The effect of a law is at least as important as the literal words on the page.

The US is a massive country, with the populace far removed from the decision making. I believe this is the core problem.

However, there is a very solid case for a weak federal government, and it is simply that US is a country that's way too big for any coherent national policy on most matters that we've currently pushed there. It's such a vicious fight because it's half the country trying to bludgeon the other half into submission, motivated by the knowledge that, if you yield, the other guy will pick up this huge club and do the same to you. This will continue until the country breaks down unless we dial it down to state level and accept the fact that other states may have laws and lifestyle that is despicable or horrifying to us in some ways. Either that, or we might as well just break the whole thing apart now and not wait for it to happen in a more violent manner.

Furthermore, I think the frequency of that overlap is a major problem for our political system, because it makes compromise impossible.

It’s not controversial to suggest that the interests of the political class, the special interests that fund their campaigns, and Washington bureaucrats differ from the interests of the public at large. You don’t need to evoke deep state conspiracies to explain nefarious coordination because when career and monetary incentives align then bills like this one get passed.

It wasn't always like this. Many have agreed these were legitimate issues during the Iraq war. Where have all those people gone today?

This really isn't all that true in my experience. And, I mean, look at the discussion here... Maybe consider the people you hang around with?

You can generally convey the same idea gently as long as you hedge your phrasing somewhat. Making it sound like a wacky accusation comes off sounding, well, wacky.

How that is broached depends on whom you are talking with.

We're in this really weird place where some of us on different parts of the political spectrum who may not have previously agreed are now in general agreement one way or the other, just because politics itself has become so insane.

I mean, I'm a little crazy, I won't deny that. But it's kind of bugging me that phrasing matters far more than the idea. Most reasonable people would agree that the system is fundamentally broken. We might not agree on a solution, but at least we can look at it and say "yeah, this isn't sustainable." Unfortunately, if you use the wrong word around the wrong group of people, you get branded a little bonkers. :)

I still am a believer in digital freedom, I'm old enough to have seen the changes in the Internet, and it is a much more malevolent and fucked up force than it was even 15 years ago. Maybe, just maybe, the government needs the power to spy on international targets with oversight.

The constitution's term for this is "warrant".

If you look at their donors, you'll see the lines. The people who voted for it make money from the defense and intelligence industries, and the people who didn't, don't. Voting for for something majorities of the voters of both parties are against is expensive (in terms of being re-elected.) That price is paid by donors, and the media control that those donors will exercise. Which again, is why the wedge issues are needed: you're going to have to vote for those people who voted against your civil liberties if you want Democrats to pretend to protect abortion rights for another 4 years, or Republicans to pretend to end them.

Did Biden already sign it?

The summary is this:

- Votes in the House and Senate used to be anonymous

- They then decided to make them public under the reasoning of transparency

- One side effect of making them public is that you got people like Grover Norquist and The Americans for Tax Reform who could see who voted for taxes and then use that to "name and shame" people (there was a pledge signing in there as well). For more details see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Norquist

- This now means that it's MUCH easier for lobbyists and special interest groups to see where to spend their money as a Senator's voting history is public knowledge (which both sides are WELL aware of)

- As a sibling poster points out: you can easily see who receives money from defense groups vs not.

- This is probably good for us as voters in the short term but bad for the country in the long term (Due to the above)

“when private citizens are able to vote privately, it protects their ability to vote their conscience, rather than allowing some third party to explicitly buy votes or bully someone into voting in line with someone else”,

and the belief that somehow this doesn’t apply to congress members.

Additionally, on hard philosophical and policy qurstions, some bits of negotiation and dealmaking are bare-knuckled “the sausage gets made” affairs that are brutally hard on the ego and participants. Part of why nothing can get through Congress anymore in a timely fashion and without continual brinksmanship on important funding or to prevent shutdowns is because even if crossing party lines would very often be in the public’s interest, and to the public’s net benefit, haggling to make it happen or voting to make it so often doesn’t stand up to the scrutiny of thousands of watchful eyes where an important deal may hinge on brutal haggling which the public couldn’t stomach seeing the intermediate steps and votes of.

One such example in practical terms: if the constitutional convention which replaced the articles of confederation took place in the internet age with modern real-time, to the minute reporting on how everyone was voting on every intermediate plan and how any compromise made was a betrayal of “party lines” on an issue, America as a country probably wouldn’t exist today.

Transparency has its own benefits, but it’s not without costs - you make a legislative body’s job more difficult, you get corresponding gridlock to match.

If you believe that electorates punish politicians for decisions in the public interest, and legislators’ jobs would be easier if they were less accountable to their voters, why support democracy at all?

The 51% that voted for them out of the 20% of total voters?

I mean, this does get very hard to define.

There's no "THE problem." There's a ton of "problems." Just to be clear. Because many of the problems we face today are through interaction of different things, often in a complex chain, rather than a direct easy to follow causal chain.

> via old fashioned grapevine

Treat the problem as an adversarial problem. Yes, your adversary will always be able to break your defenses. Nothing is bulletproof. How you defend is through forcing adversaries to expend resources. It is very clear that forcing lobbiests to learn through the grapevine is a more costly method than simply looking at a public database. And if you aren't familiar with this concept, people lie. No one need know your vote unless you reveal it (which... might be a lie).

The point also is that it can also prevent inner conflict, among parties. You're not voting along party lines? You think you're going to get as much support from your party when it comes to your bills and campaign funds? So you have plenty of incentive to not reveal your vote, even among allies.

I agree with you in that switching to private votes won't solve the problems we have. But would it improve? I'd guess some and I'd guess it would take time for the real effects to be seen. But the other side is, would it do harm? I doubt it.

I’m not one who believes the constitution is sacred or that the founding fathers were infallible, but I do think the chance for a person to vote their conscience vs their politics is an important feature. While the grapevine might be a route to learn, it’s also a route that doesn’t have to be accurate. I can tell my lobbyist whatever I want about my vote, but only I know what my vote was in private voting. This feels like a feature not a flaw.

The point of representative democracy is selecting a person whose judgement you believe in. Public voting records lead to populist and party strangleholds on outcomes with consequences for breaking dogma. Practically speaking it also gives lobbyists proof positive of whether their money was well spent.

this is normal practice, to provide cover for your party members.

it’s divided by party line because it’s national security. they’re splitting the spoils.

What’s more surprising is the split in IL between Duckworth (yea) and Durban (Nay). Usually you don’t see states splitting too much. Tennessee was all Nays for instance.