HRC Article:
WASHINGTON — Last night, President Biden signed the FY25 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law, which includes a provision inserted by Speaker Mike Johnson blocking healthcare for the transgender children of military servicemembers. This provision, the first anti-LGBTQ+ federal law enacted since the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, will rip medically necessary care from the transgender children of thousands of military families – families who make incredible sacrifices in defense of the country each and every day. The last anti-LGBTQ+ federal law that explicitly targeted military servicemembers was Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, which went into effect in 1994.
Biden’s press release:
No service member should have to decide between their family’s health care access and their call to serve our Nation.
Disagree. The only reason 60 votes are needed is because somebody will filibuster it. So grow a fucking backbone, and call out whichever asshole senator is refusing to fund the troops because he cares more about sticking it to transgender people. Don’t just vote for the thing, don’t focus on getting it passef no matter what, put your fucking foot down and name and shame. Point out that one person is holding up a spending bill worth hundreds of billions of dollars over an objection to a line item that probably costs $100k.
Or better, reform the filibuster. The filibuster is a good thing in concept. The procedural filibuster however means that it now takes 60 votes to pass something instead of 50 and there’s essentially no consequence for that. That was not the intent of the Framers.
If you want to filibuster something, you should have to get up there and read the phone book for hours. It should grind the government to a halt. It should be disruptive to everything, a measure used for only the worst bills.
Some things do automatically require a supermajority, but removing Filibuster right before a Republican Majority is basically giving them complete authority, no?
But even if every single Senate Democrat was on board with the idea, they would still be outnumbered by Republicans for the last 10 years, they’ve only managed to pick majority leaders in that time period because of caucusing with Ind and an occasional VP tiebreaker.
Get 51 D + 2 Ind then I can fully support removing the filibuster.
And, much like most Republicans over the last decade or two or maybe three, you are thinking about what’s good for your agenda in the short-term and not what’s good for the nation in the long-term.
The procedural filibuster is bad for the country. It’s bad for the country when Republicans have a majority, it’s bad for the country when Democrats have a majority. And if the GOP tries to pass something awful, maybe one of our Democrats could grow a backbone and actually filibuster the damn thing.
If you think Republicans passing their proposed tax cuts for the rich, gutting benefits, and firing squads for undocumented migrants is good for the country, then you’re not going to convince me of jack shit, pal. That is the power you propose handing them.
All those things would be worthy of a stand-up filibuster.
Yes, you said the filibuster should be gotten rid of. If we got rid of that, the 53 Senate Republicans have the votes to pass these.
I said get rid of the procedural filibuster. That’s where a Senator can say ‘I’m filibustering that bill’ and it can’t advance further until 60 Senators vote to end debate on the bill. The chamber then moves on to other business. That allows any Senator to mostly block any bill without consequence. That IMHO is bad.
The real filibuster- where a Senator will stand up for hours and read the phone book, that is essential to stop the worst bills. It should be used sparingly and it should be disruptive.
Yeah, I guess I could get behind that. At least make it really uncomfortable for people to block reform, I guess. Still not great when the senate majority is GOP, but who knows what could come of it.
I still think a much more ideal solutions is getting 60 Democrats in the senate.
Yes exactly. If someone wants to block something, don’t make it a little procedural thing that can be forgotten. Make it a big deal. Put it on the news. Let them put their face on it.
That also means that Democrats would much less need 60 votes to push many policies. Most of what they would do can be done with 51, and real filibusters would block the really bad stuff.
I don’t believe either party has all the answers. I am disappointed that the GOP has gone down the rabbit hole of project 2025 and religious nuts, but there are some things they get right. Neither party deserves unchecked power.