Are we going to have a constitutional convention every time we want to change the rules of the legislative body?
Aside from the filibuster (which has, arguably become unconstitutional) the rules are pretty innocuous. Like "how many minutes you get to talk, how you can interrupt someone who is speaking, whether or not you can give up your time, etc etc, we have committees which bring reports before the bodies" in a effort to make a deliberative body of 100/435 to work. Sometimes you need to change these rules. Unless we're going to have a constitutional convention every time we want to we've got to let the legislature do it.
The filibuster used to be a rule kinda like that. It was the "how do we know when we have debated enough and should vote?" rule. This is pretty innocuous. After all a rule of 'we vote when the majority party says so' means that they could, theoretically have no/low debate time, which is bad.
Are we going to have a constitutional convention every time we want to change the rules of the legislative body?
Aside from the filibuster (which has, arguably become unconstitutional) the rules are pretty innocuous.
If nearly all of the rules are innocuous, then it shouldn't be a big deal to have a CC occasionally to address abuses like the filibuster. At some point, we're going to have to collectively recognize that Congress is a broken institution and do something about it.
Constitutional conventions are not "easy". The point is that the rules are mainly innocuous and need to be able to be changed easily. Rewriting the constitution every year and forcing every state in the nation to ratify it in order to continue the Union is not a solution.
Easy? Every year? Are you having a conversation with someone else and replying to me instead, because none of those things were suggested. Besides, we're staying from the point I was trying to make: Congress is a broken institution. Yes, they should be able to set procedural rules to a certain degree, but not to the point where they cannot do their jobs. I don't know what the solution is, but you cannot deny that a problem exists.
On a side note, I'm not really sure why you bothered replying two days after I posted that comment. The conversation here is long done.
Congress sets the rules every year. So yes, if you want to "address abuses of the rules" by making the rules part of the constitution you have to have a convention every year.
Congress cannot do their jobs not because of rules, but because the democrats won't change them, which they have the power to do, not only at the start of the congress, but at any point within the congress.
The filibusters is not something we are stuck with because congress is broken but because the democrats do not have the party cohesion to enforce the change
Additionally: You can't let the judicial or executive do it. Otherwise a branch could write the rules to favor their political affiliation.
Basically if the executive writes the rules then the rules will favor the presidents party, effectively nullifying the check of the legislature against the executive. So really, the legislative branch has to write it.
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*laughs so hard milk comes out my nose*
And I wasn't even drinking milk....
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An even better wharrgarbl saying than "Dogs and cats living together....mass hysteria!"
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Best I could come up with...
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Aside from the filibuster (which has, arguably become unconstitutional) the rules are pretty innocuous. Like "how many minutes you get to talk, how you can interrupt someone who is speaking, whether or not you can give up your time, etc etc, we have committees which bring reports before the bodies" in a effort to make a deliberative body of 100/435 to work. Sometimes you need to change these rules. Unless we're going to have a constitutional convention every time we want to we've got to let the legislature do it.
The filibuster used to be a rule kinda like that. It was the "how do we know when we have debated enough and should vote?" rule. This is pretty innocuous. After all a rule of 'we vote when the majority party says so' means that they could, theoretically have no/low debate time, which is bad.
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Aside from the filibuster (which has, arguably become unconstitutional) the rules are pretty innocuous.
If nearly all of the rules are innocuous, then it shouldn't be a big deal to have a CC occasionally to address abuses like the filibuster. At some point, we're going to have to collectively recognize that Congress is a broken institution and do something about it.
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On a side note, I'm not really sure why you bothered replying two days after I posted that comment. The conversation here is long done.
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Congress cannot do their jobs not because of rules, but because the democrats won't change them, which they have the power to do, not only at the start of the congress, but at any point within the congress.
The filibusters is not something we are stuck with because congress is broken but because the democrats do not have the party cohesion to enforce the change
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Basically if the executive writes the rules then the rules will favor the presidents party, effectively nullifying the check of the legislature against the executive. So really, the legislative branch has to write it.
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