Outside the Beltway

A meaningless gesture that’s long overdue.

The piling on continues.

We’re all apes. And some are willfully stupid about their public duties.

Or, at least, he’s willing to kill democracy in order to save it.

The post really isn’t about Sinema as much as it about a theory of poltiics.

Cries that American democracy is in jeopardy are not hyperbole.

A special session looms. (And how this is not like the filibuster in the US Senate).

We need what we aren’t going to get.

The country is in peril.

Even the smartest designers can’t anticipate all the flaws with the rules they write.

A bipartisan compromise appears unlikely.

Looking to Federalist 22.

I think this underscores the problem with the 60-vote requirement.

Could this be the straw that broke the camel’s back?

On fiscal policy and historical comparisons.

It’s undemocratic and we should get rid of it. But doing so isn’t a panacea.

Look at who’s lined up against H.R. 1.

It doesn’t work like the movies, Senator.

A little-known rule might allow a majority to pass one more bill.

The media became the story but the President was the news.

Defense of the filibuster tend to be a combo of mistakes and mythology.

Is the stimulus bill it for this administration?

And what GOP opposition says about the party.

Yet another reminder about pathologies of US democracy.

The Senate parliamentarian has ruled against ramming it through in the COVID relief bill.

What was mere signaling under a Republican Senate and President could now become law.

America’s institutions are undemocratic but only some of them are a product of the Constitution.

Could the Vice President end the filibuster herself?

It is not a tool to foster compromise. It is tool of obstruction, plain and simple.

Historical precedents fall apart when we’re in a truly unprecedented time.

Every illegal immigrant would have a path to citizenship.

Kamala Harris will be very, very busy the next two years.

The zombie idea for ousting an erratic and dangerous President.

Some square pegs are being forced into some round holes for the sake of inclusion.

Why isn’t Joe Biden President already?

Gridlock doesn’t mean government stops. It just shifts who is governing.

Will he be a uniter or a divider?

Multiple reports have the Notre Dame graduate replacing Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

A long-winded and esoteric discussion about an elusive idea.

A defense of the indefensible.

Ok, so what should change?

Could a blue state governor be the future of the Republican Party?

It creates a veto gate that they are almost guaranteed to control when they need it.

The writing is on the wall for simple-majority voting in the Senate.

We may be in a national crisis but it’s still politics as usual in Washington.

CBS did a lousy job.

In just three years in office, Donald Trump has succeeded in taking huge steps in transforming the judiciary for decades to come.

The men who gathered in Philadelphia to write the Constitution were geniuses. But they couldn’t predict the future.

Especially Senate inaction.

Anyone who doubts that Republicans would fill a Supreme Court vacancy in 2020 is being incredibly naive.