I don’t have a clue what’s going on with Kyrsten Sinema, but it certainly doesn’t seem encouraging – but who knows?? As much as the news has been that her faux-weepy speech on the Senate floor put an end to overturning the filibuster, I don’t know if that’s the case. That’s because, contrary to news reports, what she said was that she's against "demands to eliminate this threshold." And that she holds to her "support for the 60-vote threshold."
Here’s the thing. None of that contradicts the idea of changing how the filibuster works if it maintains the rule of needing 60 votes for cloture. And that’s precisely what Joe Manchin has recently said he himself is open to – keeping the 60-vote threshold, but requiring that senators stand talking on the Senate floor when filibustering and needing to have 60 senators present during the filibuster. Changing the rule to that not only maintains the filibuster, but also maintains the 60-vote rule. To be clear, maybe she'll vote against that, too, and kill any hope of even changing the filibuster -- but it is not what she said was against. She only said she supported “the 60-voted threshold” and was against calls to “eliminate this threshold.” It’s still an uphill battle, even if she’s open to discussing that – but the word is that she did meet with President Biden after giving her speech and has met with others. I will also reiterate that one things I’ve long-written about, as readers of these pages know, is that Kyrsten Sinema was getting overlooked (at times completely overlooked) by the press who’ve mostly focused on Joe Manchin. There was a long period of time when Rachel Maddow only talked about Joe Manchin blocking changes to the filibuster, excoriating him bluntly. But no word on Kyrsten Sinema. I’ve heard some people say that if Joe Manchin agrees to changes to the filibuster rule, then Kyrsten Sinema will, too, not wanting to stand alone blocking action. And that may be the case. May be. Because I don’t know. And anyone who says that’s the case is just guessing and stating it as fact. I don’t have a clue what Kyrsten Sinema will do – in large part because (and I think this is very important, and I mean it) I don’t think Kyrsten Sinema knows what she’s doing. I’ve heard her reasons for wanting to keep the filibuster, and pretty much none of them make sense in terms of the history of the filibuster, what it does and how it works. I heard much of her faux-weepy speech on the Senate floor yesterday, and it didn't make any more sense that her statements in the past. So…we’ll see.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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