{"id":179661,"date":"2017-12-04T20:13:00","date_gmt":"2017-12-05T01:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2017\/12\/04\/something-good-about-the-us-senate\/"},"modified":"2017-12-04T20:13:00","modified_gmt":"2017-12-05T01:13:00","slug":"something-good-about-the-us-senate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2017\/12\/04\/something-good-about-the-us-senate\/","title":{"rendered":"Something Good About the US Senate"},"content":{"rendered":"
Truth be told, I am not generally a fan of the Senate. I have referred to it as a Petri dish for narcissistic sociopaths<\/a> in the past.<\/div>\n

That being said, on rare occasions, its rather arcane rules occasionally yield positive results<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Congressional Republicans can\u2019t use their tax cuts for the rich to define and codify the view that life begins at fertilization, according to the rules of the U.S. Senate. <\/p>\n

The GOP\u2019s initial tax proposals in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate each conferred 529 college savings plan benefits to an \u201cunborn child\u2026at any stage of development\u201d in an unprecedented attempt<\/a> to wield the tax code against reproductive rights. Republicans on Capitol Hill have long sought deeply unpopular fetal \u201cpersonhood\u201d bills<\/a> that try to classify fertilized eggs, zygotes, embryos, and fetuses as \u201cpersons,\u201d and to grant them full legal protection under the U.S. Constitution, including the right to life from the moment of conception. Personhood laws<\/a>, repeatedly rejected by voters<\/a> across the United States, would criminalize abortion with no exception and ban many forms of contraception, in vitro fertilization, and health care for pregnant people. <\/p>\n

The latest fetal personhood effort ultimately violated rules associated with the fast-track process Republicans are using to pass their tax bill. Under \u201creconciliation,\u201d Republicans need a simple 51-vote majority in the Senate instead of the 60-vote threshold typically required to bypass a filibuster and pass controversial legislation. But reconciliation is subject to the Byrd rule, which puts the kibosh on provisions that are \u201cmerely incidental\u201d to the budget. <\/p>\n

In other words, Congress can\u2019t wield the reconciliation process for the sake of a political agenda. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is a good outcome, but I would still like to see the Senate more like the House, because it is a truly dysfunctional body.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Truth be told, I am not generally a fan of the Senate. I have referred to it as a Petri dish for narcissistic sociopaths in the past. That being said, on rare occasions, its rather arcane rules occasionally yield positive results: Congressional Republicans can\u2019t use their tax cuts for the rich to define and codify …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[446,447,449,437,480],"class_list":["post-179661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-budget","tag-congress","tag-legislation","tag-regulation","tag-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179661"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179661\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}