Friday Open Thread

6 thoughts on “Friday Open Thread”

1. Trump stinks!

   Stay upwind, America.

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2. Call or write to Cory Gardner and Michael Bennet to push for a vote to protect the rule of law and the Mueller investigation from tampering by Donald Trump.

   McConnell does not have the power to block a bill from being voted on. No senator does, not even the majority leader. Any senator can propose that a bill receive a vote. And if 51 senators want it to receive a vote, they can ensure that it does. Senate custom, however, has become that senators from both parties forfeit that power to the majority leader: The majority leader now decides what does and doesn’t get a vote.

   James Wallner, a senior fellow at the R Street Institute in Washington and a former Republican Senate staffer, gave me a history lesson yesterday about Senate procedure, and I think it’s an important one. The practice of yielding to the majority leader began in the late 1940s, Wallner explains. Lyndon Johnson took it to a new level as the Senate majority leader in the 1950s, persuading even committee chairmen from not putting bills forward for a vote.

   Senators have kept up the practice because it helps keep their party unified, rather than enduring votes that divide it. But this centralization of Senate power has an enormous downside. It makes bipartisan compromise harder to achieve. Coalitions that could pass a bill — but that don’t include the majority leader — don’t get the chance to form. As Wallner says, the practice makes our political system less freewheeling and open. “By stopping the legislative process before it starts,” he told me, “it makes compromise harder.”

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3. With teachers swarming the Statehouse today, I thought I'd leave this here for M.J.

   https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/24/opinions/school-house-rock-opinion-seymour/

    

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   1. Schoolhouse Rock and Sesame Street helped a generation be more literate.

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      1. They worked! We have them all on video, including some that were done after I outgrew them. When we watched it, I was surprised at how many of them I remembered and could still sing along with.

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4. Hey!
   Big News!!:  Representative Pelosi is running for Congress again… in CD6 !!

   I'll have more detail later- but while it sounds like a big deal, it's starting to sound like the DCCC is giving up on CD6 – cause I don't think Pelosi can win.

   More later

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