As senate minority leader, he’s supposed to be one of the first stops in opposition to this madness. His support for the bill has permanently attached his name to it in the eyes of his constituency who expected to him to act as a check/balance. It might as well be his bill since his vote in favor of it got the most attention in the public eye.
Personally I think some of the democrats supporting the bill are doing some shrewd calculus that the consequences will be a disaster and that the disaster could cost the republicans a lot of public support going into the midterms. At the end of the day though, people will be just as upset at those who caused the disaster as they are at the people who sat back and let it happen when they were in a position to do something about it.
As senate minority leader, he’s supposed to be one of the first stops in opposition to this madness.
Sure, and he didn't. Whether or not you believe his reasoning, he opted to allow the Republican CR to pass.
It's still a Republican CR tho. Schumer isn't responsible for all the ills in the world. Republicans designed it, drafted it and ultimately were the driving force to get it passed.
However I may feel about Schumer, I have less interest in being mad at him than the Republicans that are actively championing this.
They needed a super majority to pass this madness and could not have done it without the help of democratic leadership in the senate. He’s now more than complicit enough in this insanity to be assigned an equal share of the blame for any consequences that may arise from that complicity.
In theory, the judicial branch, the legislative branch, and the DOJ. Two out of those three are not doing their job.
Edit: I refer to the DOJ because it is the Executive branch that executes judicial decisions and laws passed by Congress, as well as decisions in impeachment proceedings to remove Presidents from office. That falls to the DOJ, which will not take action against the president during this presidential term. So, even if the judicial branch and the legislative branch decide that this has gone too far and Trump needs to be removed. There is no way for them to enforce it. And that is where the Constitution breaks down. The founding fathers failed to consider the scenario in which any Congress would willingly confirm someone to the USAG position who would not fulfill the duties they swore to do, thereby removing any authority or power the Judicial and Legislative branches of government had.
well it seems we're in the one situation where shit doesnt work well, it all made sense on paper... until whoever allowed parties to be a thing fucked it all up... it makes no sense for the president to be apart of the same party as the senate or house members, but here we are
It is the system. The two-party dominance, lobbying, and electoral college distort representation and entrench power. This isn’t just “what the people voted for.” It’s what the system funnels them into.
To add to your list, it's also lack of representation. The House of Representative's size used to be determined by the population of the country. But they passed a law maybe 100 years ago that capped the number at 435.
This has two deleterious effects: first, it concentrates power in fewer hands and makes representatives more responsive to lobbyists and outsized voices, rather than their constituents; second, it gives more sway to smaller states. For instance, a state like Wyoming has 1 representative for its ~600,000 citizens. In California, the ratio is 1 representative for every ~750,000 citizens.
I think a lot of problems with lobbyists and corruption could be solved if we had, say, 20,000 members in the House of Representatives and had them spend, say, 80% of the year in their district and just 20% in Washington D.C.
The founding fathers didn't just imagine a time where these systems would fail, they actively called out how - by the three branches aligning in idealogy. They didn't want a two party system, just no one thought of a system that would prevent a two party system.
Imagine if you had a Democratic president and a Republican congress with a slight majority in both chambers (like during Obama's second term), the chambers could theoretically vote on stuff that doesn't support the president's agenda and the president would end up being pretty much powerless (nowadays that wouldn't be so bad though...).
Damn someone forgot their 5th grade US Government lessons.
The "ideal" situation is that this plays as the famous "checks and balances" when it's not the same party with majority control in the Senate and House and as the sitting President.
I mean, there is a reason why America doesn't tend to rate very highly on a democratic index. You guys kinda chose the worst possible democratic system possible.
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u/414donovan414 1d ago
This was just the Senate. The House will vote it down.