Tuesday
Procedure
Locally, Christine Quinn has scheduled the vote on changing the New York City term limit to three terms for this Thursday, which suggests she thinks she has the votes to pass it, though there are only eighteen declared supporters and twenty-one declared opponents, along with twelve undecided council-members whose vote will be decisive. If you're a New Yorker who opposes this change (arguments against it are discussed below) please contact your city council person, especially if they're one of the undecided. If you're unsure of who your council-member is, enter your address here.
My council-member, Sara Gonzalez, has unfortunately moved from undecided to in-favor. I read earlier today that New York-based third party the Working Families Party is considering running a candidate against her. If she is going to vote for this extension, I hope they find one to at least put a good scare into her.
Nationally, Mark Kleiman suggests that if the Democrats have the numbers to do so following the election, they should eliminate the filibuster. I'm not sure how I feel about this, because in theory I like the idea of a way to measure not just the bear existence of a preference but also its intensity. For various reasons, the filibuster doesn't actually work to do that, but maybe it could be modified to do so. Either way, that's tangential to my point, which is that, assuming Senate rules would allow it, any elimination of the filibuster should phase in two years after its passed, that way another cycle of Senate elections have taken place and the political party eliminating the rule wouldn't be so directly engaged in self-aggrandizement.
I really wanted a “globally” here for structural reasons, but I don't have any global procedural issues to address. Nationally again, I think I favor Sandy Levinson's proposal that Cheney resign on November 5, that Bush appoint the winner of the electoral college to the Vice-Presidency, and then Bush himself resign. He originally suggested (in print, at least) in 1998 that the lapse in time between an election victory and Presidential inauguration was the single stupidest Constitutional provision.
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My council-member, Sara Gonzalez, has unfortunately moved from undecided to in-favor. I read earlier today that New York-based third party the Working Families Party is considering running a candidate against her. If she is going to vote for this extension, I hope they find one to at least put a good scare into her.
Nationally, Mark Kleiman suggests that if the Democrats have the numbers to do so following the election, they should eliminate the filibuster. I'm not sure how I feel about this, because in theory I like the idea of a way to measure not just the bear existence of a preference but also its intensity. For various reasons, the filibuster doesn't actually work to do that, but maybe it could be modified to do so. Either way, that's tangential to my point, which is that, assuming Senate rules would allow it, any elimination of the filibuster should phase in two years after its passed, that way another cycle of Senate elections have taken place and the political party eliminating the rule wouldn't be so directly engaged in self-aggrandizement.
I really wanted a “globally” here for structural reasons, but I don't have any global procedural issues to address. Nationally again, I think I favor Sandy Levinson's proposal that Cheney resign on November 5, that Bush appoint the winner of the electoral college to the Vice-Presidency, and then Bush himself resign. He originally suggested (in print, at least) in 1998 that the lapse in time between an election victory and Presidential inauguration was the single stupidest Constitutional provision.
