Hayes Brown

Hayes Brown @HayesBrown

Merkley’s full answer to Manchin: "your question is, what are the characteristics that define continuous debate on final passage. And it is defined as without interruptions that take us in other directions in the question of final passage of the bill." — PolitiTweet.org

Hayes Brown @HayesBrown

(Manchin did not sound very convinced by Merkley’s response. But…we’ll see?) — PolitiTweet.org

Hayes Brown @HayesBrown

Manchin objects to the fact that the rule that would be voted on for these bills would not allow for amendments. Merkeley notes that the rule would set up the bill for final passage, meaning that in future instances would be used after the amendment process had been exhausted. — PolitiTweet.org

Hayes Brown @HayesBrown

Manchin asks Merkley if they could start a talking filibuster without a rules change now. Merkley: “it is never possible to get to a debate on the final question” under the current rules, saying it is time to get to that final debate and every senator can speak twice. — PolitiTweet.org

Hayes Brown @HayesBrown

Merkley reminds his GOP colleagues that he offered up the talking filibuster in 2011 to protect the minority’s rights in the Senate. — PolitiTweet.org

Hayes Brown @HayesBrown

RT @LisaDNews: AS LONG as we are talking about Senate rules, can we talk about --> the rule that bans the press from having any way of com… — PolitiTweet.org

Hayes Brown @HayesBrown

@joannachiu “You mean I cleaned the wrong yacht??" — PolitiTweet.org

Hayes Brown @HayesBrown

Merkley coming for both sides in using the filibuster to obstruct, saying the gears don’t match in terms of the size of the government, the number of nominations, and how impossible it is to get a majority of less than 60 to find help — and gets none. — PolitiTweet.org

Hayes Brown @HayesBrown

“The Senate has been broken!” Merkely says. "And perhaps the top leader of breaking the Senate has been the minority leader." — PolitiTweet.org

Hayes Brown @HayesBrown

Then in 1971, the filibuster’s use began to rise to like six times a year and it was outrageous, since each filibuster took a week, and then the rules change in 1975 — and whoops, it blew up in everyone’s faces. — PolitiTweet.org

Hayes Brown @HayesBrown

Then, Merkely explains, the filibuster of a civil rights act in the 1890s was used to block a civil rights bill and every filibuster save one until 1965 was about denying Black Americans equal rights. — PolitiTweet.org

Hayes Brown @HayesBrown

Merkley explains that even in 1875 the Senate code, which says “after all views are heard, you can have a simple majority vote,” held and allowed for a majority vote to help end discrimination in the South — PolitiTweet.org

Hayes Brown @HayesBrown

@StevenTDennis I am in love with it. — PolitiTweet.org

Hayes Brown @HayesBrown

@ossoff Sen. Merkley explains that the reason the “filibuster” was given that name, given its origin is a Dutch term for “freebooting”: “the piracy was senators breaking the Senate code!" — PolitiTweet.org

Hayes Brown @HayesBrown

RT @notcapnamerica: Y'all wanna see a dead body? https://t.co/l6hcqWITEt — PolitiTweet.org

Hayes Brown @HayesBrown

RT @mkraju: This is rules change Ds are proposing, per aide. “Each Member would be allowed to speak twice for as long as they wish only on… — PolitiTweet.org

Hayes Brown @HayesBrown

Also, @ossoff didn’t mention this but SCOTUS also substantially weakened Section 2 of the VRA last summer, which the bill on the floor would counteract! https://t.co/jHV9alQzDf — PolitiTweet.org

Hayes Brown @HayesBrown

ha! Merkley thanks Collins and Ossoff calling it “the most substantive back and forth I have seen in my 13 years in the Senate" — PolitiTweet.org

Hayes Brown @HayesBrown

Back to Osoff!! Who adds that Section 2 is “not the entirety of the Voting Rights Act.” Sections 4 and 5 which deal with preclearance is vital because the post-facto litigiation can be far too time consuming, which is why they existed in the first place — PolitiTweet.org

Hayes Brown @HayesBrown

Collins rebuts! She argues that DOJ managed to file suit against Georgia and Texas under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, so things are fine. — PolitiTweet.org

Hayes Brown @HayesBrown

Ossoff responds to Collins to correct her: SCOTUS asked Congress to update Sections 4 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act. When presented with the chance to do so, Collins voted against it. — PolitiTweet.org

Hayes Brown @HayesBrown

[taps sign, re-Collins’ speech] https://t.co/PhVMiCcyy3 — PolitiTweet.org

Hayes Brown @HayesBrown

Collins responds to Ossoff callling out her, McConnell, Cornyn, and Burr for their previous VRA positions vis a vis now. “I wasn’t in the Senate in 1965. I am not sure if Mr. Ossoff was alive at the time in 1965” (lol he was not, millenial gang rise up) — PolitiTweet.org

Hayes Brown @HayesBrown

Susan Collins takes the floor, the first Republican to speak since the cloture vote. "I appreciate the sincerity of [Kaine] in his comments about the filibuster." — PolitiTweet.org

Hayes Brown @HayesBrown

@mgerrydoyle No, the trick was to actually get the bill on the floor to be debated in the first place! — PolitiTweet.org

Hayes Brown @HayesBrown

Kaine takes the floor, says to his GOP colleagues that he wants to “reassure” them that the proposed rule change will not eliminate the filibuster. Instead, it will “switch the current ‘secret’ filibsuter into a public filibuster and make both parties have to work on the floor." — PolitiTweet.org

Hayes Brown @HayesBrown

“Cloture has nothing to do with the passage of legislation, which has always been with a majority” - Angus King, truth teller on the filibuster — PolitiTweet.org

Hayes Brown @HayesBrown

King says on democracies dying out: It can happen here! It has happened in our lifetime in Hungary, Turkey, Venezuela, Russia. — PolitiTweet.org

Hayes Brown @HayesBrown

King: The founders knew fractions! It takes 2/3rds to pass treaties, etc. They knew fractions! But they didn’t have a 2/3rds majority to pass legislation! It would be a disaster! — PolitiTweet.org

Hayes Brown @HayesBrown

King: “My wife says I say ‘finally’ too many times, it gets people’s hopes up" — PolitiTweet.org