
Why I’m Leaving the Senate - timr
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/opinion/21bayh.html?hp
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dsplittgerber
I can't shake the feeling that these are just talking points. He certainly
sounds nice, but ultimately his proposals come down to new restrictions on
free speech regarding campaign finance (any 'reform' short of a constitutional
amendment would most probably be useless anyway, as there are always ways
around, as witnessed before) and why is it filibusters are only impeding
progress when your own party is in power?

Edit: Just back in Nov 09, he was still in favor of the filibuster.
[http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-
klein/2009/11/evan_bay...](http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-
klein/2009/11/evan_bayh_no_difference_betwee.html)

~~~
yummyfajitas
_They [congress] are patriotic, hard-working and devoted to the public good as
they see it, but the institutional and cultural impediments to change
frustrate the intentions of these well-meaning people as rarely before. It was
not always thus._

Yes, as we all know, the US was designed to be run top down by a rapidly
moving federal government. We didn't create checks and balances and a
government limited by a constitution, because we wanted to make sure that our
well meaning overlords could change things on a dime!

 _Currently, the decision to begin debate on a bill can be filibustered,
followed by another filibuster on each amendment, followed by yet another
filibuster before a final vote. This leads to multiple legislative delays and
effectively grinds the Senate to a halt._

Sure, one filibuster per law, provided the Senate stops completely rewriting
laws during the debate process.

True story: there was once a law called _To amend the Internal Revenue Code of
1986 to provide earnings assistance and tax relief to members of the uniformed
services, volunteer firefighters, and Peace Corps volunteers, and for other
purposes_. Somewhere along the line, the Senate decided to completely replace
the text of that bill with a $700 billion giveaway to the financial services
industry.

Under Baye's proposed rule, this nonsense couldn't even be filibustered. Great
plan.

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tcskeptic
And once again the overriding impression I get is that "bipartisanship" means
the other guys should do what I want and not make such a big fuss. A pox on
both your houses.

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abrown28
I wish our founding fathers had inserted a sunset clause into the constitution
that would require each new congress to read every previously passed bill and
re-vote on them.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_clause>

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dsplittgerber
God, no! How on earth is Congress supposed to re-read tens of thousands of
statutes? It's a nice sentiment and certainly a principle that should get
adopted for "temporary legislation/measures" but, generally speaking, it's
hugely impractical.

How are you suppoed to enter into contracts if you don't know what the law of
the land is going to be in four years time? Transaction costs would increase
enormously.

~~~
CapitalistCartr
"How on earth is Congress supposed to re-read tens of thousands of statutes?
It's a nice sentiment and certainly a principle that should get adopted for
"temporary legislation/measures" but, generally speaking, it's hugely
impractical.

How are you supposed to enter into contracts if you don't know what the law of
the land is going to be in four years time? Transaction costs would increase
enormously."

Contracts are mostly based on Sate law. Also,some states have Sunset
provisions and have a standard package of laws they pass at the beginning of
each year.

As for the impracticality of so many thousands of statutes, that's rather the
point.

~~~
dsplittgerber
As for passing a standard package of laws at the beginning of each year: Then
why use sunset clauses at all, if legislators don't even think about it but
just pass it along in one sweep every year?

I wholeheartedly agree that nearly every developed country is over-regulated,
especially the US, having a different approach to regulating (narrowly worded,
long statutes vs short, general principles) than some European legal
traditions. Alas, the majority of people don't want to get strangled by
regulations but at the same time want to have lots of industries regulated. I
think the best shot is to inform them about the consequences of over-
regulation.

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adammichaelc
The problem with Congress is not that they don't do enough. It's that they try
to do too much.

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mynameishere
The senate was different, more united, in the past, but so too was the
country.

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hga
_Really?!?!!???_ That doesn't agree with my knowledge of US political history
at all. Perhaps you could be more specific with dates?

