I wonder what the precedent is for this? Will the Democrat senators always vote for their legislation or will just one or more (a different one for different reasons) decide to block their own party's bills sometimes?
Hans Blaster
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Majority of zero actually.
I don't know the details, but his has happened before (early 2001, until Jeffords of Vermont switched to the Dems over [get this] the *size* of the Bush tax cut). There is apparently a "power sharing agreement" that will be voted on as a package of rules shortly. I believe each committee will be evenly divided, but the top Dem will be the chair. The GOP despite being the "minority" party will have more power to move legislation than normally afforded to the minority (i.e., slightly more than zero).
The content of bills will likely be shaped through a negotiation of Senators in the "middle" from both parties when the Rep caucus is generally opposed.
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- Oct 17, 2015
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Will the Republican senators always vote for their legislation or will just one or more (a different one for different reasons) decide to block their own party's bills sometimes?
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It is actually more complicated than that. There are currently 50 senators that affiliate with the Republican party and 48 that affiliate with the Democratic party. There are two independents. So Senator Chuck Shumer being elected Senate Majority Leader was due to all of his Democrats, the two Independent Senators voting for him. That yielded a 50-50 tie and VP Kamala Harris broke the tie to elect Shumer. So on other issues, I do not think there will be as much party unity, maybe on both sides.
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Is the situation much different than last session when a couple of Republicans were heavily lobbied and threatened? As I recall, it took a man coming off his deathbed to oppose the majority on one piece of legislation.
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The best case, read not going to happen, scenario in my eyes is that both parties meet in the middle and govern. As much as I would like to see the republicans suffer obstruction or being rolled over as a taste of their own medicine I value a functional government more than watching others pay a price for their stupidity even one they richly deserve to pay.
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Freodin
Devout believer in a theologically different God
I cannot claim to be that well informed about the internal working of U.S. government, but as far as I understood it, a lot of the "deadlock" in the last Senate happened because McConnell just didn't present certain bills for a vote. Bills that in some (many?) cases were even bipartisan in their origin and might well have passed if they had been voted on at all.
This kind of thing might not happen as much in the next two years... and I think that is a good prospect.
This kind of thing might not happen as much in the next two years... and I think that is a good prospect.
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Albion
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The 50-50 split has happened before, and fairly recently, in fact. Quite likely, the Democratic Senators will not break ranks while the Republicans stand to have one or more of the fair-weather Republican Senators such as Romney, Murkowski, and Collins join the Dems on the most important votes.
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