>But there is likewise nothing preventing court packing right now except the concern of some democrats right?
Right. FDR threatened this during his administration and bullied the SCOTUS into deciding his way. He was quite Machiavellian. For me, doing something like this would neuter one of the tiers of the check and balance system.
>I'm not a historian, but it seems like the filibuster was already a hack around intended operation of the legislature.
Yes, but it's procedure that the senate had agreed on for quite some time. There's nothing in the constitution that says how many votes are needed to pass, the senate decides that, and for most things, it's 60.
>require 60 votes on absolutely everything.
Depends on how you look at it. Do you want a political party to make laws of the land with only 25+ states supporting it? It sounds good when it's something you support, but doesn't sound great when it isn't. The idea of the 60 vote rule is the federal government can't enact legislation that a supermajority of the country isn't in favor of. Regardless of your party affiliation, you can imagine what horrible legislation would be passed if the opposing party was allowed to pass anything with just 50+1 votes in the senate.
Right. FDR threatened this during his administration and bullied the SCOTUS into deciding his way. He was quite Machiavellian. For me, doing something like this would neuter one of the tiers of the check and balance system.
https://www.history.com/news/franklin-roosevelt-tried-packin...
>I'm not a historian, but it seems like the filibuster was already a hack around intended operation of the legislature.
Yes, but it's procedure that the senate had agreed on for quite some time. There's nothing in the constitution that says how many votes are needed to pass, the senate decides that, and for most things, it's 60.
>require 60 votes on absolutely everything.
Depends on how you look at it. Do you want a political party to make laws of the land with only 25+ states supporting it? It sounds good when it's something you support, but doesn't sound great when it isn't. The idea of the 60 vote rule is the federal government can't enact legislation that a supermajority of the country isn't in favor of. Regardless of your party affiliation, you can imagine what horrible legislation would be passed if the opposing party was allowed to pass anything with just 50+1 votes in the senate.