Stay updated with breaking news from Norman orenstein. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
The wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas calls for new leadership in the House, resurrecting concerns of conflicts of interest on the high court. ....
Sort of unofficially governed modern politics. a new book called one nation under trump details this and its challenges to the institution of america s democracy and authors allege the system should not have let president trump win. joining me now, two of the three authors of one nation under trump. norman orenstein and washington post columnist and brookings institution seen oh fellow e.j. okay. the system should not have allowed to to happen. norm, referring to the electoral college or something other than that? mostly electoral system, careened, tilted out of control. the way the system operates you cannot see a majority necessarily prevealing. if you look at the 44 elections from 1824 until 1996, when the popular vote first came into being arguably only one where ....
if we have work the weekend before christmas we will do that. if we work monday before christmas, we will do that. if we have to work through christmas, we are going to do that. i know the game they re playing. they have done it before. the only impediment to holding votes without delay and at reasonable hours is blatant part is an republican obstructionism. spending an entire week, wasting and waiting for a vote. this is a foregone conclusion what is going to happen. joining me congressional scholars and authors, extraordinaire, thomas mann senior fellow at brookings university, and norman orenstein at the american enterprise institute and co-authors of it s even worse than it looks now available in paperback. tom, go to you first on this. it is even worse than it looks. it looks pretty bad. this seems to be the longest, most public display of nanny-nanny-boo-boo, we have seen in the congress, is it not? ....
This is not normal. this is not how it s supposed to work. this congress has not only been historically unproductive, it has taken steps that have directly harmed the country. that have directly harmed our economic recovery. and it s not just people like me who think this. it is the most credentialed experts on the manner. thomas mann and norman orenstein have been explaining for four decades, and earlier this year, they came to this joint conclusion. doing this more than four decades and earlier came to this joint conclusion. quote we have been studying washington politics and congress for more than 40 years and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. joining me now, the aforementioned most credentialed experts on the matter, norm orenstein, resident scholar of the institute and tom mann, senior fellow in government studies at the brookings institution, also the co-authors ....
that is awesome. what happened in the senate today aside from the poppycock reference was something truly remarkable. in a chamber that has been essentially paralyzed by filibuster after filibuster on nearly everything over the last two years, there were two votes held in the senate today that were not filibustered. that only needed a simple majority to pass. 51 votes to pass, just like the founders intended. and these weren t meaningless votes. weren t naming postal offices. these were votes of consequence. it was about what to do when the bush tax cuts expire at the end of the year. democrats and republicans each got the chance to put up their own plan for a popular vote in the senate and to see what happened. republicans went first. their bill would have extended the bush tax cuts for everyone including all incumbent millionaires and billionaires. that bill failed. it was defeated by nine votes including two republicans who crossed party lines to vote against it. t ....