• Thrillhouse@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I guess as a Canadian, my question is (pre-brain issues) what made Mitch McConnell have such a stranglehold over the Senate in comparison? Is it just that McCarthy has razor thin margins in the House? I think Mitch would have been able to whip the votes to get the party to do what he wanted. How is McCarthy different?

    And ps this system of constantly having to vote to avoid Government shutdown seems really dumb from an outsider perspective…

    • charles@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Biggest thing is that the Senate is populated with much more experienced Congresspeople, who have much longer election cycles. They don’t need to grab the headlines constantly to keep top of mind for their constituents.

      I’d say there’s another portion that’s because things have simply gotten that much crazier in the last handful of years. Some congressman don’t have any shame as to their brazen sand in the gears.

      Voting to avoid shutdown is really dumb from an insider perspective too. But the party that loves to do nothing refuses to change the rules to have an automatic continuing resolution without a budget. And any change to require “automatic vote of no confidence” would have to be a constitutional amendment, and thus will never happen.