This will pass at the same time as the healthcare, world peace, and word hunger bills.
From the article:
With a divided Congress, the bills are unlikely to pass into law this session. But Mr. Smith said legislators needed to start a conversation.
Solid odds this will be a campaign issue, which is a great thing.
It will be a campaign issue and then nothing will be done about it. Fingers will be pointed.
This 1000%. A bunch of bullshit from all sides, all these “ought to’s” and a bunch of malarkey will get tossed around. The election will get won by Biden or Trump, and all this will just turn into the same thing it always does…empty promises and a shit ton of money getting made at the top while we’re all fucked.
Real change won’t happen by voting for it, it’s when billionaires find their heads in baskets staring up at the axe/guillotine/whatever that just cut their fucking heads off. Eat the rich.
Everyone will talk about it, nobody will do anything to improve the situation.
Once you reach the ranks of the Senate, you have more financial interest in the future of your REIT-heavy investment portfolio than the price any of your constituents are paying for housing. Hell, more than a few Senators come straight from the halls of Wall Street themselves. That’s how they have the kind of surplus cash to run for office to begin with.
Gun regs have better odds, as high real estate prices don’t put Congresscritters in the hospital.
In fact, we’ve already passed more regulations recently in the form of Safer Communities Act, as well as reimplementing the Obama Era mental health screening that was removed under the Trump Admin. Sure, it’s not a renewal of the Assault Rifle Ban, but it’s something.
Liberals: “We’re teetering on the brink of tyranny, democracy may cease to exist after 2024.”
Also liberals: “Please remove our 2A rights while fascists in red states expand their own.”
“remove our 2A rights” is a weird way to phrase “regulating gun availability to make it harder for people who intend to use them to kill people to get them.” you know the text of the second amendment includes the phrase “well-regulated,” almost as if they did not intend for gun availability to be the lawless wasteland that it currently effectively is.
Your rifle isn’t going to protect you. Did guns stop the war on drugs? Did guns stop the Patriot act? Did guns stop the Japanese interment camps? Did guns stop Jim Crow? Did guns save the Natives? Did guns stop the anti-black city riots? Did guns end the robber barrons or the city bosses? Did it stop the attacks on Asians in San Francisco and New York last century or even two years ago?
Your gun means jack and shit. The biggest proof of that is you are not in front of a planned parenthood in Texas ready to battle with it.
Do your part and vote 3rd party. If we want change we have to vote for it.
Our current electoral system is inherently biased against 3rd parties. We need to switch to approval/STAR voting to make 3rd parties viable.
Yeah, people keep saying things like this, and then just completely ignore that their view is led us down a 40-year path where our liberty and economic power has dwindled progressively with each passing election.
So no.
Your viable parties are shit. I’ll vote better.
Our current electoral system is inherently biased against 3rd parties.
That’s true until it isn’t. Year-over-year, the nation can only support two parties nationally and one dominant party state-by-state. But which party (and which coalition of leaders) hold power can change in wave years, particularly when strong third party campaigns force rival parties to cater to the independent vote to get over the 50% hump.
There’s a podcast called Hell of Presidents that does a great job of documenting the rise and fall of state party organs and their impact on the national scene. The rapid collapse of the Federalists, the rise of the Jacksonian Democrats, the collapse of the Whigs and emergence of the Republicans, the rise and fall of democratic socialists, and the emergence of liberal progressives, movement conservatives, libertarians, and neoliberal democrats all begin with third party bids in small states.
While we don’t have more than two distinct parties in the US, we absolutely do have factions within the main two parties that have regionalized and polarized constituencies that are fighting for control of the national party apparatuses. Even setting aside guys like Trump and Sanders, just check out Nebraska’s Indie dark horse contender Dan Osborn, whose union organizing is putting him ahead of both party candidates.
There’s quite a few southern states that use runoff voting. Their state legislatures are just as filled with the big two parties as everywhere else. Additionally, the US is not alone in favoring FPTP voting, but many of those other countries still have third parties that are viable in individual regions (Canada and UK, for example). The US is unique in how the big two parties are dominant everywhere at every level.
People focus a lot on FPTP, but it’s not the only factor at work.
Please, tell me you’re a child who knows nothing about the US electoral system without telling me. People like you got us Trump
Too much of a baby to read and understand the spoiler effect that comes with FPTP? Too impatient and short-sighted to push for election reform (RCV or approval voting) and just want some low effort immediate option that requires nothing more than casting a vote? Child. Democracies require effort to survive.
You’re looking at 3rd party votes in the wrong light.
They’re an effective means of voicing discontent with the candidates from the two largest party. Unlike the third of Americans who don’t vote 3rd party votes demonstrate a willingness to go out and vote along with their discontent in the platform of the two largest parties.
We aren’t going to get RCV by just waiting for it to happen. It’ll take actual work.
And calling people who have different opinions from you on the Internet ‘child’ isn’t going to get them to agree with you.