• doctorcrimson@lemmy.today
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    9 months ago

    I’m sorry for calling you an idiot, earlier. If you’re interested in the subject then I’ll leave a brief intro to the US political process.

    It’s a bit convoluted but basically for a bill to become law it has to pass 3 chambers: the House, the Senate, and be signed by the sitting President. Even after this, the courts can rule changing the interpretation of the law but generally that doesn’t happen often because Congress can impeach a judge for misconduct, and judicial organizations can disbar them, effectively ending their legal career.

    Amendments to the constitution, anything that changes the congressional budget past a defined limit, removal from office a federal official, or vetoing a decision by a sitting president all require a Supermajority (sometimes referred to as a 2/3rds vote) which is 67 out of 100 senators or 290 of 435 house representatives. One tactic people use to prevent a bill from passing is to simply “filibuster” or prolong the debate process by taking a stand at the podium for long periods of time until people leave to sleep, eat, or return to their families causing them to miss the vote, but a 2/3rds majority can also bypass the filibuster and force the vote to proceed.

    HR1 For the People Act was passed in the House of Representatives after the “Blue Wave” backlash against conservatives in 2020 where a lot of new DNC representatives were elected to the House. Unfortunately it was short lived as the Senate has been in a deadlock ever since, even now it’s a 48:49 DNC to RNC split with 3 Independents caucusing with DNC to have them elect the majority leader. A total of 45 DNC Senators sponsored the bill but it’s not nearly enough to bypass filibuster or even pass at all without support from other parties.