Did GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy Signal A Return Of The Talking Filibuster?

Did Kevin McCarthy just usher back in an era of the talking filibuster? As it stands, if even one senator objects to a vote without a supermajority no vote takes place. That wasn't always the case, and senators had to take to the floor and plead their side until they couldn't talk anymore. Are we headed back to that time?

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Sam: The Build-Back Better bill passed last night or not this morning I should say last night. Kevin McCarthy did. I am not quite clear on what he did. what is your he spoke all night and it seemed to me I don't know if he thought like oh they're gonna have to take the vote at like two in the morning and I'm gonna get you to know it's gonna make it seem like the democrats didn't want people to know that they passed this? Or if it was more like I need to shore up my chances of becoming majority leader when the Republicans take over in the midterms. What was your sense of what McCarthy was doing and then we'll talk about the bill itself?

Bouie: I think you had it with that latter point. I think McCarthy just wants to. It's not a given that McCarthy can be speaker of the House next year if Republicans win the house. and so I think he's trying to present himself as someone who's going to stand up against democrats and resist democrats as much as possible. I want to make the quick point that you know McCarthy could speak for so long because house leadership even if they're only allocated a minute to speak have basically unlimited speaking privileges and so we kind of took advantage of speaking for eight hours and 30 minutes or so. and Then he stopped. like he obviously couldn't go on for much longer so we stopped. I think that maybe gives us an illustration of what the return to the talking filibuster in the senate might look like if it ever happens right? that you can delay a vote as much as long as you want as long as you're able to keep the floor but once you're no longer able to keep the floor. That's it in the ball game.

Sam: And we should stay, I mean he's, I mean, relative to people in the senate. You know we just played a clip of John Senator John Kennedy from Louisiana. and I feel like he probably could if he had to stand up and talk. I feel like maybe 45 minutes.

Bouie: it's not clear to me that anyone really has the or too many people have the stamina to talk for 12 hours or 16 hours or 24 hours to delay a vote. versus the current system now where you can simply send an email and say that you want to know you want to invoke cloture. or you want to know to require a cloture vote.

Sam: and we should I should say like I think this could that element of the conversation could get more this could become more relevant once we get past the build back better bill the debt ceiling the budget i think there's going to be a lot of pressure to reform the filibuster at least in the context of voting.