195
votes
Accepted
What is the point of prohibiting currently impossible things?
As I see it, there are fundamentally three reasons a person would outlaw an action that is currently impossible:
To ensure that the first attempt is illegal
If you refuse to outlaw an immoral act ...
- 5,786
113
votes
Accepted
Why are congressional votes not secret?
Because Congress is accountable to their constituents. You are only accountable to yourself.
If how they vote is secret, there's no way of holding them to the promises they made. They could just say &...
- 4,460
90
votes
What would stop a representative democracy becoming a dictatorship?
The only obstacle between a government by the people and a dictatorship are the people.
- 9,363
81
votes
Accepted
What would stop a representative democracy becoming a dictatorship?
Most democratic countries have a constitution which says how the state functions and what kinds of laws can and can not be made. Laws which contradict the constitution are usually declared invalid by ...
- 74.7k
75
votes
Accepted
Why have US Presidents not been given the power of line item vetoes?
It's a good idea if you think the President should have much stronger powers than other branches, and that legislative compromise should be eliminated, as part of the system, altogether.
As much as ...
- 20.8k
70
votes
Accepted
How does lobbying work in the US?
The mechanics of lobbying can work at several levels.
"Senator, I represent the National Association of Flute and Tuba Manufacturers. Were you aware that flute and tuba manufacturers are the fifth ...
- 1,449
53
votes
How do politicians scrutinize bills that are thousands of pages long?
Teamwork and Staff
No single representative reads all those pages, but the various committee members look at the parts which are their area of expertise. And then a representative on the Armed ...
- 106k
50
votes
Accepted
What is the point in delaying the signing of legislation that the President supports?
The buck stops with the President. Once the President signs a law is becomes law and he can't take that back.
Major legislation runs hundreds of pages and it is commonplace for there to be myriad ...
- 73k
49
votes
Accepted
Why doesn't the Texas legislature nuke the quorum?
Why doesn't the Texas legislature nuke the quorum?
... why doesn't the GOP nuke the quorum and now only require a simple majority of members?
Any change to the quorum requires an amendment to the ...
- 34.3k
48
votes
Why do Senators and Representatives miss so many votes?
It depends on which votes we're talking about.
Votes happen on the House and Senate floor. But they also happen in committees and subcommittees. Most of the actual work of being a legislator happens ...
- 6,203
45
votes
What is the point in delaying the signing of legislation that the President supports?
Odd though it may seem from the outside, the President — if he is doing his job correctly — is actually quite busy. Biden in particular is still within his first 100 days (a benchmark test for every ...
- 67.7k
44
votes
What would stop a representative democracy becoming a dictatorship?
A good example of a system trying to prevent this is the Constitution of Norway.
The constitution has various ways to protect itself from being altered in undesirable ways.
Changes to the ...
- 2,151
44
votes
What prevents a single senator from passing a bill they want with a 1-0 vote?
Votes have to be taken in the Senate chamber during an offical sitting of the Senate. A senator can't just pass a bill when they are alone in their office. They can't creep into the chamber in the ...
- 115k
42
votes
Why have US Presidents not been given the power of line item vetoes?
Why have US Presidents not been given the power of line item vetoes
They have. Congress passed the Line Item Veto Act of 1996, but it was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in Clinton v. ...
- 89.3k
40
votes
How does lobbying work in the US?
A legitimate lobbyist is paid to explain the needs of some special interest groups to the politicians. And also how the needs of that special interest group benefit the electorate as a whole, or at ...
- 106k
37
votes
Accepted
How would a vote in US congress taken under duress be later invalidated?
The simple fact is that there is a ghost in the machine.
It is common to see questions on this forum discussing the working of the Constitution in some extreme condition. Perhaps because many people ...
- 115k
35
votes
Accepted
Did Republicans accidentally kill corporate deductions, and will it force the Senate to revise and re-vote?
The reporting on the senate bill still having the AMT set at 20% and the new corporate tax level being at 20% while the house bill removed the AMT is accurate. Corporations have been outspoken in ...
- 10.5k
32
votes
Accepted
What is the minimum amount of votes needed in both Chambers of Congress to send an Admission to the Union resolution to the President?
Admitting a new state to the Union requires only a normal joint act of Congress which is passed the same as any other bill. The threshold is therefore a majority in the House and a majority in the ...
- 25.9k
27
votes
What is the point of prohibiting currently impossible things?
A fairly large one is that
Nobody has considered all the legal ramifications yet
You brought up cloning as an example so let's run with that. This article goes over why we can't clone humans yet and ...
- 45.6k
27
votes
Accepted
What would happen if Senators boycotted the Impeachment Vote
The precise wording in the Constitution (with emphasis added) is:
The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. When sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation. ...
- 27.8k
26
votes
Accepted
Why can't laws be shorter?
The Purpose of those Laws
The Constitution serves a difference purpose than other laws. The Constitution provides a skeletal outline of our government, but it doesn't provide specifics. Other laws ...
- 23.8k
25
votes
Accepted
Why is an unrelated House-passed measure used to start the immigration debate in the Senate?
This is a common legislative tactic. Although Sen. McConnell didn't explicitly describe his plan, he was likely planning on gutting the bill (removing all of its current content) and eventually ...
- 23.8k
24
votes
What is the point of prohibiting currently impossible things?
One factor not yet mentioned in the other answers is that legislators do not draft laws purely for the effects they will have when implemented, but also for the effect which announcing them as policy ...
- 341
24
votes
Accepted
Name for a popular measure added to a bill for the purpose of later attacking those who vote against that bill?
What you're describing is essentially a reverse poison pill.
The poison pill, or wrecking amendment, is an amendment whose purpose is to make the passage of a bill completely intolerable to the side ...
- 16.4k
20
votes
What's the highest number of amendments submitted for a law proposal in France, since 1958?
I believe the record is still held by the 2006 energy sector bill. Le Monde reported at the time:
In the parliamentary game, the centerpiece remains the amendment. With
the energy bill, a record is ...
CDJB♦
- 105k
18
votes
Why do Senators and Representatives miss so many votes?
One could say that the real job of a representative is to sit in committees, and to prepare for committees, and to pour over budget proposals. By the time an issue reaches the floor of the House or ...
- 106k
17
votes
Accepted
Why did the Senate use an existing bill that passed the House in July 2019 to create the CARES Act?
The reason for amending this bill instead of the Senate creating a new bill was to fulfil the requirements of Article I, Section 7, Clause 1 of the Constitution, also known as the Origination or ...
CDJB♦
- 105k
16
votes
Accepted
Does it matter what is said on the US Congress floor?
Floor speeches are for the constituencies, for the judiciary to understand the reasoning behind the passage of a bill, and sometimes for other audiences (e.g. foreign audiences or large-dollar ...
- 1,268
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible