I should have been more precise - the Senate's rules are garbage and should be hurled into the Sun. More generally, my comments come from watching PMQ's in the House of Commons and seeing that the party out of power really doesn't have many tools to slow down the opposite sides agenda.
If such a system was implemented in the US, it would force politicians to more carefully consider their positions -- no confidence votes and a motion to vacate serve the man functional purpose as a stick to get people in line, which might not otherwise be possible if they consistently took unpopular positions.
You’re fundamentally misunderstanding what is going on. There are a majority number of votes to support popular legislation. These bills are simply not brought to a vote BY THE MAJORITY PARTY due to internal majority party politics.
Nothing in your facile proposal would remedy this. What would fix the problem would be change to the rules so that simple majority could bring legislation to a vote. This does not exist in any functional way.
And we haven’t even touched on the fact that the majority of seats are often controlled by a minority of voters due to gerrymandering and the constitutional structure of the senate.
I'm well aware of the procedural votes that occur before something goes before the entire House or Senate...which serve no other practical purpose than to slow things down. It should not be possible under any circumstances for a single vote -- in an instance where that vote would not make or break a tie among the majority -- to doom a bill that a majority of the caucus supports.
Glares in the direction of the Freedom Caucus, many of whom should have been expelled from Congress after 1/6
In addition, the shitshow that is the amendment process demonstrates that our representatives have long forgotten how to craft comprehensive legislation that has even a chance of addressing all potential concerns.
Again, if I had a magic wand for a day to fix Congress, I'd dissolve it and reconstitute the chambers as a parliament...but how exactly to do that is an argument for another day.
If I had my way I’d create a unicameral legislature with a combination of multimember districts and at-large party list seats in the vein of Germany’s Bundestag.
On a slightly more reasonable note, I’d be happy with just eliminating all state senates nationwide, similar to Nebraska.
If such a system was implemented in the US, it would force politicians to more carefully consider their positions -- no confidence votes and a motion to vacate serve the man functional purpose as a stick to get people in line, which might not otherwise be possible if they consistently took unpopular positions.