Keely Allen

[Keely Allen @KeelyinFlorida]

@C_3C_3 I Will Find You ~ Harlan Coben

[Keely Allen @KeelyinFlorida]

@AndrewDesiderio Why? This is absolutely ridiculous!🤡

[Keely Allen @KeelyinFlorida]

@w_terrence You can't fix stupid! I did this over 15 years ago!

[Keely Allen @KeelyinFlorida]

@SenatorDurbin What planet are living on?

[Keely Allen @KeelyinFlorida]

@BreannaMorello Thankfully, my daughter and son-in-law haven't vaxxed my grandson, and won't ever!

[Keely Allen @KeelyinFlorida]

@WarlordDilley Hmm, great question! 🙃

[Keely Allen @KeelyinFlorida]

@w_terrence Good God, do you know who sold you? It wasn't the white people, we bought from the black people!

[Keely Allen @KeelyinFlorida]

The rationalize is this... YOU WORK FOR US!

[Nick Sortor @nicksortor]

🚨 John Cornyn in WHINING to reporters about the possibility of his August vacation being CANCELED for the SAVE America Act

Thank GOD @KenPaxtonTX kicked this guy's ass

"I don't understand the rationale..."

"Somehow the president is convinced that if he presses hard enough that we will will come around. But I just don't think that's likely to happen."

If you don't want to do your job, just resign, Cornyn. Your term's almost up anyway.

[Keely Allen @KeelyinFlorida]

@GavinNewsom Then for goodness sake, show VOTER ID!!!

[Keely Allen @KeelyinFlorida]

@Sassafrass_84 Probability = MONEY

[Keely Allen @KeelyinFlorida]

@GavinNewsom Are you serious? You are a known LIAR! I had to show my marriage license a DECADE ago! Grow the fuck up!

[Keely Allen @KeelyinFlorida]

@GOPJake @ScottPresler should continue in what ever alley he sees as a problem including you @GOPJake

[Keely Allen @KeelyinFlorida]

@catturd2 Sorry, not sorry, but isn't that more than Biden's votes? 🤣

[Keely Allen @KeelyinFlorida]

@JackPosobiec #True My exact thought!

[Keely Allen @KeelyinFlorida]

@MarshaBlackburn @realDonaldTrump Then why is your name not on the list to cancel the August recess? Asking for me and millions of Americans!

[Keely Allen @KeelyinFlorida]

@atensnut Good point Juanita!

[Keely Allen @KeelyinFlorida]

Is this you @TractorSupply ? You just lost a good customer! And I'm fairly sure millions will follow!!

[Keely Allen @KeelyinFlorida]

I was just thinking about this... we have a House Whip, why is there not a Senate Whip?

[Gunther Eagleman™ @GuntherEagleman]

I don't want a Senate Leader telling me it's the Presidents job to whip the votes of Senators.

That is a cowards move... A real leader would get the votes.

Time for a new Senate Leader.

[Keely Allen @KeelyinFlorida]

Or @MarshaBlackburn

[Texas Knight @MrTexKnight]

Up to Seven now, Sen Ted Cruz. Texans still do not see your name on the List.
@SenTedCruz @tedcruz 🟡
✅Senator Mike Lee
✅Senator Rick Scott
✅Senator Ashley Moody
✅Senator Darline Graham
✅Senator Bill Hagerty
✅Senator Tommy Tuberville
✅Senator Bill Hagerty

[Keely Allen @KeelyinFlorida]

Senator @BasedMikeLee bringing the receipts!

[Mike Lee @BasedMikeLee]

My colleague from South Dakota suggests here that the talking filibuster hasn’t been used in a century, and that it was not used to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

He’s mistaken.

As I’ve explained to the entire Senate GOP on multiple occasions, the talking filibuster *was* used effectively to break the weeks-long filibuster mounted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Leader Thune and others point out that the Senate ultimately invoked cloture on the Civil Rights Act, and on that basis wrongly conclude that the talking filibuster was *not* the tool used to achieve that victory.

This argument ignores the fact that this is *how* the Senate closed a staggering 30-vote cloture deficit in 1964. After many weeks of fighting a losing battle, filibustering senators predictably started to lose their resolve to hold up the bill indefinitely, especially when they realized how hard they’d have to work to keep the effort alive.

So they started proposing and supporting amendments to the bill to make it more palatable and help them save face.

I still maintain that this is a viable approach that could work well—even better—in the context of the SAVE America Act, especially considering that the bill is less complicated and less controversial with voters than was the Civil Rights Act, and currently has a cloture deficit of only 10 votes—tiny compared to the 30-vote deficit faced by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

My colleague also mistakenly suggests that Senate Republicans would have to vote to enforce the talking filibuster. That simply isn’t true; no vote is required for this step. All we need is a majority leader willing to announce that we’re getting on the bill and that we will continue to debate it until it passes—all with the understanding that if filibustering senators fail to show up to debate it, we can “call the question” and pass it with a simple majority.

That understanding, in turn, is what motivates the filibustering senators to show up and speak, but it’s also what naturally causes them to tire of the exercise after a few weeks, at which point they start looking for a face-saving off-ramp.

Finally, Leader Thune suggests that the talking filibuster would be thwarted by being “reset” every time Democrats offered an amendment. There’s a valid point in there, but it’s not a good reason not to invoke the talking filibuster. It appears he’s referring indirectly to paragraph 1(a) of Senate Rule 19 (the two-speech rule). While offering a new amendment can create a new question under longstanding practice, the September 25, 1986 precedent narrowed how rigidly the two-speech rule is applied by clarifying that many procedural actions do not count as speeches at all.

Particularly in light of that 1986 clarification, it’s been a long time since I’ve suggested we consider rigid enforcement of Rule 19’s two-speech limit as part of a talking filibuster strategy for the SAVE America Act. We don’t need it!

Nor was that rule aggressively enforced during the Senate’s consideration of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Majority Leader Mike Mansfield correctly focused on requiring actual debate from filibustering senators rather than looking for technical ways to shut the debate down.

To give credit where it’s due, I appreciate what Leader Thune said in this interview about the possibility of passing some iteration of SAVE America using budget reconciliation—a procedure in which there is no 60-vote cloture hurdle. I’ve been skeptical of this approach in the past, but I’m starting to believe the SAVE America Act has more budgetary features than I initially considered possible.

That said, reconciliation is fraught with all kinds of problems, challenges, risks, and uncertainties. Also, failure can be far too easy to blame on the parliamentarian.

I’m open to considering the reconciliation path, but we should make this decision with our eyes open. To do that, we need to separate fact from fiction when it comes to the talking filibuster.