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Democrats Are Just One Vote Shy of Restoring Net Neutrality (engadget.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer now says Democrats in the Senate are a single vote away from restoring net neutrality. According to the senator from New York, they now have a total of 50 votes for a Senate resolution of disapproval that would restore the Open Internet Order of 2015 and deliver a stiff rebuke to Ajit Pai and other Republican members of the FCC. It would also prevent the agency from passing a similar measure in the future, all but guaranteeing Net Neutrality is permanently preserved. Right now the resolution has the support of all 49 Democrats in the Senate and one Republican, Susan Collins of Maine. But Schumer and the rest of the caucus will have to win over one more Republican vote to prevent Vice President Mike Pence from breaking tie and allowing the repeal to stand. Under the Congressional Review Act, the Senate has 60 days to challenge a decision by an independent agency like the FCC. Democrats have less than 30 days to convince a "moderate" like John McCain or Lindsey Graham to buck their party. Further reading: The Washington Post (paywalled)
Slashdot summary is retarded. From the article:
"The measure must survive the Republican-majority House and be signed by President Trump to take effect."
Reagan raised taxes eleven times during his two terms. That alone would get him called a RINO by some members of the party.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Parties have enormous power under the First Amendment (right to free assembly) to determine how their party works. The DNC and RNC have vastly different primary rules and are allowed to as current interpretations of the First Amendment do not allow the government to interfere much with them.
These rules are also not used that often so even ideas meant to improve things don't get much testing. Public selection of candidates for major parties has only been around since the early 1970s, first getting some use in the 1972 election, so they've only been used about a dozen times. That's including incumbent primaries, though, so it's even fewer for each party.
In the case of Democrats, Sanders had a huge hurdle to get past with the superdelegates backing Clinton from the start, putting him at a distinct disadvantage before the first vote was cast. The DNC assigns delegates based on election results, so a candidate getting 60% of the vote in a two-person race will get 60% of the delegates.
Republicans do things differently, leaving it up to states how to apportion delegates. Some go winner-takes-all, some do proportional, some do proportional with floors. On top of that, additional delegates are assigned to a state that voted for the last Republican presidential candidate or has elected positions held by Republicans or a majority of Republicans.
And those are heavily simplified versions, as there are a ton of other caveats. There are other important bits, but one factor that the parties seem to work together on is primary scheduling. This is why Iowa goes first and other states go in weird orders. A state that violates a party's earliest allowed date can be ignored by the party. It's perfectly legal to do so, as freedom of association means that the parties can exclude anyone they want.
It's an ugly mess, but fixing it might get uglier.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.