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no bull and the aftermath.

Part of this is just the imbalance in the nature of the parties. The conservatives are the

party, William Buckley's phrase that stands up for history-yelling stop and much of their

agenda is aimed at preserving the status quo. And things like tax legislation can be done

through reconciliation and reconciliation can be expanded to include a lot of things if

you want to get creative about it. And opening the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to drilling

got done through reconciliation as part of the tax cut package in 2017 to get Senator

Murkowski's vote. So, you know, there's a lot you can throw into that pile if your

agenda is primarily focused on things like tax cuts and a hard to budget by their issues.

Democrats have a much broader agenda and most of the things they want to do can't be achieved

through reconciliation. You could not even if you got really creative, you couldn't stretch

reconciliation rules to make it apply to gun control or to make it apply to civil rights

and voting rights issues. Those sorts of things would be blocked by the filibuster period.

I'm Margaret Taylor and this is the LawFair podcast, August 14, 2020. On July 30, former

president Barack Obama speaking at the funeral of Congressman John Lewis, through his weight

behind ending the Senate filibuster, if necessary, to pursue a voting rights agenda. His

comments brought to the forefront a debate that has been simmering for years within the

Democratic Party. I talked with Adam Gentelson, who served as Deputy Chief of Staff to Senate

...