Discharge Petition

Basis: https://old.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/1nepnbi/so_close/

B

The "discharge" means "discharge from committee" - so if there's a bill in committee that they have not brought to the floor, a discharge petition takes it out of the committee's control and brings it to the floor.

I suspect right now it is simply not getting a vote in committee; it has been tabled. But I don't know what happens if the committee votes it down and the discharge petition only has 217 votes. That might be the end of it.

When and if the bill makes it to the floor, it needs fewer votes to pass than signatures to force the vote, so it would pass unless some current signatories flipped.

Beyond that, I don't know. I'm not even sure which committee has it or what the underlying bill is.

R

It's interesting how convoluted the process is overall

Appreciate the explanation either way though

B

I find our government system quite elegant, like eyes or the endocrine system. A series of hacks that competed well for a long time. "Try this, better or worse?" "better, but there's still a gap" ... "OK, what if we add this?"

In places it looks like an agglomeration of undirected searches, but having (in this example) a committee that handles the day-to-day, and the ability to override them if they get too big for their britches, is a nice solve.

Unfortunately, for this collection of hacks to serve society, it requires good. Either a supermajority of pro-social actors, or a simple majority of pro-social actors with strong critical thinking skills. Our system lacks either, at the moment.

Having those can be easy enough when the stakes are small. Most people are trying to be good most of the time; we're genetically coded for it. Allen and Paine and Madison sought integrity in a minor power.

With the wealth and power flowing through America now, it is tidally locked. It is the unwavering focus of the most avaricious and conniving. Musk and Thiel and Ballmer are what this ailing nation is.

"When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated." --Thomas Jefferson to Charles Hammond, 1821.