Comment by bruce511
6 hours ago
Alas you'll need to define "sane" first. That might be harder than expected.
Equally unfortunate is the need for 60 senate votes to actually have a meaningful say over what the president does. And in truth no part has had "control" of congress to this level for a while.
When one (or indeed both) sides are politically incapable of being bipartisan (witness the outcomes for those voting against party lines, on both sides) control of one house is meaningless and a majority in the senate (short of 60 votes) mostly meaningless.
Expecting any change in behavior after November, regardless of the results, is wishful thinking.
It takes 40 votes to prevent the other party from putting something in a bill that you're willing to do a government shutdown to prevent. That's probably a good thing. Consider what would be happening right now, when the Republicans have >50 but not >60, if that meant they could actually do whatever they want.
And the difference between 49 and 51 is still pretty damn important because "majority" has a lot of procedural consequences that are not irrelevant.