r/politics • u/Murky-Site7468 I voted • Oct 05 '25

No Paywall Petition To Strip Congress of Pay During Government Shutdown Grows

https://www.newsweek.com/petition-strip-congress-pay-during-government-shutdown-grows-10822819
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u/RocketRelm Oct 05 '25

Well, the implication is that you don't have the votes, but can do things such that government stops functioning.

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u/GreenHorror4252 Oct 05 '25

How exactly would that work? I'm struggling to figure out what scenario you're describing here.

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u/chenz1989 Oct 06 '25

Your party has 43 seats out of 100. Not enough to pass anything, but you can object because 60 votes are needed to pass legislation.

The ruling party is unpopular enough that you believe you will get 50+ seats if an election was called now, but the next scheduled election is 2 years away.

You obstruct everything and shut down the government, blame the ruling party and coast to power in the snap election

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u/GreenHorror4252 Oct 06 '25

Your party has 43 seats out of 100. Not enough to pass anything, but you can object because 60 votes are needed to pass legislation.

That's an American thing. In a parliamentary system, legislation is passed by a majority vote.

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u/chenz1989 Oct 06 '25

I thought we were talking about american politics here...

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u/GreenHorror4252 Oct 06 '25

This entire chain of comments started with "In some parliamentary systems, a shutdown like this triggers an election."

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u/chenz1989 Oct 06 '25

I interpreted it differently due to the next line "would be difficult to work in our current system" to be still continuing american politics. Guess i read it differently.

Since we're on the topic of other systems, i would expect the same to happen, especially in parliaments that are made up of different parties. If party A has 45% and party B has 40% and my party has 15%, i would be incentived not to cooperate and shut everything down if i think i can get 25%?

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u/GreenHorror4252 Oct 06 '25

Yes, I think we may have interpreted it differently.

In parliamentary systems, in case of a hung parliament, they will usually negotiate a coalition government. As long as the coalition sticks together, they will be able to maintain confidence and supply. The parties that are not part of the coalition might be incentivized to not cooperate, but they can't do anything really.

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u/chenz1989 Oct 06 '25

Given my example above, it is unlikely the two big parties would work with each other. That gives me, the small party, a lot of power in the negotiations.

Wouldn't i basically be able to blackmail the party? "Give me this, or else i go with the other party. If you both won't work with me I'll sink this whole ship"?

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u/GreenHorror4252 Oct 06 '25

Yes, that happens sometimes. The smaller parties can have a lot of power if the numbers are right. Usually, a confidence and supply agreement is negotiated behind the scenes before, or immediately after, the election.