Democrats Are Not Obligated to Have a Power Sharing Agreement with the Party That’s Been Trying to Destroy Democracy

Julie Hotard
5 min readJan 22, 2021

Here’s a Twitter thread from Attorney Greg Doucette answering my question on whether Dems need a power sharing agreement in the Senate: His answer is No, we don’t.

Here I have quoted his two tweets below:

“No -need- for a power sharing agreement; Dems have 50+1 & Schumer will be the Majority Leader

“*But,* if there’s no agreement, VP Harris would need to be in the Senate every day in event of ties. So McConnell has some leverage b/c Harris doesn’t want to spend 2 years presiding

“Honestly Dems need to just say f*ck it, abolish the filibuster & have Harris there every day for 2 years

“Little of the D agenda is getting passed w/ the filibuster in place, & it’ll hurt them in 2022. Better to let Harris have free time in 2023–24 with a bigger D majority”

Please phone Senate Majority Leader Schumer’s office in Washington D.C.

and tell him this. Please do not just tweet at him or at any Democratic politicians. I have never seen tweeting to politicians with large Twitter accounts have any effect whatsoever.

If you don’t know what to say when you phone Senator Schumer’s office, you may first want to ask his staff to thank him for holding firm and not pledging to keep the filibuster in place, as McConnell has requested.

After you thank him, then you might want to read the 4 paragraphs above, written by Attorney Greg Doucette, to his office staff, or leave a message on his phone recording, where you read those 4 paragraphs. I have already done this myself.

You can also tell him that if he needs to change Senate rules, in order to allow Democrats to assign committees chairmanships without a power sharing agreement, then he should go ahead and hold that vote and get it accomplished.

Please contact Vice President Harris on the contact form here on the web site below. I guess the category should be “help with a federal agency” — the office of the vice president.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

Here is what I sent on the contact form myself. Feel free to copy any or all of it.

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Dear Vice President Harris

Here is a Twitter thread from Attorney Greg Doucette answering my question on whether Dems need a power sharing agreement in the Senate: His answer is: No, we don’t.

https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1352473848764129286

Please consider making this sacrifice for democracy, of being the constant 51st vote in the Senate, in addition to your duties as vice president. Please talk to Sen. Schumer & please find another Senator who is aggressive, to very closely support & help him. Please let him know he DOES NOT NEED to have a power sharing agreement with a party that just instigated a coup & many of whom still have not admitted Biden won the election & who just voted to decertify it — even after the failed coup.

McConnell only finally admitted Biden won, because it was in his own political power interests to. He has consistently tried to destroy the Dem party & democracy in every way he could during Trump’s 4 years & continues to try to do so now.

You know it. You were in the Senate.

Schumer can give Manchin whatever he wants to go along.

You know Stacey Abrams did a superhuman job with her team in GA to get the Senate for Democrats. Please, for her sake & for all of us who worked to get that, please let that election have consequences.

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It’s great that Schumer is refusing the pledge to keep the filibuster, which McConnell requested Schumer make. Right now, Dems don’t have the vote to end the filibuster. If these are any of your Senators, please contact them to ask them to vote to end the filibuster:

Joe Manchin (D-WV), Jon Tester (D-MT), Chris Coons (D-DE)(who has close Biden ties), Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), Dianne Feinsein (D-CA), Angus King (I-ME).

Here’s a good article about the filibuster and about how Democrats can get something done in Congress.

The best thing about Schumer is refusing the pledge to keep the filibuster is that keeping that possibility open for a while can allow Schumer and other Dem Senators to work toward persuading the Dem Senators who are reluctant to end the filibuster. Now every time Republican Senators use the filibuster to block Democratic legislation, Schumer and other pro-ending-filibuster Senators can go to the reluctant ones and say: “Open your eyes. Dems are blocked from getting these things done in the Senate for our constituents. If you won’t vote to end it, you are responsible for us not getting these good things done that we could do if we ended the filibuster.”

A number of Democrats in Congress have had problems with passivity and with bending over Rightward to over-compromise with Republicans in the past. I certainly hope Senator Schumer’s refusal to pledge to McConnell that he won’t end the filibuster, is the sign I’ve been hoping for, of Dems finally becoming more aggressive & learning to stand up for the people, against Republicans who have screwed the public over repeatedly & would continue to do so if allowed.

I’ve written a lot about this before. Here is my latest article. Again, I have hopes that this passivity problem Democrats have had, is about to become a thing of the past. We just had a violent coup attempt with failed plans to kidnap and execute government officials. That sort of event can be quite a loud wake up call — a clear sign that it’s time to start standing up for oneself and the public.

Democrats Are Too Passive toward Aggressive Republicans

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