The days of bipartisanship in Washington are long gone but there are many on the Hill still clinging for dear life to this antiquated notion which really hasn't existed since the 1980s. This week on Sea Change Radio, we are joined by political consultant Aaron Huertas in the first half of a two-part conversation to look at the variety of political options facing a Democratic Party which is currently holding a razor thin majority in the Senate. We discuss the current state of the filibuster, dive into the many ways to craft policy with and without it, and look at the role that unions and grassroots organizers will play in moving us away from this obsession over bipartisanship.

Narrator  0:01  This is Sea Change Radio  covering the shift to sustainability. I'm Alex Wise.

Aaron Huertas (AH)  0:17  They might not want to get rid of it entirely. They might want to do reforms like have a talking filibuster, or put the onus back on the minority to have everyone who's in the minority who wants to stop debate show up.

Narrator 0:29  The days of bipartisanship in Washington are long gone. But there are many on the hills still clinging for dear life to this antiquated notion, which really hasn't existed since the 1980s. This week on Sea Change Radio , we're joined by political consultant Aaron Huertas. In the first half of a two part conversation, to look at the variety of political options facing a Democratic Party, which is currently holding a razor thin majority in the Senate. We discussed the current state of the filibuster, dive into the many ways to craft policy with and without it, and look at the role that unions and grassroots organizers will play in moving us away from this obsession over bipartisanship.

Alex Wise (AW)  1:31  I'm joined now on Sea Change Radio by Aaron Huertas. Aaron is a political consultant, and he is currently working as a communications director for catalyst. Aaron, welcome back to Sea Change Radio.

Aaron Huertas (AH) - Thanks for having me back. It's great to be in touch.

Alex Wise (AW)  Yes, for our listeners, we've had Aaron on several times over the years, and I find him to be one of the more astute political observers. And last time we spoke Aaron, I believe, Donald Trump was still president, though. So things have changed quite a bit.

AH  2:00  Yeah, yeah, we made it. You know, we're on the other side of that now, actually, I live in downtown DC. So I can see the very tippy top of the Capitol right now from my home office. And being here on January 6, was pretty scary. You know, we had a lot of Trump supporters in my neighborhood, staying at hotels, that was the first time I saw local activists in DC, totally stand down and say, This is really dangerous. We don't want our people out there on the streets. Let them fight with the cops and the feds. So that was a really scary moment for all of us. But, we made it through it. And Donald Trump isn't president and he's, he's off Twitter. And he just had to cancel his blog. So that's good for us. But it's, it's still a very scary time for democracy.

AW  2:47  Yes. And that's why I wanted to talk because you posted something on your own blog, Aaron huertas.com. The post is from May 28. And it's entitled US politics is broken. But what if politicians don't fix it? We've been talking a lot over the last few months about the filibuster and people who had never heard of Kyrsten Sinema at Joe Manchin, the senators from Arizona and West Virginia respectively, are thinking about them much more than they had thought they might six months ago. Do we face a time of choosing between the filibuster or democracy in your opinion, Aaron?