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“Mitch McConnell, the U.S. Senate Republican leader, said on Monday he would agree to a power-sharing agreement with Democrats… Democrat Chuck Schumer, now the majority leader thanks to Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote, and McConnell had been at odds over the Republican’s request that Democrats promise to protect the filibuster, which requires a 60-vote supermajority to advance most legislation. Schumer has refused to guarantee the filibuster would stay. But in a statement, McConnell cited comments from moderate Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who said they would not favor eliminating the filibuster.” Reuters
The right opposes eliminating the filibuster.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) writes, “Contrary to most commentary, it actually is not hard to pass any and all legislation in the Senate. Rather, it’s hard to pass one-sided or ideologically aggressive legislation. And so, unlike in the majoritarian House of Representatives, where members of the speaker’s party can generally pass whatever they collectively want, legislating in the Senate requires partisan, ideological, socioeconomic, and often regional compromise. This is no more and no less true than it was decades ago, when the Senate processed legislation all the time…
“When in control of the Senate, members of both parties blame their lack of success on what they inevitably characterize as ‘obstruction’ by their minority opponents. But in truth, it has been Republican and Democratic majorities’ own choice, on issue after issue, to pass nothing rather than to compromise or — heaven forbid — to put unfinished bills on the floor and allow all 100 senators to organically work out the will of the Senate through an open debate and amendment process…
“The true purpose of nuking the filibuster, then, is not to ‘finally get things done’ or to ‘break through the gridlock’ or any other hackish trope parroted by the political press. Rather, it is to allow a Senate majority to pass partisan bills that aren’t politically compelling enough to attract bipartisan support.”
Mike Lee, National Review
“Democrats used the filibuster to block funding for construction of Trump’s border wall in 2019… Just the threat of a Democratic filibuster stopped Republicans from moving forward on a host of priorities, including entitlement reforms, immigration reforms, lawsuit reforms, health-care reforms, budget cuts, expanded gun rights and the defunding of Planned Parenthood…
“Democrats should take stock of everything they delayed and derailed under Trump because of the filibuster — and then imagine all that and more being enacted by simple majority vote when Republicans regain control of Congress and the presidency, which they eventually will. The filibuster allowed Democrats to constrain Republicans from enacting what the Democrats consider a radical agenda under a populist right-wing president. If they eliminate that tool to enact their own radical agenda, they would rue that decision when they return to the minority.”
Marc A. Thiessen, Washington Post
“The funniest thing on social media over the past 48 hours has been liberals complaining that McConnell may love the filibuster now but if he were back in charge of the Senate he’d nuke it ruthlessly to clear a path for Republican policies. As if we didn’t just spend six years watching Cocaine Mitch steadfastly refusing to nuke the filibuster as majority leader, even when Republicans had total control of government in 2017 and 2018, even when the leader of his party was barking at him to do it.”
Allahpundit, Hot Air
“Manchin eked out a re-election victory in 2018, but only by three points and without getting to 50% against AG Patrick Morrisey (no relation). The last thing Manchin needs in terms of political viability is to enable Chuck Schumer’s radical progressive agenda, especially in terms of coal operations and energy resources…
“And by voting out the filibuster, Manchin would essentially give away most of his leverage, too. Not all of it, to be certain, but right now Manchin has leverage against both sides with his institutional stance. Thanks to that, Manchin’s going to get all the pork he needs to satisfy West Virginians without selling out to Bernie Sanders’ northeastern progressives to get it, too.”
Ed Morrissey, Hot Air
“Even as the two senators vow never to bust the filibuster, their Democratic colleagues are plotting instead to bust the Byrd rule [which allows the Senate Parliamentarian to exclude non-budgetary matters from reconciliation bills]. Progressive groups are ramping up pressure on Democrats to load the Biden agenda into reconciliation bills, then simply overrule the parliamentarian when she finds them in violation of the Byrd rule…
“Democrats are debating using reconciliation to pass another round of Covid relief. Many of their spending or tax provisions likely qualify under reconciliation rules. But progressives are pushing Democrats also to jam through items that in no conceivable way pass the Byrd test… Should Democrats overrule the parliamentarian, the filibuster becomes meaningless as the floodgates open… If bipartisanship is the goal, the two senators’ most effective means of achieving it is reassuring their GOP colleagues that they won’t support any maneuver that destroys the Senate’s ‘deliberative process.’”
Kimberley A. Strassel, Wall Street Journal
The left supports eliminating the filibuster.
The left supports eliminating the filibuster.
“Due to demographic sorting, the 50 Republican senators represent nearly 42 million fewer people than the 50 Democrats; the 41 Republicans necessary to sustain a filibuster reflect a relative fraction of our populace. This is a prescription for quashing popular legislation and imposing legislative stasis—McConnell’s specialty…
“Given that restructuring the Senate would require a constitutional amendment supported by the very states it overrepresents, the only way of making the Senate less undemocratic is eliminating the filibuster. Those who laud the filibuster as a safeguard against the ‘tyranny of the majority’ enshrine the tyranny of a minority…
“When Democrats tried to filibuster Neil Gorsuch, McConnell and his caucus simply killed the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees… Moreover, during Trump’s presidency Senate Democrats could not use the filibuster to frustrate the GOP’s major goals. Republicans’ tax cuts passed through reconciliation; the slew of judges they confirmed were no longer subject to the filibuster. Given the GOP’s general lack of enthusiasm for governance, the filibuster affects them less than Democrats… If Democrats garner the votes to kill the filibuster, they should.”
Richard North Patterson, The Bulwark
“To [Adam Jentleson, who worked as an aide to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)], the fate of the filibuster is a matter of political survival for Democrats… he had a front-row seat to the ways McConnell thwarted Obama’s agenda, then turned around and blamed Democrats for inaction. The tactic cost Democrats seats in both chambers of Congress over those election cycles. Jentleson says there’s tremendous political risk in ‘getting strung along’ by Republican lawmakers only to end up with ‘small-ball deals’ that fail to meet the country’s dire moment. ‘Bipartisanship is a worthy goal,’ Jentleson tells me, ‘but delivering results to save this country has to be the ultimate goal.’”
Kara Voght, Mother Jones
“It will not be easy for Schumer to tell the NAACP that his caucus values a ‘Senate tradition’ (that is anti-constitutional, historically associated with Jim Crow rule, and less than two decades old in its present form) more than it values a new Voting Rights Act…
“America’s rising generations of millennials and zoomers — who are both more left wing than any of their predecessors and more distrustful of the major parties — are unlikely to grade the unified Democratic government on a curve. Keeping these cohorts invested in electoral politics, and rooted in ‘blue America,’ is vital to the Democratic Party’s medium-term prospects. If the Biden presidency features two years of tepid reform followed by a midterm wipeout, younger, left-leaning voters may grow disaffected with electoral politics…
“(In this way, the GOP’s structural advantages may be self-reinforcing: How many times can you watch your party win the popular vote but lose the election, and/or win the presidency but fail to govern, before you stop bothering to cast a ballot?)”
Eric Levitz, New York Magazine
“From 1917 to 1975, with tweaks in 1949 and 1959, the Senate operated under the two-thirds rule, but the real constraints on filibustering were three self-limiting aspects of the 1917 rule. First, a motion to end debate (known as cloture) froze the Senate, forcing the body to vote on the motion before proceeding with any other business. Second, maintaining a speaking filibuster required a senator to hold the floor, individually or in relays. Third, supporters of the filibuster needed more than one-third of the Senate as allies to be present on the Senate floor to head off a surprise cloture vote…
“If a filibuster must exist in the Senate, let it be the original ‘speaking’ version that protects the conscience of the minority without turning the Senate into a super-majoritarian body.”
Burt Neuborne and Erwin Chemerinsky, New York Times
“There are good arguments for and against removing the filibuster. But most of the arguments against are based on fear – fear that it will become a powerful tool in the hands of the right, who will be even more able to shove their agenda down the majority’s throat. But the most powerful argument for removing the filibuster is precisely the fact that it would force Republicans to actually govern. The rising stars of today’s Republican party spend their legislative time lambasting magazine articles they dislike because they are never forced to pass meaningful laws. They then win re-election by pinning blame on an amorphous establishment for thwarting them. Give them the power, and we will see how popular their agenda really is.”
Andrew Gawthorpe, The Guardian
