I don't buy that. The Republicans would have killed the filibuster when they were next in power. This was simple acknowledgement by Democrats of the changing nature of the Republican party.
Look at the number of filibusters executed by party over time.
The republicans have led for decades. They are responsible for each vast increase, especially during Obama. Always pushing it further and further toward nothing getting done in the name of never compromising.
The Republicans killed the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations in 2017 after the Democrats killed the filibuster for all other judicial nominations in 2013.
As much as manchin likes to say, democrats do not benefit from the filibuster. Tons of Republican issues are single issue nonsense that the majority of the country would detest if passed, so republicans rely on the filibuster to just not do anything. Forcing republicans to actually pass laws would be good for democrats politically.
The filibuster continues to exist because it gives people like manchin compete power, so the most moderate of each party will always try to keep it alive.
As an outsider, this seems like a disingenuous take, but I might be missing something.
Do you think there's any negative effect to allowing a filibuster to occur on things guaranteed to be rejected by the Republicans? Could that time be better spent otherwise? If so, doesn't this imply that it's a soft limitation (sure they could put up a lame duck bill I guess).
I'm not sure that makes sense. The modern filibuster is a bipartisan agreement for inaction.
It's really a bipartisan agreement to defer to Senate Republicans on everything controversial, and to let them take both the blame and credit for it. Democrats are happy with that because when their votes don't count, they can pretend to support anything. When Democrats lose, it energizes their base. Republicans are happy to take credit for economically liberal and nationalistic legislation. And for the legislation that just rewards the wealthy for being wealthy (say, bailouts), movement right-wing and libertarian Republicans can vote against it (and they're mostly in the House) while small consistent groups of Democrats can cross over to make sure it passes anyway.
The bad news is that the filibuster is very likely to be done away with because it is the only thing stopping the Republicans from doing literally anything they want. And the map in 2018 doesn't look good for the Democrats.
But removing the filibuster wasn’t even in the tables or discussed half-way seriously when those majorities had power.
It used to be the filibuster was rarely used and the Senate actually compromised to create legislation. There is effectively no chance the filibuster would have been removed to pass an abortion bill. It would have been political suicide.
Even if it had, a federal abortion ban would have been passed the next time the GOP held a trifecta. Not opening Pandora’s box was a smart move.
No, they won't do away with the filibuster. Filibusters are theater - they allow Senators in the majority party to kill a bill and support it at the same time. Conversely, they allow people in the minority party to insure a bill passes and vote against it.
We've seen this over and over from Senators in both parties. The filibuster is dumb as a procedural tool, but as a political tool it's invaluable for Senators who want to make a career out of the Senate.
Democrats didn't remove the SCOTUS filibuster, the Republicans did that to get Gorsuch on the bench. The Democrats removed the filibuster for regular judicial appointments during Obama's tenure because Republicans blocked all of his nominations, using the judicial filibuster more in two years than all previous Congresses combined.
You only need 51 votes. If Democrats really cared they could have just sit in the senate until the republican speakers collapsed. And it would have gotten to a vote.
It may have taken a couple of days but whatever.
Edit: Can anyone explain the downvotes please? A filibuster can be overcome by just siting and listening to the other side until they can no longer speak from exhaustion.
The filibuster is never actually used anymore, just threatened. That's good enough to get what you want. No one these days has the patience or balls to actually make someone go through with it.
The filibuster is just a product of the Senate rules and could be changed at any time. There's no incentive to do so now because the Democrats currently control the Senate but they couldn't pass anything even without the filibuster because the Republicans control the House. I suspect it's going to happen with the next trifecta.
The main issue right now is that the Republicans in the senate are trying to pursue a strategy of obstructionism to make the government function as poorly as possible and make the Democrats fight for every vote.
This isn't how the senate typically works. Filibusters tend to be fairly rare in normal times, and the minority party has used them more as a bargaining chip.
I hope that eventually the Republicans just abandon their current strategy and start working with the Democrats. I was absolutely floored when they decided to filibuster an Afghanistan spending bill to try to throw the government in crisis (and even more floored that people like John McCain went along with it).
But I also am firmly convinced that the Filibuster in some form should stick around. When people negotiate in good faith, then it's an important check on the power of the majority.
I don’t think they will actually remove the filibuster.
Most of the things Republicans care about such as cutting taxes and confirming judges can be done without the filibuster (see reconciliation and how the filibuster is no longer for judges).
For the Democrats, much of what they want to do is vulnerable to filibuster, so the Republicans will act like the legislative filibuster is sacrosanct, since it doesn’t really birth them and cripples the Democrats.
If a majority of senators did not benefit from having the filibuster, they would repeal it. The minority party is for it because it blocks the majority party. Moderates are for it because it protects them from having to go on the record by voting on controversial issues.
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