Let's get real about the filibuster. We all know that Democrats love it when they’re in the minority, hate it when they’re in the majority, and have no qualms about nuking it to impose their agenda. They nearly did so during Biden’s presidency, and it would have been a disaster. Had they succeeded, it would have been a disaster.
The current system requires 60 votes to advance legislation in the Senate—a threshold that's repeatedly stymied legislation for both parties. It only exists still today because Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema stood firm against their party's pressure to eliminate it. The filibuster emerged after an 1806 rules change and became a powerful tool for the minority party by the mid-19th century. Of course, it required senators to actually stand and speak continuously on the floor.
But will Trump’s agenda have a shot at getting passed if the filibuster continues to be abused by the Democrats?
Remember, the Democrats have a complex relationship with the filibuster. They were the first ones to weaponize it against President George W. Bush's judicial nominees twenty years ago. They justified their use of the filibuster because it was a vital tool to protect the minority party. Then, when Barack Obama was president and Harry Reid was Senate Majority leader, Democrats nuked the filibuster because the filibuster was suddenly a “racist” relic of the Jim Crow era or some other nonsense like that.
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Today, they’re in the minority in the Senate again, and they’ve already blocked the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act and most certainly will use the filibuster many times more—especially after the backlash that occurred after Sen. Chuck Schumer and several other Democrats voted for cloture to allow for the Continuing Resolution to pass a couple of weeks ago.
They've proven time and again they'll abuse any procedure to suit their needs.
Some suggest returning to a "talking filibuster," and maybe that’s not a bad idea, but there’s still the problem that Democrats can't be trusted with power and will continue to try to eliminate it the next chance they get.
I think the filibuster's elimination is inevitable. The only questions are when and who pulls the trigger first. As much as I would love to see the GOP eliminate it to prevent the Democrats from blocking Trump’s agenda, I think about the destructive legislation that Democrats would have been able to pass under Biden had the filibuster been nuked. That said, Republicans might need to hang the elimination of the filibuster over the Democrats’ heads if they continue to block legislation for the sake of blocking legislation.
The simple truth is that the filibuster requires a level of bipartisan trust that simply doesn't exist in today's political climate. Democrats destroyed that trust when they started this whole process during the Bush years.
I’m not sure what the right thing to do is anymore, because the GOP won’t get any credit for doing the right thing when Democrats inevitably eliminate the filibuster. We’ll blame them for not having done it first.
