Shelly, someone has misunderstood something... The filibuster is simply a rule in the Senate that permits unlimited debate of proposed legislation unless a Senator makes a motion asking for "cloture", at which point there is a vote, and if 60 Senators vote in favor of cloture, the debate ends and the legislation under consideration is put to a vote. A simple majority, which is to say a one-vote margin, passes the bill or defeats it. So, a party that hold 41 seats in the modern Senate can, by voting against cloture, effectively prevent passage of any bill except one designed to satisfy the rigid and somewhat complex requirements of another parliamentary mechanism, called "reconciliation". If you already know all this, please forgive me, but if "things should flip in the Republican direction" as you suggest, because the filibuster can be instituted, eliminated or reinstituted by a simple majority of the Senate at any time, it makes no difference to a future GOP majority if today's DEM majority decides to eliminate the filibuster in order to be able to legislate. They will do whatever the Constitution permits them to do, and our Constitution makes no mention of any filibuster, providing for a simple majority except in cases of proposed constitutional amendments or the override of a presidential veto. The real issue is whether the filibuster is a proper part of our democracy where we have been brought up to trust the results of voting, be it in elections or simply deciding whether we, as a group (any group, even a group of 3 people) will decide to do this or do that, and if the "thats" win by one vote, then everyone agrees to do that, not this. We Americans get all this with our mother's milk, so to speak. The filibuster - one of many anomalies in our democracy - had its heyday in the middle of the last century when it was used with considerable success by southern Democratic Senators - known as Dixiecrats - to prevent passage of civil rights legislation. As the 12 year-old son of a Labor Department lawyer working for JFK and LBJ, I was pretty well versed in some of this stuff, and I remember hoping with all my heart that a cloture motion would pass. And it did!
So I cannot see any point in anyone talking until blue in the face, unless he is the handsome Jimmy Stewart in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", a really great film if you have never seen it, by the way.
Hi Shelly. I guess your take on the filibuster depends a lot on what you think the consequences might be if Biden and the Democrats are unable to fulfill their campaign promises between now and the 2022 midterm elections. If you think the attack on the US Capitol was somehow benign, or that Trump's big lie about how the election was stolen from him is somehow innocuous, then you might also think that the GOP would never in a million years try to change our democracy into an authoritarian state and run it mainly for their own benefit. You know, turn it into a dictatorship. I mean it has never happened in well over 200 years, right?
But if you are worried that this is not some fantasy nightmare but a real possibility due in part to our demographics, in part to our history going back to the Civil War and beyond, in part to changes in the way information is generated and transmitted in our smartphone addicted society and in part to the enormous disparity of wealth between the very rich and everyone else - well there are lots of theories as to what is really happening in the American psyche - then current GOP attempts to restrict voting aimed mainly at African Americans and other groups who tend to vote for Democrats should greatly disturb you. In fact, I imagine it does, and you would like the Congress to pass legislation that makes voting fair and easy for every eligible citizen. And this can happen if all Senate Democrats (and the Vice President) vote for it, but if the filibuster remains in effect, the Democrats will be unable to pass this and most other legislation.
I think that the Democrats have a two-year window of opportunity to pass transformative legislation that will help many millions of Americans to lead much better lives, and on paper they have the votes in Congress to do it, though a 1-vote majority makes this difficult in the best of circumstances. Also, it appears that the GOP - rather than participating in this in some positive way - will do everything they can to block any and all Democratic legislation, causing the Biden presidency to fail in much the same way they caused the Obama administration to fail, and then retake both House and Senate in 2022 and prepare to retake the White House in 2024. So, there is an obvious reason why most Democrats want to eliminate the filibuster. What I find odd is that any Democrats want to keep the filibuster. In the past its most important use was to prevent civil rights legislation during the Jim Crow period, and then it was mainly used by southern Democrats. More recently the GOP controlled Senate has used the simple threat of a filibuster and McConnell's parliamentary skills to keep most legislation passed by the House from even being considered in the Senate. But the filibuster is not in the Constitution, which calls for votes in the Senate to be by simple majority except in the case of proposed amendments to the Constitution or overrides of presidential vetoes.
So the filibuster is an anomaly in any case, and any Senate majority can get rid of it whenever they want, just takes 51 votes. By the same token, any Senate majority at any time - DEM, GOP, Bipartisan, it doesn't matter - can reinstate it or invent some other rule if they have 51 votes. So the worry that if the DEMS get rid of it, then so will the GOP when they're in power, is just silly. Of course the GOP would vote to have the filibuster or not based on what they think is advantageous for them at any given moment, and the Democrats ought to do the same, and we should just get used to having the majority rule as set out in our Constitution. The only way to eliminate the filibuster once and for all would be to amend the Constitution, an impossible task under present circumstances.
The bottom line is this: If you want Joe Biden and the Democrats to pass all or most of the legislation they have proposed, you should let them know that you want them to eliminate the filibuster.
I understand I am preaching to the choir. I find it disturbing that - given the stakes - the DEMs cannot eliminate the filibuster, and if Joe and Kyrsten intend to keep the filibuster simply to force GOP Senators to stay up all night for days on end and do their best Jimmy Stewart imitations, I would like to understand why. What is the point of having a political party if - in an existentially perilous moment for both the party and the nation - the DEMs can't all be on the same page? They should work out their differences in private, agree to disagree, then all vote together. This is no more and no less than what the GOP has been doing (with a few rare exceptions - John McCain comes to mind) for some time now. There is nothing about the filibuster - besides its convenience for the minority - that can justify passing up the opportunities afforded to the DEMs to pass essential legislation. I think many ordinary folks who put enormous effort into getting a DEM majority in the Senate will wonder whether it was really worth it, and this is the surest way back to a Trump dictatorship. Don't know what more I can say.
I agree with you wholeheartedly, but there is good news! There are now 50 Democratic Senators, so if they + Kamala Harris all vote to eliminate the filibuster, they will be able to pass any legislation whatsoever without a single GOP vote! Hurray! Right?
Of course, Joe Manchin may think so little of the intelligence of voters in West Va. that he believes they will not understand that Democratic legislation is intended specifically to help them: the poor, the homeless, out-of-work miners, dysfunctional families who have to deal with drug-addicted relatives, folks whose rustic little cabins up in the holler have been polluted by mine runoff or buried by overburden. Poor West Va. has some of the worst poverty, social problems and environmental degradation in the USA, yet it continues to vote for the GOP - or GOP lite in the case of Manchin - hoping, I suppose, that someday something will trickle down on them besides corrosive waste water.
Of course West Virginia is still a beautiful, even magical place (I did 4 years at summer camp there back in the day) but those folks will just be much, much better off with Biden and the DEMs running things than they have been under the likes of Trump and the GOP. And Joe Manchin, instead of trying to be the center of attention in DC, should get with the program and then go and sell it to his constituents. It's called leadership. It will get him re-elected.
Shelly, someone has misunderstood something... The filibuster is simply a rule in the Senate that permits unlimited debate of proposed legislation unless a Senator makes a motion asking for "cloture", at which point there is a vote, and if 60 Senators vote in favor of cloture, the debate ends and the legislation under consideration is put to a vote. A simple majority, which is to say a one-vote margin, passes the bill or defeats it. So, a party that hold 41 seats in the modern Senate can, by voting against cloture, effectively prevent passage of any bill except one designed to satisfy the rigid and somewhat complex requirements of another parliamentary mechanism, called "reconciliation". If you already know all this, please forgive me, but if "things should flip in the Republican direction" as you suggest, because the filibuster can be instituted, eliminated or reinstituted by a simple majority of the Senate at any time, it makes no difference to a future GOP majority if today's DEM majority decides to eliminate the filibuster in order to be able to legislate. They will do whatever the Constitution permits them to do, and our Constitution makes no mention of any filibuster, providing for a simple majority except in cases of proposed constitutional amendments or the override of a presidential veto. The real issue is whether the filibuster is a proper part of our democracy where we have been brought up to trust the results of voting, be it in elections or simply deciding whether we, as a group (any group, even a group of 3 people) will decide to do this or do that, and if the "thats" win by one vote, then everyone agrees to do that, not this. We Americans get all this with our mother's milk, so to speak. The filibuster - one of many anomalies in our democracy - had its heyday in the middle of the last century when it was used with considerable success by southern Democratic Senators - known as Dixiecrats - to prevent passage of civil rights legislation. As the 12 year-old son of a Labor Department lawyer working for JFK and LBJ, I was pretty well versed in some of this stuff, and I remember hoping with all my heart that a cloture motion would pass. And it did!
So I cannot see any point in anyone talking until blue in the face, unless he is the handsome Jimmy Stewart in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", a really great film if you have never seen it, by the way.
Hi Shelly. I guess your take on the filibuster depends a lot on what you think the consequences might be if Biden and the Democrats are unable to fulfill their campaign promises between now and the 2022 midterm elections. If you think the attack on the US Capitol was somehow benign, or that Trump's big lie about how the election was stolen from him is somehow innocuous, then you might also think that the GOP would never in a million years try to change our democracy into an authoritarian state and run it mainly for their own benefit. You know, turn it into a dictatorship. I mean it has never happened in well over 200 years, right?
But if you are worried that this is not some fantasy nightmare but a real possibility due in part to our demographics, in part to our history going back to the Civil War and beyond, in part to changes in the way information is generated and transmitted in our smartphone addicted society and in part to the enormous disparity of wealth between the very rich and everyone else - well there are lots of theories as to what is really happening in the American psyche - then current GOP attempts to restrict voting aimed mainly at African Americans and other groups who tend to vote for Democrats should greatly disturb you. In fact, I imagine it does, and you would like the Congress to pass legislation that makes voting fair and easy for every eligible citizen. And this can happen if all Senate Democrats (and the Vice President) vote for it, but if the filibuster remains in effect, the Democrats will be unable to pass this and most other legislation.
I think that the Democrats have a two-year window of opportunity to pass transformative legislation that will help many millions of Americans to lead much better lives, and on paper they have the votes in Congress to do it, though a 1-vote majority makes this difficult in the best of circumstances. Also, it appears that the GOP - rather than participating in this in some positive way - will do everything they can to block any and all Democratic legislation, causing the Biden presidency to fail in much the same way they caused the Obama administration to fail, and then retake both House and Senate in 2022 and prepare to retake the White House in 2024. So, there is an obvious reason why most Democrats want to eliminate the filibuster. What I find odd is that any Democrats want to keep the filibuster. In the past its most important use was to prevent civil rights legislation during the Jim Crow period, and then it was mainly used by southern Democrats. More recently the GOP controlled Senate has used the simple threat of a filibuster and McConnell's parliamentary skills to keep most legislation passed by the House from even being considered in the Senate. But the filibuster is not in the Constitution, which calls for votes in the Senate to be by simple majority except in the case of proposed amendments to the Constitution or overrides of presidential vetoes.
So the filibuster is an anomaly in any case, and any Senate majority can get rid of it whenever they want, just takes 51 votes. By the same token, any Senate majority at any time - DEM, GOP, Bipartisan, it doesn't matter - can reinstate it or invent some other rule if they have 51 votes. So the worry that if the DEMS get rid of it, then so will the GOP when they're in power, is just silly. Of course the GOP would vote to have the filibuster or not based on what they think is advantageous for them at any given moment, and the Democrats ought to do the same, and we should just get used to having the majority rule as set out in our Constitution. The only way to eliminate the filibuster once and for all would be to amend the Constitution, an impossible task under present circumstances.
The bottom line is this: If you want Joe Biden and the Democrats to pass all or most of the legislation they have proposed, you should let them know that you want them to eliminate the filibuster.
I understand I am preaching to the choir. I find it disturbing that - given the stakes - the DEMs cannot eliminate the filibuster, and if Joe and Kyrsten intend to keep the filibuster simply to force GOP Senators to stay up all night for days on end and do their best Jimmy Stewart imitations, I would like to understand why. What is the point of having a political party if - in an existentially perilous moment for both the party and the nation - the DEMs can't all be on the same page? They should work out their differences in private, agree to disagree, then all vote together. This is no more and no less than what the GOP has been doing (with a few rare exceptions - John McCain comes to mind) for some time now. There is nothing about the filibuster - besides its convenience for the minority - that can justify passing up the opportunities afforded to the DEMs to pass essential legislation. I think many ordinary folks who put enormous effort into getting a DEM majority in the Senate will wonder whether it was really worth it, and this is the surest way back to a Trump dictatorship. Don't know what more I can say.
I agree with you wholeheartedly, but there is good news! There are now 50 Democratic Senators, so if they + Kamala Harris all vote to eliminate the filibuster, they will be able to pass any legislation whatsoever without a single GOP vote! Hurray! Right?
Of course, Joe Manchin may think so little of the intelligence of voters in West Va. that he believes they will not understand that Democratic legislation is intended specifically to help them: the poor, the homeless, out-of-work miners, dysfunctional families who have to deal with drug-addicted relatives, folks whose rustic little cabins up in the holler have been polluted by mine runoff or buried by overburden. Poor West Va. has some of the worst poverty, social problems and environmental degradation in the USA, yet it continues to vote for the GOP - or GOP lite in the case of Manchin - hoping, I suppose, that someday something will trickle down on them besides corrosive waste water.
Of course West Virginia is still a beautiful, even magical place (I did 4 years at summer camp there back in the day) but those folks will just be much, much better off with Biden and the DEMs running things than they have been under the likes of Trump and the GOP. And Joe Manchin, instead of trying to be the center of attention in DC, should get with the program and then go and sell it to his constituents. It's called leadership. It will get him re-elected.