The Filibuster Is A Tool For Cowards Who Don't Want Debate

On Tuesday, the Senate voting on stopping the filibuster against the voting rights bill. The vote was 50 Democrats in favor of stopping the filibuster and 50 Republicans in favor of keeping the filibuster going. It showed clearly that the Republicans aren't interested in debating or amending or voting on anything. They are using the filibuster to block everything until they can regain power. It was just another example of why the filibuster must be reformed or eliminated.

The following is part of an article on the filibuster by Hayes Brown for MSNBC.com:

I don’t know how much more bluntly I can say this: The filibuster isn’t a protector of democracy. It’s not the last bastion against tyranny of the majority. It’s a tool of cowards.

Because let’s be clear: Tuesday’s vote in the Senate wasn’t about passing S.1, the For the People Act. It wasn’t even the vote to begin the process of discussing and amending the bill. No, the vote was the first of two steps: first, asking the Senate to “end debate” on whether to turn the Senate’s full attention to bill; and then, if passed, a majority vote on whether to bring the bill to the Senate floor. That first, key step is what Senate Republicans rejected en masse. . . .

In a world that makes sense, Vice President Kamala Harris — who was presiding over the Senate — would have broken the resulting 50-50 tie. But because of the filibuster, the world’s greatest deliberative body was silenced in the name of unlimited debate. Sixty “yes” votes, just ten from Republicans, were required to break the impasse; zero Republicans obliged.

What was most galling about this whole shadow play is how unnecessary any of it was. It would have cost Republicans nothing to allow debate on S.1 to proceed — and then kill the bill before final passage or even filibustering the final vote. This was simply a GOP flex; a reminder that even though they’re in the minority, they still can effectively set the Senate’s agenda.

It also served as a reminder that as much as Democrats (rightly) complain about Republican obstruction, they have the ability to break the logjam. But as of now, there aren’t the 50 votes necessary to amend the Senate rule that empowers the filibuster, let alone abolish the procedure.

I wrote back in February that Manchin and Sen. Krysten Sinema, D-Ariz., the most outspoken Democratic defenders of the filibuster, were really “protecting themselves politically at the expense of the country.” It turns out I was too easy on them — especially Sinema.

The Arizona moderate published an op-ed in the Washington Poston Monday justifying her position on the filibuster. It was, to be generous, specious. To be ungenerous, it was fearful and timid, written from a place of distrust in America’s voters. Particularly ill-considered is her stance that the filibuster “helps protect the country from wild swings between opposing policy poles”. . . .

This vacillation between extremes in lawmaking based on the voters’ whims is something the Founders feared, especially in the House of Representatives, which has always been directly elected by the people. And the Constitution does include certain checks on the Senate that allow for more reasoned debate: Senate terms are longer than in the House and staggered, so that only one third of the body is up for re-election in any given national election. Senators were also originally chosen by state legislatures, which kept them a step removed from the masses. Notably, the filibuster is not one of those checks — it’s an accidental quirk of the Senate’s rules that was for most of its existence almost exclusively utilized to help hobble civil rights legislation.

More troubling, Sinema’s arguments depend on Democrats passing their agenda — and then losing elections precisely because they passed their agenda. Her essay is one that posits that voters can’t tell good ideas from bad ones and will punish officials who pass partisan laws, no matter how effective. It’s saying that the status quo, where almost nothing can get done in Congress without herculean effort and an inevitable drift to the right in the negotiating process, is preferable to any progress. And it’s an argument that is filled with crippling doubt in the ideals of the Democratic Party — the wild swings that she predicts suggests that Democrats’ ideas are just as indefensible to voters as the Republicans’ vastly more unpopular platform. . . .

If bills fail in the Senate, they should fail on their merits, exactly what the filibuster prevents. The GOP is afraid of spending the next few weeks in the Senate debating a bill filled with provisions to reduce corruption in elections, expand voting rights, and eliminate the partisan gerrymanders that keep politicians unaccountable. It makes a certain craven sense for them to use the filibuster to block this from happening. Democrats allowing it to happen is far more disturbing.