The filibuster -- as it currently exists -- is on the way out. E.J. Dionne writes:
Change is on the way. President Biden has signaled that the days of the Senate filibuster’s stranglehold on majority rule are numbered. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is scared to death that he’s right.
McConnell is particularly worried that Democrats will use their majorities in the House and Senate to enact fundamental reforms to our political system, from protecting voting rights to containing dark money’s influence on elections. That’s why the man who supposedly loves Congress’s upper chamber promised to create “a completely scorched earth Senate” if Democrats try to make it easier to pass legislation.
The Republicans have been a minority party for decades. They know they don't have the votes to win elections. So they have tried everything -- from voter supression to the filibuster -- to maintain minority rule. And they have changed the filibuster to maintain that minority rule:
Adam Jentleson is a former top Senate Democratic aide and the author of “Kill Switch,” an appropriately titled book on the chamber. He offered a brisk history of the filibuster in an interview. The 60-vote standard for passing most legislation is really the product of the past 20 years, Jentleson said, and has been truly routine only since 2007.
At the beginning of the republic, he noted, “there was no filibuster.” Then, “there was the talking filibuster, used rarely, mostly against civil rights. Then there was a slow rise [in its use] through the latter half of the 20th century, then it skyrocketed under Sen. McConnell,” Jentleson said to me in an interview. Little wonder, as the author noted, that the word filibuster comes from Dutch references to pirates.
The days of Mr. Smith Goes To Washington have long passed. Biden proposes to return to the days of Mr. Smith and institute a talking filibuster when: "stalling action required its members 'to stand up and command the floor, and you had to keep talking.' That was the rule when Biden first arrived in the Senate.
A voting rights bill will soon usher in change:
Biden made his comments on the filibuster on Tuesday, the eve of the formal Senate introduction of the For the People Act that has already passed the House. The comprehensive political reform bill would block the scandalous attack on voting rights in some Republican states. It would also curb gerrymanders that distort representation, take major steps to limit the power of dark money by expanding disclosure and create strong incentives for politicians to rely on small as opposed to large contributions.
The rubber has hit the road.
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