Let’s see who can predict when the Senate filibuster rules are next changed. Currently, three-fifths of the Senate is required to invoke cloture on debate on regular bills. Pick the date you think the Senate will change its filibuster rules for regular bills. Whoever is closest, wins lauds. (Please don’t threadshit; if you don’t want to post a specific date, start your own thread.)
My prediction: I say 21 June 2021. By end of spring, the pandemic will not be a political topic. After Republican Senators have filibustered several major bills, the Democrats go after the Republicans for continuing obstruction after failing to do anything when they had control. Something like, “election have consequences and it’s time for America’s choice to mean something.” The Democrats will revive a bill that had been shut down by the filibuster and hold a cloture vote. They’ll have fifty-something votes instead of sixty, but raise a point of order and the cloture rule will be overturned. And then the bill will be passed. And next they’ll revive the other major bills that were shut down by the filibuster and pass them as well. The president will have several major pieces of legislation to sign over the Independence Day break.
I thought you could only change or eliminate the filibuster rules on the first day of the new senate.
anyway, I’m guessing sometime this decade it will change. but they won’t eliminate it entirely. they’ll just change the rules to make it harder to filibuster and they’ll start having staggered cloture votes. first cloture vote 60 senators. if that fails, next vote on that bill only requires 58. then 56 etc until you get down to 50.
That’s when rules are re-approved. But rules can be changed at any time by a majority of Senators by making a point of order and then voting on the rule. (The Constitution gives the Senate itself sole power to set its own rules; that is, the rules are whatever a majority of Senators say the rules are.)
Not sure how this would work. Wouldn’t the side with 51 votes just keep running cloture votes until the limit got to 50?
I can imagine a timed decay. A cloture vote after X hours of debate takes 60 senators, and each additional 10 hours of debate reduces the requirement by 1 senator until it gets to 50. Or something like that.
I know this will make me unpopular but I don’t want to see the filibuster killed. I think it will lead to even more partisanship. Barrett would not have been confirmed if the vote could have been filibustered.
Playing by the OP’s rules, I’ll say February 1, 2029.
My reasoning: Democrats will not get 50 votes to kill the filibuster during the current session of Congress. Joe Manchin is opposed, and no Republican would join the effort. Due to budget reconciliation, Democrats will be able to enact enough of their agenda that Republican obstruction won’t seem so overwhelming.
Then Republicans will take back the House in 2022, rendering killing the filibuster moot even if Democrats hold or increase their margin in the Senate. Due to redistricting, Republicans will hold the House well into the next decade. I think there’s a good chance Ds will hold the White House in 2024, so the next chance I see of unified government (which is the only scenario where nuking the filibuster is worth it) is after the 2028 elections.
I’d be ecstatic if it happens while the Democrats have control (and I’d even be pleased if it happened under the Republicans), but I doubt it will happen. The only way I think there’s a decent chance is if we make DC and PR states, and have enough Democratic senators to make up for Manchin and a couple of others voting to keep it.
I don’t have a particular date. I’m guessing if Biden doesn’t fix it, he may win reelection, may not. then a republican will win again. then another Democrat and I think that Democrat will change the rules.
I think the next Democrat after Biden who has both houses of congress will change it. so January of 2029 or 2033.
To give a minority a negative upon the majority (which is always the case where more than a majority is requisite to a decision), is, in its tendency, to subject the sense of the greater number to that of the lesser. Congress, from the nonattendance of a few States, have been frequently in the situation of a Polish diet, where a single VOTE has been sufficient to put a stop to all their movements. A sixtieth part of the Union, which is about the proportion of Delaware and Rhode Island, has several times been able to oppose an entire bar to its operations. This is one of those refinements which, in practice, has an effect the reverse of what is expected from it in theory. The necessity of unanimity in public bodies, or of something approaching towards it, has been founded upon a supposition that it would contribute to security. But its real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice, or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junto, to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority. In those emergencies of a nation, in which the goodness or badness, the weakness or strength of its government, is of the greatest importance, there is commonly a necessity for action. The public business must, in some way or other, go forward. If a pertinacious minority can control the opinion of a majority, respecting the best mode of conducting it, the majority, in order that something may be done, must conform to the views of the minority; and thus the sense of the smaller number will overrule that of the greater, and give a tone to the national proceedings. Hence, tedious delays; continual negotiation and intrigue; contemptible compromises of the public good. And yet, in such a system, it is even happy when such compromises can take place: for upon some occasions things will not admit of accommodation; and then the measures of government must be injuriously suspended, or fatally defeated. It is often, by the impracticability of obtaining the concurrence of the necessary number of votes, kept in a state of inaction. Its situation must always savor of weakness, sometimes border upon anarchy.
It is not difficult to discover, that a principle of this kind gives greater scope to foreign corruption, as well as to domestic faction, than that which permits the sense of the majority to decide; though the contrary of this has been presumed. The mistake has proceeded from not attending with due care to the mischiefs that may be occasioned by obstructing the progress of government at certain critical seasons. When the concurrence of a large number is required by the Constitution to the doing of any national act, we are apt to rest satisfied that all is safe, because nothing improper will be likely TO BE DONE , but we forget how much good may be prevented, and how much ill may be produced, by the power of hindering the doing what may be necessary, and of keeping affairs in the same unfavorable posture in which they may happen to stand at particular periods.
Or the next Republican who has both Houses, but not a filibuster-proof majority. So, in the spirit of the OP, I will say February 4, 2025.
What I would really like to see is an agreement that protects the filibuster, but requires the filibustering side to give up something for it. The problem is what is the price? A limited number per session, maybe? In other words, make the filibuster a measure of last resort rather than SOP.
I disagree. I think Republicans will continue to the party of not wanting to pass major legislation. McConnell could have nuked the filibuster in early 2017, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to because he had no interest in passing a lot of legislation.
I’ll stick with the prediction of some of the other posters who say early 2029. I’ll go with after the inauguration after the 2028 election. Let’s say some time during the last week of January 2029.
ETA. If a Republican wins in 2028, then my second guess is the last week in January of 2033.
I don’t agree with that. I think the governing philosophies of the two parties are different.
Democrats want to expand the welfare state, which requires legislation. Democrats also want to expand regulation.
republicans want to roll back the welfare state and roll back regulation. These can be done via court cases and executive actions. The reason the GOP wanted to do the ‘skinny repeal’ of the ACA is because it would function as an excuse to repeal the ACA through the courts. Also when republicans do tax cuts, they can do them with budget reconciliation which only requires 50 votes in the senate.
Democrats have more to lose because of the filibuster since democrats generally want to expand government and the GOP wants to contract it. Republicans can achieve their goals through budget reconciliation, executive actions and the courts. Democrats need to pass legislation in congress to achieve their goals.
Filibusters and the impeachment trial aside, why is Schumer still treating McConnell with such kid gloves? Why are Republicans still chairing committees, such as for the hearings on Cabinet nominees? With the new senators now seated from Georgia and California, and Vice President Harris presiding, don’t Dems now have the majority (although a very slim one)?
Why? There was only ever a short window of time when the Senate norms allowed a supreme court nominee to be filibustered in the first place (senators only started routinely voting the same way on cloture and final passage/confirmation in the 21st century), and the filibustering of a Supreme Court nominee would have been pretty much guaranteed to demand immediate procedural changes under a same-party Senate.
Like, there were only 52 votes for Clarence Thomas to be confirmed, but there was never any question (AFAIK) that he only needed a simple majority to get on the court, and that was a Democratic Senate!