Making the filibuster actually cost something, even if it’s just physical effort and pain, would be just HUGE for the possibility of progress in the Senate. If this happens, DC and PR statehood are real possibilities. A higher minimum wage becomes much, much more likely. Democratic policy priorities could actually happen!
The key is to frame it as reforming, rather than abolishing, the filibuster. A talking filibuster has to end, at some point. It can’t go on forever. And that’s the way it was for a long, long time.
Really wonderful political news, IMO. Even if it’s just a hint right now.
I have long been deeply skeptical that the "make them talk it out” approach would in any way deter Republicans from using the filibuster. For one thing, any filibuster is going to have the support of almost the entire Republican conference. There would be no issue with Republicans setting up a rotation allowing for the filibustering Senator to “yield for a question” that’s actually a two-hour oration allowing the filibustering Senator to take a nap, use the bathroom, etc.
And for most Republican Senators, being “forced to talk” about why they oppose whatever bill is being filibustered isn’t a threat – it’s a publicity goldmine. Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton and others would be falling all over themselves to denounce at length whatever socialist/atheist affront to American values the Democrats are attempting to pass. The fact of it being a “filibuster” will only increase its value to them being portrayed on Fox News as standing strong against the surging tide of liberalism.
And meanwhile, nothing else can get done. No votes on Biden executive branch nominees, no votes on judges, etc. Since Republicans have no agenda besides obstruction for the next four years, that will be just fine with them.
I don’t see how that would help their donors, though, if they think the Republicans can’t actually pass anything to help them. Plus, the longer you have to talk on a subject, the more likely they’ll say the quite parts out loud. Finally, well, we’ve seen with Trump that Republican Senators are cowards. The idea that they’d all talk seems unlikely to me. There’d be a few like those you mention who would want to talk, but they’d tire out eventually.
No, to me, the bigger problem is that this would apply the other way just as well. Returning the filibuster to its roots means it’s no longer actually a way to stop legislation.
If I were Manchin, I’d go for a less extreme answer. Unfortunately, I haven’t thought through what those could be too much. But making another process that’s similar to reconciliation might be useful–some other process that can’t be filibustered. But it would have to still be restricted in scope.
One form is, and I forget who though of it, is basically they can filibuster with a 60 vote threshold, but it has to be an actual filibuster. Then after 50 or so hours, they vote. if they don’t have 60 votes, they lower the threshhold to 58 votes. Then another 50 hours. At the end, then they vote and if there aren’t 58 votes it now becomes 50. They keep doing that until you’re down to the 50 vote thresshold.
Personally, I’m OK with tyranny of the majority to some extent. Just abolish the fillibuster entirely and bring every bill to a vote, with or without debate. Even if it’s something like “Confiscate every privately owned gun nationwide.” Let the House pass the bill in minutes (after the minimum reading time is over), the Senate vote in minutes, the president signs the bill in minutes. Minority party must first be given 24 hours to read the bill in its entirety, but all that matters is whether 218 votes are there in the House and 50+1 in the Senate. Boom.
Don’t you have thinkgs like guillotine motions? The other thing is alloted time for debate by each party, so that a set time is given to GOP and Democrats and it is up to the party whips to distribute their alloted time accordingly.
That’d be tough to do here, because parties don’t have any official part of our system of government. I think the closest you could do would be to give each individual member some quota of time, and let them pool it as they choose (which, in practice, would be mostly by party).
We absolutely need to get rid of the filibuster, because the Republicans already have. Any bill that they really want to pass while they’re in power, they’ll just ignore the rules to pass it, just like they already have. And while, yes, the tyranny of the majority can be a problem, the only real alternative is tyranny of the minority, which is even worse.
Oh, and even without the filibuster, we might be able to get statehood for Puerto Rico, but not for DC. That would take a Constitutional amendment, and I don’t think we’re yet near the level of support that would require.
Respectfully, I disagree. Republicans can’t pass anything to help their donors as it is. And their donors (business, conservatives) have a fundamentally negative agenda – blocking regulation, preventing repeal of the Trump tax cuts, stopping liberal judges. They want Republicans to oppose, not get things passed. A haggard Ted Cruz doing his best Mr. Smith Goes to Washington impression as he stands astride the liberal onslaught would probably light up their fundraising.
As for saying the “quiet part out loud,” I think Trump effectively eliminated that as a concern for Republicans.
Ironically, eliminating the filibuster would be (procedurally) easier than reforming it. You just need a ruling of the chair (supported by a majority of the body) to eliminate it. But the cloture procedures are in the Senate rules, and it takes 2/3 vote to change the rules. I guess you could try to have some complicated ruling by the chair lowering the cloture thresholds, but then you might as well just give up on the rules altogether.
I generally agree with this. A huge problem in our system is that it’s so difficult to pass legislation that bad ideas never die, and even when a bad policy does get put into action it’s very difficult for the public to blame the correct culprit.
This is functionally how the “cloture” process works. When the Senate “invokes cloture” on a motion, further debate is limited to 30 hours divided between those for and against the motion. But it takes 3/5 of the Senate (60 Senators) to vote to invoke cloture.
Manchin has left himself pretty much zero room to budge on “will we kill the filibuster”. But he’s given himself plenty of room on “will we change the filibuster in a way that will make Biden’s policy goals reasonably likely”. That’s a hugely positive change from before Manchin said this. We’ll see, but I’m actually slightly optimistic about this.
They wanted to delay the stimulus vote, and made a bunch of clerks stand up and read for 11 hours. When that was done, we were supposed to have 20 hours of debate, but it got cut to 3 because no Republicans objected. It wears people down, and most of these guys are old. Make the senators themselves stand up and talk nonstop to accomplish a filibuster and they’ll stop happening.
Technically, DC statehood would not require an amendment, although one would be a very good idea. But it’s probably not the amendment you’re thinking of.
The Constitution does not actually require a District for the seat of the federal government. It says there could be one not to exceed 10 square miles, but doesn’t require one. So it’s quite possible for Congress to reduce the size of the District to a small area that only has federally-owned buildings on it plus the National Mall. Or could just abolish it altogether. In the former case, it’d be a real good idea to repeal the 23th amendment, the one that gives said District its Electoral Votes. The only residence in that rump District would be the White House. Since Presidents have always voted in their home state, that would grant 3 EVs to a District with no voters at all.
You’ve got majority leaders, minority leaders, whips, all with certain powers in the two Chambers. That’s similar to how it works in parliamentary systems like the UK and Canada. Parties don’t have any official role in the governmnet, but they do have procedural powers in the two chambers to move business along (or oppose it, depending on which side of the aisle they’re on).