I’m surprised that no ones noticed that the GOP is resisting Trump’s efforts and stated to keep the filibuster
With a few exceptions, U.S. senators are smarter than Trump. They know how catastrophically bad it would be for them if Democrats ever had the presidency and majorities in both houses without a filibuster.
Yes, I know they somewhat recently changed the filibuster to “I will filibuster it” and poof, the law is off the table.
I want a “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” filibuster back. Make Senators work hard - till they’re falling over and if the party supports him, read every language guidebook. Ahh, who am I kidding. They caved on the shutdown and as usual were blamed for it.
Debates about the filibuster always draw out strong arguments on both sides. Reading through the thread, it’s clear how torn people are between protecting minority voices and breaking the gridlock that stalls major legislation. Some see it as an essential safeguard, others as an outdated tool that encourages obstruction. What stands out most is how the conversation reflects the broader tension between tradition and practical governance.
Based on required representation-by-district and the gerrymandering for House seats vs. at-large elections by state for Senators, requiring 60% votes in the House makes more sense as a safeguard than the Senate.
Other bi-cameral governments manage to get by without the filibuster. And other bi-cameral governments manage to run a generally useful house-of-review that moderates abuses. I don’t think that the filibuster is necessary, and I don’t think that without it the senate would be useless.
I’m sympathetic to the view that if legislation can’t get universal agreement, it should at least have universal consent. But it’s not working. The two sides aren’t consenting to rule-of-law (republican) government. And the outcome of legislative failure is autocracy (rule by war-powers). If a “true democrat” was the autocrat, I think we’d have one big beautiful bill to abolish Senate filibusters. And if there was a return to an effective legislature, that would also solve the Supreme Court problem.
Also, I don’t think that the problem is strong party lines. Parliamentary governments have strong party lines, and they haven’t got the same problems that the USA has now. Actually, I think it’s the other way around. The filibuster is abused because there is no way for the party to bring it’s factions into line and negotiate an agreed legislative outcome.
And, FWIW, I think that the problems the parties are having with out-of-control factionalism, comes down to districting systems, which are entrenching extreme factionalism.
When I was growing up filibusters were rare, required non-stop talking (DC phone book, anyone) and mostly used to block any kind of civil rights legislation. They have morphed into an entirely different animal brought at every opportunity and I would get rid of them.
When did the filibuster switch from exceptional to routine? Whose brilliant idea was it?
As I understand it, the real change came during the early '70s, where it was no longer required for a Senator to talk for many hours to invoke the filibuster.
The late 2000s was when cloture votes and substantive votes became the same thing, and you started seeing the media take for granted that there was a “60 vote threshold” to do anything in the Senate. George W. Bush got his Medicare changes through in 2003 with only 54 votes, because 70 senators voted for cloture. That would never happen today.
Senators. And primary voters. Even the senators who didn’t want things to change sure didn’t want to be painted as corrupt feckless flip-flopping _INOs, which is what would happen in the modern ideologically-polarized party system.
Without the filibuster, a slim majority would be able to get their way on whatever they wanted.
With the filibuster, it’s instead a minority who can get their way on whatever they want.
It’s like the old saying: Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all of the other forms.
Well, the minority can’t get whatever they want, but they can obstruct most things.
So explain to us how Senate Democrats have been able to obstruct most things Trump wanted to do.
I’m not sure I understand, other than the reconciliation bill (big beautiful whatever) that bypasses the filibuster, what’s passed the senate that the Democrats haven’t explicitly or tacitly allowed?
Under the old rules, the Senate could only consider one matter at a time, so a filibuster was “successful” when it lead to the end of the legislative day without a vote on the matter. Because legislative matters are scheduled for a given legislative day, adjourning without a vote meant the matter had to be rescheduled.
In 1959, under the leadership of Senator Lyndon Johnson and in the leadup to the Civil Rights Act of 1960, the Senate changed its rules to end a filibuster to require 2/3 of senators present instead of 2/3 of senators total. Johnson achieved this by telling freshmen Southern Democrats that committee assignments go to those who play ball; half of them (8) bent the knee. Northern Democrats wisely predicted that the reform was ‘bogus’. The filibuster came anyways. Johnson tried to break the filibuster by forcing a talking filibuster, at one point keeping the Senate in session for 9 days straight. His attempt backfired spectacularly. The majority party had to set up cots to make sure 51 of them were ready to vote present at 3 minutes notice. And these quorum votes would come at all hours: 1 am, 2 am, 3 am. Meanwhile, only two of the minority members had to be present–the person holding the floor and someone for him to yield to when he got tired. The rest of the minority had to be ready for a cloture vote, but under the rules, a cloture vote takes place on the next legislative day at the earliest. So the effect of a filibuster was that the minority only needed two people in chambers at a time, while the majority needed to remain on the premises at all hours.
The Senate underwent similar experiences such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 1968 nomination of Justice Fortas, 1970 Cooper-Church Amendment (to cease funding military operations in Cambodia), 1970 Boeing Supersonic Transport funding, and ultimately the 1971 Draft Extension act. Ultimately Senators Mike Mansfield and Robert Byrd spearheaded another rule change which allows the Senate to switch to a ‘second track’ when a filibuster comes up. The thinking was that allowed aged senators–in the majority party–to avoid the physical strain of sleeping in cots on call for days on end, and it allowed the Senate to avoid being paralyzed by one controversial bill. On the other hand, without public accountability and physical strain to encourage compromises, it lead to increasingly common threats of filibusters (‘holds’) on major legislation. The minority no longer had to have people physically hold the floor so long as they could show up for a cloture vote within 24 hours.
In 1975, Senators Walter Mondale, James Pearson, and others tried to lower the threshold for ending a filibuster from 2/3 of those present to a bare majority of the total. At the time, the Democrats had a 3/5 majority in the Senate; the rule change required 2/3 of those present. Coincidentally, the compromise we still have today is to require 3/5 of all Senators duly sworn to end a filibuster. This change from those present to those duly sworn means the minority does not even have to show for the cloture vote. This leaves the minority with a pocket-veto. Ignoring the “nuclear option” for judicial appointments, that brings us to today, where the 60-vote thresholed is routine.
~Max
Beyond the Big Beautiful Bill, a whole lot of what Trump has been doing has been through issuing Executive Orders, which are not (supposed to be) creating new laws, but providing guidance on how his administration is choosing to implement standing laws – and, thus, don’t need to go through Congress, and don’t need to get 60 votes in the Senate to avoid the filibuster.
When stopping government from functioning is exactly what they want, they can get it.
This is one major advantage the Republicans have over the Democrats: It’s easier to break things than to fix them.
An underrated aspect of all this is that in a way reconciliation functions very similarly to a nuclear option on the filibuster.
Ironically, because of the byzantine rules of reconciliation, it both forces fiscal legislation into wideranging omnibus bills and (due to the way budget scoring rewards temporary changes) causes fiscal policy to ping-pong back and forth, two supposed downsides of just allowing majority rule in the first place.
It just dawned on me. Treat the filibuster like baseball’s ABS challenge. Each party gets two per session of Congress. Use them wisely.
Republicans veto democratic bill to ban guns with a magazine of 10 or more rounds.
Republicans veto democratic bill to ban guns with a magazine of 9 or more rounds.
Democratic bill to ban guns with a magazine of 8 or more rounds passesby simple majority.