Civic Register
| 1.11.22
Schumer Signals Vote on 'Nuclear Option' to Eliminate Senate’s Filibuster
Do you support or oppose eliminating the Senate filibuster?
What’s the story?
- Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) tweeted Tuesday that he will soon call a vote on changing the Senate’s rules to eliminate the legislative filibuster to allow the passage of Democrats’ election reform bill along party-lines. While it’s unclear at this time when the vote will occur, the effort appears destined to fail, given that it lacks the unanimous support of all 50 Democratic senators.
- Schumer tweeted that a vote could occur as early as Wednesday and explained in remarks on the Senate floor:
“(I)f Republicans continue to hijack the rules of the Senate to prevent voting rights from happening, if they continue paralyzing this chamber to the point where we’re helpless to fight back against the Big Lie, we must consider the necessary steps we can take so the Senate can adapt and act.”
- Schumer’s push to end the filibuster comes as a stark reversal of his position when Republicans held the majority. As minority leader in 2017, Schumer said that he wanted to “find a way to build a firewall around the legislative filibuster” and prevent the Senate from becoming “a majoritarian institution like the House, much more subject to the winds of short-term electoral change.” Similarly, when Democrats were in the minority in 2005, Schumer argued that eliminating the filibuster would upend the role of the Senate and be “a doomsday for democracy”:
“Bottom line is very simple: The ideologues in the Senate want to turn what the Founding Fathers called ‘the cooling saucer of democracy’ into the rubber stamp of dictatorship. We will not let them. They want, because they can’t get their way on every judge, to change the rules in mid-stream, to wash away 200 years of history. They want to make this country into a banana republic, where if you don’t get your way, you change the rules. Are we going to let them? It’ll be a doomsday for democracy if we do.”
- Schumer’s power play is likely to fail whenever the vote occurs because some Democratic senators remain opposed to eliminating the legislative filibuster despite pressure from their party’s congressional leadership and the White House.
- Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) have repeatedly affirmed their commitment to preserving the 60 vote threshold for most legislation, and insist that the filibuster fosters bipartisanship on important legislative issues. While they have expressed some willingness to discuss certain rules changes, any rules change that opens the door to gutting the filibuster appears to be off-limits, with Manchin saying of a limited filibuster carve-out, “Anytime there’s a carve-out, you eat the whole turkey.”
- There may be other Democratic senators who ultimately join Manchin and Sinema in voting against eliminating the filibuster. Several Democrats ― including Sens. Chris Coons (D-DE), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), and Jon Tester (D-MT) ― have said they want to see specific proposals before committing to nixing the filibuster. In 2017, Coons and Tester were both among the 61 signatories of a bipartisan letter to express support for maintaining the Senate’s legislative filibuster.
- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) spoke Tuesday on the Senate floor where he warned Democrats against eliminating the filibuster. McConnell argued that a post-filibuster Senate would lose the collegiality and unanimity the chamber relies upon to conduct much of its business:
“A post-nuclear Senate would not be more efficient or more productive. I personally guarantee it. Do my colleagues understand how many times per day the Senate needs and gets unanimous consent for basic housekeeping? Do they understand how many things could require roll call votes? How often the minority could demand lengthy debate? Our colleagues who are itching for a procedural nuclear winter have not even begun to contemplate how it would look. Our colleagues who are itching to drain every drop of collegiality from this body have not even begun to consider how that would work.”
RELATED READING
- Manchin Rejects Democrats’ ‘For the People Act’ & Reiterates Support for Preserving Senate’s Filibuster (6/7/21)
- Democrats Flip-Flop on the Filibuster After Winning the Senate Majority (3/30/21)
- Senate Nears Powersharing Deal After Moderate Dems Vow to Preserve Filibuster (1/29/21)
- Should Senate Democrats Eliminate the Legislative Filibuster (1/25/21)
— Eric Revell
(Photo Credit: Senate Democrats via Flickr / Creative Commons)
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Stupid libtards. https://babylonbee.com/news/oops-schumer-gives-passionate-speech-defending-filibuster-after-accidentally-printing-his-speech-from-two-years-ago
Our two Democrats need to be educated about the Filibuster history and intent for having it in the first place. If the Republicans don’t want to debate on legislation issues such as the voting rights-of course we need to vote on voting rights, before the midterms.
Democrats must fight against voter suppression and the autocracy planned by the Republicans.
If the Republicans gain control of the mud term elections, Democrats will be crying to reinstate the filibuster as Republicans will be ramming through legislation without obstruction.
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The Dems want to eliminate the filibuster so they can advance their agenda. They are like a bully who cries when he doesn’t get his own way. The Dems filibustered over 100 times against Trump’s judicial nominations and yet I heard no complaints from the Republicans about it. Certainly no mentioning of doing away with it.
Go ahead Schumer, 3 failed votes on the same topic deserves a 4th. You have nothing else to do to support the American people. By your own ineptitude, you are handing the Senate to those who know how to govern.
This is dead on arrival. So divisive and so wrong! What has happened to the Democratic Party? Is is crumbling before our eyes.
3 x tried, 3 x failed. Do we need a 4th?
Just read DeJoy has again reduced mail times considerably. Get rid of him or the next election will be impossible to expect good things from. He is continuing to make our Postal Services die so his conflicting businesses flourish. What is the holdup anyway? I hear he already bought off one of the women Biden appointed. YET NOTHING IS DONE! BEYOND DISGUSTING!
The filibuster generally and specifically as it is has been modified in recent years, is unconstitutional. The filibuster was added as a talking filibuster after the Civil War to give the Confederate states a forum to raise their issues as part of re-building our government. It was never intended to be a tool for the minority to constantly overrule the majority - that is not how a democracy works. The framers specifically called out those particularly critical Senate votes where they felt that a super-majority vote was warranted. There was no provision made nor intended that any super-majority vote should be required for anything else; in particular general legislative processes. … … … Given that we now have a Supreme Court dominated by ‘originalists’ hung up on the specific wording of the Constitution and that there was no legislation passed to authorize the filibuster - I would presume, that if they are truly honorable principled Justices and not just political hacks, they would have to agree that the filibuster, as practiced today, is unconstitutional because it gives undue influence to the minority to overturn the will of the majority. This is not consistent with a functional democracy nor the ideals enshrined in the Constitution. … … … The original filibuster, where a single Senator had to hold the floor by talking could certainly tie things up. But, this practice was not a ‘one and done’ proposition that any Senator can initiate with just a phone call. … … … As practiced today, the filibuster does nothing to cause further debate or indeed, any debate at all. It allows Senators to simply block legislation that is popular with the electorate but not their political dark-money benefactors. There is absolutely no accountability to the people that elected them. They are given the means to support their benefactors secretly and with no accountability to the people they supposedly represent and who granted the Senators the privilege to represent them. … … … Certainly, the minority needs tools to prevent their views to be simply ignored by the majority. But, the minority should not have tools to simply disregard the will of the majority. To be clear, every Senator’s oath of office is to protect the Constitution and the Country, which is the all of us. They have no charter to just work for their base, just their constituents, their benefactors, their political party and especially not just for themselves. … … … I am tired of Manchin’s very ‘principled’ arguments ginned up to support the needs of his political donors. I would remind him that the value of his ‘principles’ is not measured by the amount of dark-money donated - in fact, it would seem that ‘principles’ would best be measured by how little dark-money one receives.
Voting rights must be protected. Manchin and Sinema are defying the agenda they were elected to pursue. Why? Their reasons make absolutely no sense. I have never regretted more voting for Sinema. She is a selfish lying grifter that needs to be driven out of office.
It's beyond time to eliminate or restructure the filibuster to get the Voting Rights Acts passed. You can't have free and fair elections until every 'citizen is assured his and her right to vote is protected and have that vote counted. Without free and fair elections, that's not a democracy, it is just an autocratic, fascist system, just like in Russia for one example. We must protect the right to vote and every vote is counted. Democracy is in peril as long as it's left to succumb to the authoritarian rule which certain individuals would love to have. It's all about greed and power and not about "We The People". So whatever it takes to fix this mess, so be it.
I support.
Dems need to pull ever lever to protect us from people who want to destroy democracy.
So with Trump, you guys wanted to ignore the will of half of America and filibuster, but when it happens back at you under Biden, you just wanna take a vote or change the law until you get what you want. I used to think just marxism and communism should be made illegal, but anymore is clear to me the democratic party is the biggest threat to mankinds prosperity and future. It's like the party of idiocy.
Racist and favors the small states. Minority terrorizes the majority
Keep the filibuster.