President Biden made his pitch Tuesday for the “For the People Act,” which includes many reforms to make it easier to vote or, to phrase it from the opposite starting point, to overcome the gazillion and one ways Republican-controlled states have adopted or have in the works to make it harder to vote — and especially harder for various Democratic-leaning constituencies to vote. You know the list of provisions, of course, and I won’t go over them here in the interests of brevity.
I liked Biden’s speech. It celebrated democracy and sought to strengthen the U.S. version of democracy, which has been under assault – not just figuratively, but literally — from a Trumpian mob.
Most of the immediate post-speech commentary on CNN, which is where I watched the speech, was about what Biden didn’t say, that the commentators thought he needs to say, mostly about the Senate filibuster rules.
Some of the critics suggested that Biden is insufficiently committed to filibuster reform, and believe that in the absence of filibuster reform the “For the People Act” is a dead letter.
Those critics aren’t wrong, but their analysis suffered critically (in my humble opinion) from self-imposed blindness.
The critics know that filibuster reform cannot happen, nor can the “For the People Act” pass, without the support of all 50 Democrats in the Senate. And they know that two conservative Democrats, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema Arizona, have been unwilling to sign onto filibuster reform.
For now, and the foreseeable future, that’s where the story is stuck.
I have no idea whether either Manchin or Sinema is open to persuasion. I would assume that Joe Biden does have an idea on that. I would assume that, in not demanding that Manchin and Sinema change their position on filibuster reform while advocating for the “For the People Act,” Biden is working on the reluctant pair. My guess, and I feel pretty strongly about it, is that Biden would gladly see the filibuster rule changed, if not abolished, and then he would be much more likely to get to sign the “For the People Act.”
The main point in this short post, other than endorsing the “For the People Act,” is to push back slightly on those left critics and analysts, including the ones who opined right after Biden’s speech, who seem to think Biden is opposed to filibuster reform.
My hunch is, Biden would easily overcome whatever nostalgic affection (if any) he might have for the filibuster in order to pass this vital voting reform, which would be a wonderful blow for not only small-d democracy, but for the big-D Democratic Party, of which Biden is a lifelong member and the current ex-officio leader.
That’s my hunch. My hope is that if Biden is patient, and if Manchin eventually lives with the fact that, however much he may wish it, there will be many bills that he would like to see enacted but will not unless the filibuster rule is changed, we might see a breakthrough for democracy in America via the elimination or at least the diminution of the filibuster and the passage of the “For the People Act.”
Filibuster “reform” seems like a good idea until 51 Trump-like Republicans get seated. Then it will be the nightmare of all time. Very short-sighted.
State legislatures, with no filibuster rules protecting the interests of the minority party, can pass laws dictating how federal elections are conducted and if the US congress has issues with these new laws nothing can be done unless the minority party agrees.
Seems very short-sighted to me.
Quite a few states have filibusters, but they are seldom used. I’m unsure why. Maybe states are too small to tolerate legislative bullying.
And I’m fine with states controlling their voting. It’s worked for all our history. Will the Feds do better? If not, it would be the definition of short-sighted.
“And I’m fine with states controlling their voting.”
Which means you’re fine with literacy tests, poll taxes, property ownership requirements and many other means that were used to suppress voting from “certain” people.
How many gumballs in this jar? Whoops! Wrong answer. You’re not voting today.
And that is what happened until the federal government stepped in and told them otherwise.
Nonsense. If the filibuster were used as intended – to further debate – it might be worth saving. Instead it’s used to change the rules of the Senate to require 60 votes to pass any legislation. Constitutionally, the Senate is majoritarian: it takes half plus one vote to pass legislation; that’show it should work. And, yes, when Democrats return to the minority, they’ll have to live by that too.
Upholding a key senate tradition that has served both sides for 150 years is “Nonsense”? Yer nonsense is nonsense. And the filibuster is used exactly as you say it should, with bills eventually passed, “after further debate”.
This argument assumes that if the Democrats don’t dispense with the filibuster, the Republicans will respect that when they gain a majority. From abundant recent evidence, this notion is absurd (Garland/Barrett only the most obvious example). As soon as the Republicans possess 51 votes and want to pass something that the filibuster obstructs, the filibuster will be gone. So will the Democrats dispense with the filibuster now, to save the nation from collapse, or will they stand by, satisfied to know that in ushering in our autocracy, they behaved like honorable gentlemen and ladies?
Not sure if I’m following the logic. If something’s wrong isn’t it wrong for everyone? Yours sounds like an argument for strengthening the filibuster, not eliminating it.
And the country’s facing collapse? I don’t think so.
Fillibuster reform?? Other than the Dem’s grab for power (that will likely slip away) what is the purpose of this? This rule has been in place in some form since we have had a real government. If the Republicans were in power would anybody on the left side of the aisle be screaming for this? It is a shortsighted attempt. There is a reason we have checks and balances throughout our legislative process. It is a stabilizing influence in a sea or reactionary sentiment.
Why is working to pass a party’s agenda through the legislative process a “grab for power?”
The filibuster is based on a misinterpretation of Senate rules by Aaron Burr, the only Vice President to be charged with treason (the shrieking of an angry mob does not count, so Mike Pence is off this particular historical hook). A sterling character, don’t you agree?
Because today’s reasonable agenda is tomorrow’s extremist grab for power, that’s why.
And in your next statement you are making a serious (but sadly common) error in logic. If a bad person endorses a good idea that doesn’t make it a bad idea.
Eric is 100% correct in my opinion. The filibuster rule is a strange outcome of the absence of a common parliamentary rule- the rule that allows a motion for the previous question. Senate Rules have never included this ordinary rule and the attempts to reconcile it with other rules have given us this complicated anti-democratic monster where you don’t even have to speak to prevent a vote on a bill you don’t like. It enables one-Senator vetoes. This is outrageous when it involves issues which the States who seceded and were only allowed back into the Union after they lost the War on the condition they honor the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments.
But the way around this is not to kill the filibuster in its entirety. Rather than an axe, the Democrats need to use some surgical thinking and technique that would allow, say by interpreting the existing rules, to allow the present bill that affects voting rights to be passed on a motion which requires only a simple majority. That’s how the filibuster for judicial appointments was set aside. Bills that protect equal voting rights need a similar exemption.
“Because today’s reasonable agenda is tomorrow’s extremist grab for power, that’s why.”
That’s absurd. “Extremist grab for power” is a meaningless statement. It really means nothing more than that a party or faction whom you oppose is trying to adopt their agenda. Using lawful means like fair elections, open debate, and voting is not a “grab for power.”
“And in your next statement you are making a serious (but sadly common) error in logic. If a bad person endorses a good idea that doesn’t make it a bad idea.”
Maybe not, but it’s a place to start. I suppose it really doesn’t matter that it was Aaron Burr who made the mistake interpreting Senate rules. An error is an error, ratified by time and custom or not.
Today’s For the People Act promoted by the Democrats might be reasonable. But tomorrow’s Lock Up All Traitors Act promoted by the Republicans will not be. This is why eliminating the filibuster is so foolish.
Right, we can’t pass needed reforms today because someone might do something bad next year. Such logic.
As Ulysses S Grant once said, “Oh, I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is going to do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault, and land in our rear and on both of our flanks at the same time. Go back to your command, and try to think what we are going to do ourselves, instead of what Lee is going to do.”
You are conflating the two issues, legislation and the legislative process. My point is the process is the vastly more important of the two. N0 matter how “good” the legislation, throwing out the guardrails to achieve it is a mistake. There’s such a thing as winning the battle but losing the war, to stay with your historical reference.
“My point is the process is the vastly more important of the two.”
Actually, Congress exists to pass legislation, not to protect “the process.”
Or do you think the people who are disenfranchised by the new election laws will be mollified by the thought that the process was left intact?
You seem to be doing everything possible to avoid my point. Again, is this bill, as it stands now, worth permanently altering a rule that produced 150 years of sane, measured, and productive compromise? Is it worth opening the door to some treacherous and much more divisive bill being rammed through by Trumpian gangsters in the not-so-distant future?
“Again, is this bill, as it stands now, worth permanently altering a rule that produced 150 years of sane, measured, and productive compromise?”
I dispute the accuracy of your premise.
Indeed. Which war do you want to win?
Republicans have gamed the system to preclude Democratic presidents from appointing supreme court justices; and dramatically slowed dem appointments of fed judges. So they’ve effectively packed the courts. Now Republicans want to game the system at the state level & disenfranchise voting populations that are likely to vote for Dems. Before repubs packed the courts, we might have relied on the voting rights act – but the Roberts court already eviscerated that legislation, and will decide challenges to the current slate of proposed restrictions of voting rights.
But, that’s cool, we’ll still have the filibuster.
OK. You win. But the Republicans will see you in about three years, with a senate majority. Good luck with that.
Instead we have state by state “lock up all the traitors” acts.
Again, does your respect for state control of elections include your opposition to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which explicitly identified specific requirements for certain states:
“The bill contained several special provisions that targeted certain state and local governments: a “coverage formula” that determined which jurisdictions were subject to the Act’s other special provisions (“covered jurisdictions”); a “preclearance” requirement that prohibited covered jurisdictions from implementing changes to their voting procedures without first receiving approval from the U.S. attorney general or the U.S. District Court for D.C. that the changes were not discriminatory; and the suspension of “tests or devices”, such as literacy tests, in covered jurisdictions.”
Have you noticed that the majority of the new election law changes are occuring in the same states that used to have preclearance requirements? If these states thought they could reimplement “How many jelly beans in the jar” laws they would.
Look at Texas: No Sunday voting till after 1:00PM to specifically target African American voters. When the TX D legislators walked out and the furor grew and the bill became more well known all of a sudden that became “Oh, that was just a typo, we met 11:00 AM” Yeahh surrre…
Again, I’m not contesting the bill. I’m contesting the means to achieve it.
“Maybe not, but it’s a place to start.” No. Don’t start with it, and don’t end with it.
When a political party can convince you what they propose is good because they are good, they got you.
You’re absolutely right, and I deeply regret my comments about Vice President Burr.
I’m never voting Federalist again.
But it does make it more likely.
Exactly:
As I listened to the pundit’s reactions and it was a consistent: “Why didn’t Biden throw down the filibuster gauntlet to Manchin and Sinema?”
Which would maybe be nice for optics and a failure on effectiveness. Seems James Clyburn, who Biden knows he owes everything, is working on Manchin for a voting rights exception for the filibuster.
Kind of like McConnell’s SCOTUS filibuster exception: 51 to get it done. Gives Manchin lots of cover, not that he needs it and a likely disproportionate share or the Recovery Act + Infrastructure + newest reconciliation bill money for the citizens of West Virginia: probably the primary goal all along…
Jennifer Rubin, in today’s wapost, calls Biden out more bluntly. I find her point compelling: if the situation is as dire as Biden claims (i.e. our Democracy is at risk), he needs to propose proportionally suitable solutions. I.e. get Manchin/Sinema to find 10 reasonable Republicans to break the filibuster, or give up the filibuster.
I think it’s interesting that the Republican senators hold together, even retiring senators like Portman. In horse trading terms, if that sort of thing is done anymore, they are in a position to get a tremendous deal from Biden.
I assume that what gives Manchin and Sinema power is the assumption that Republicans won’t cross the aisle. But what also might be the case is that there are other Democratic senators from marginal states that would take the same positions as Manchin and Sinema, but they don’t need to as things currently stand. But if Republican unity broke, those Democratic senators would no longer be covered by Manchin and Sinema and would have to step forward and take their own heat.
Rather than laying down threats to his fellow Ds, Manchin should be laying down threats to McConnell:
“I’m all that you have if you want to keep the filibuster: Here is what it will cost you…”
The filibuster is there to prevent a slim majority, and that is exactly what we have now, from running roughshod over the minority. Sixty percent is hardly an unreasonable hurdle. If a proposal can’t muster that much support then I wonder if it is worthwhile.
Um, legislation passes with half the votes, plus one. The 60 votes is for ‘cloture’, i.e. to end debate & move to a simple up or down vote.
If 3 senators are absent, legislation can pass with 49 votes – but cloture still requires 60 votes. If they were actually debating, and negotiating, it would be a different story. But that’s not what they’re doing – instead they’re just obstructing – refusing to even take a vote. Why even have a Senate if they’re not going to vote on legislation?
Why? The validity of a policy depends on the number of people who support it? Recall that one of the bases for Justice Taney’s opinion in Dred Scott is that the majority of the states agreed with his reasoning.
You might want to take a quick gander at Federalist 22 for some insight as to what some of the Founders may have thought about this solicitude for legislative minorities. The filibuster is based on the erroneous assumption that Senate rules in 1805 did not allow a previous question motion. It had nothing to do with “prevent[ing] a slim majority . . . from running roughshod over the minority.”
The Constitution specifically allows a “slim majority” to pass legislation as it sees fit. Why else would the Vice President be given the tie breaking vote?
The problem is that mustering a 70% super majority support from the voting public is meaningless. Politicians have learned that there is a disconnect in voters between what voters want and who they will vote for.
Perfect!
I can make all my donors and lobbyist friends happy by passing things voters do not want and stopping things they do want and still get reelected by these saps!
Maybe time to send a message…
By that reasoning, I guess the only actual majority is 60 votes, not 51. What the heck is a majority then anyway? McConnell has been able to thwart the will of the 50% + 1 vote for a very long time. I doubt that is what the founders had in common, either.
The filibuster is the result of a drafting error. But the senate has plenty of other results designed to thwart people from governing themselves. That’s price we have to pay for the ridiculous choice to impose a republic instead of the democracy which is what we needed.
A democracy says your neighbors can decide to confiscate your property. A constitutional republic makes such an action illegal.
Actually, this “constitutional republic” that we live in says your neighbors can take your property if they follow the correct procedures and pay you for it. Look up “eminent domain” sometime.
So you’re in favor of minority rule.
No, generally I am in favor of ma jority rule. Historically, I think the senate has been mostly bad for our country. It was one of the founders’ worst ideas.
The question the President keeps raising is: “Can our democracy respond to the issues facing 21st century Americans?”
The answer seems to be “NO”. The CCP especially is taking the opportunity of failure in D.C. as proof to other nations they have a better system.
So our feelings of superiority as in ‘American Exceptionalism’ rings hollow– belittling the commies, the autocrats, the kings and the oligarchs doesn’t support that same level of self-satisfaction that it might if we were actually able to address serious national and international problems any better than they.
A single party can stop all progress and even threaten to bring back childhood diseases because their information source is anti-medicine and anti-science. They think government spending is all bad. They want to divide us and kill us with guns and culture wars, all so they can get elected again.
If the citizens of a country cannot achieve good governance on the things a majority of those citizens support, their government is incompetent by definition.
We could make a long list of things a strong majority of Americans would like to see happen, yet neither our courts nor our US Senate share those majoritarian views.
“The answer seems to be “NO”. The CCP especially is taking the opportunity of failure in D.C. as proof to other nations they have a better system.”
Yes, The CCP has the advantage of the services of a competent authoritarian leader as opposed to our former incompetent authoritarian leader. The competent authoritarian leader makes arbitrary decisions like “we will dominate solar panel manufacturing” and then makes it happen without endless debate about subsidies and incentives.
Debates are fine, but not if we debate while they do it and win it. Biden’s jobs, families and infrastructure plans gets at this with resources for manufacturing, energy and technology. Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell in his myopic, turtle like fashion, can’t envision infrastructure as anything other than a long ribbon of concrete between 2 points.
We need to win batteries/energy/transmission, EVs, space, etc… for a secure future and we will not if one country says we are all in to win and the other has a government that says “not interested in participating”.
Biden’s 4 Pinocchio (Washington post) election speech in March was only surpassed by more shameful lies in his recent election law speech.
Glad to see that you have come to recognize the capabilities of the WAPO fact checker and expressed your faith in it.
I’m sure you would like to give Biden a hearty congratulations on the “misleading statement” scorecard where he trails Donald Trump 511 to 78 after each’s first 100 days:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/biden-fact-checker-100-days/
Our Democracy is at risk?? Really?? The most since the Civil War?? Who can even say that with a straight face, or without crossed fingers?? I doubt the current situation is even in the top 50 since the Civil War. And we should believe what he says why?
If “democracy” means a representative form of government where voters select people to support the issues that matter to them, I’d say “yes, our democracy is at risk.” Democracy is the “will of the majority”, not the “will of the politicians and their campaign financers”, as it surely has become.
University of Maryland School for Public Policy:
“Major Report Shows Nearly 150 Issues on Which Majorities of Republicans & Democrats Agree”
[exerpt]
“The positions on which majorities from both parties agree span a broad swath of America’s most important and contentious issue areas, including police reform, immigration, poverty and jobs, social security, budget and taxes, health care, trade, energy and the environment, nuclear weapons and government reform.”
“On issue after issue, Americans agree across party lines and are ready to get things done – all these positions are also supported by majorities from both parties in the reddest and bluest Congressional districts, and by primary voters who are typically more partisan,” said Jillian Youngblood, Executive Director of Common Ground Solutions.”
https://publicconsultation.org/defense-budget/major-report-shows-nearly-150-issues-on-which-majorities-of-republicans-democrats-agree/
Richard: It is important to remember that our right side friends are in a complete repression mode on all things post election day.
As an occasional visitor to the very political and right siding PowerLine blog they will talk endlessly about English Premier League Soccer before even acknowledging that January 6 occured. On the day that the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staffs compared the end of Trump’s term as our Reichstag fire moment they were leading and reveling in that Steve Jobs’ widow is losing money at the Atlantic.
And while there certainly is a left side preponderance at MINNPOST, the complete aversion to any dissent at PowerLine is amazing. As the NETFLIX documentary “The Social Dilemma” identified, many alleged news sources where people go for information is actually only affirmation: telling them what they believe is true with no regard for actual facts. Why go to an organization with an actual news room and hundred of paid, full-time journalists when 4 retired guys blog away several times a day from their dens, always providing what you want to hear.
That a guy (Rep. Clyde) can be pictured piling up furniture to barricade a door against the advancing infidels and later say it reminded him of a tour group that lost their map is all we need to know about their collective grip on reality.
I think our system of government has been in steady decline for a number of decades. It’s either no one’s fault or everyone’s fault, I can’t decide which, but I do think it has just worn out. I am reminded of what was said about Henry VIII, that the mistake that was made by his advisors, was that instead of advising him what he should do, they advised him of what he could do. The lesson President Trump taught us all, that there is very little in place that can stop presidents from doing what they want to do. In Trump’s case, the damage was limited by a combination of fecklessness and incompetence, and the country scraped by. Who knows if we will be so lucky next time?
Democrats need to become a liberal party devoid of “centrist” that need to “come around” in the first place. Democrats need to win elections with popular liberal agendas and pursue popular policies that will decimate facile Republican intransigence and lay waste to the bipartisan regime that has stalled democracy in the US for decades. The current regime that consistently empowers one or two senators is simply unsustainable and toxic to our nation.
Rubin at WaPost has another good piece on this subject:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/07/19/republican-mendacity-education-joe-manchin/