Tag: filibuster

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national politics & policies partisanship

Abolish. Or Set in Stone

Senate, Filibuster, Senators

The filibuster is racist. 

That’s what Progressive House Caucus Chairwoman Pramila Jayapal (D‑Wash.) claimed … as long as Democrats were to control the U.S. Senate. 

“The choice is clear,” she once tweeted. “Abolish the Jim Crow filibuster.”

The filibuster demands a 60-​vote supermajority in the 100-​seat Senate in order to shut off debate and vote on most legislation. Yet, in recent times, both parties, when in the majority, have carved out exceptions.

To be clear, the majority party could at any time kill the filibuster. It is simply a Senate rule — not a law, not a constitutional provision. 

Why get rid of it?

If “we had the trifecta” (meaning control of both chambers of Congress and the White House), Jayapal urgently supports ending it: “because we have to show that government can deliver.”

Why keep the rule?

She wants to use the 60-​vote threshold against Republicans; she certainly wants to block them from delivering.

Mock Jayapal’s hypocrisy, as we may, but it is ubiquitous in the capital. Besides, there are more consequential issues to address. 

Either the United States Senate should have a filibuster rule or not. Let’s debate and decide. But one thing is clear: the Senate should not have a 60-​vote majority requirement that either majority party can jettison whenever it so desires. 

Put the filibuster into the Constitution. 

Or — because an amendment is such a long, arduous process — pass a statute establishing the filibuster in law. This would at least provide a presidential check on Congress monkeying around with it. 

And on this one matter, abolish the hypocrisy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Illustration created with Midjourney and Firefly

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national politics & policies partisanship

Our Rules or Theirs?

Last Thursday, President Biden signaled “that he would be willing to consider supporting the elimination of the filibuster,” CBS News reported following his first news conference, “if Senate Republicans use it to block Democratic legislative priorities from receiving a full vote on the Senate floor.”

“If”? Stopping the majority party from taking its legislation to a floor vote without a 60-​vote supermajority to end debate is what the filibuster does.  

The president, a Democrat, is saying the filibuster is OK … as long as Republicans don’t use it.

You will of course not be shocked to learn that Biden has been a longtime, adamant supporter of the filibuster. In 2005, he gave an impassioned defense, arguing, “At its core, the filibuster is not about stopping a nominee or a bill — it’s about compromise and moderation.”

Biden called the GOP attack then a “fundamental power grab” and said his oration “may be one of the most important speeches for historical purposes that I will have given in the 32 years since I have been in the Senate.”

Yet, the filibuster is not in the Constitution. 

It is simply a Senate rule. And the majority party in the Senate can thereby fiddle with it. 

I’m not so much wed to the filibuster as I am wed to the idea that the rules with which Washington insiders wield power serve us and not just themselves. 

The filibuster should be made official in law or Constitution precisely so politicians cannot change it on whim or passion. 

Or it should be ended. But not before one party (or both) actually campaigns to end it, so that the American people can weigh in. Because these must be our rules if it is to be our government. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets national politics & policies too much government

To Dream the “Impossible” Repeal

Senator Ted Cruz’s non-​filibuster filibuster, monopolizing the Senate floor for the ninth hour as I type these words, is easy to characterize — if you are Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert.

Easy to make fun of, especially when the senator read Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham as a bedtime story for his children — via C‑Span.

It’s not a filibuster, since it stops no vote. It’s not even a speed-​bump on the way to a vote. It’s something of a demonstration by one senator and a few of his allies to highlight the dangers of the Democrats’ Affordable Care Act, and the necessity to repeal it. Marshaling emails, tweets, and open letters, Cruz hopes to pressure the unmovable Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to allow a vote on an amendment to defund Obamacare.

The point is this: Attacking Obamacare can’t help but seem quixotic. Like Don Quixote tilting at windmills, we who want less government — who want to limit government — often find ourselves jousting with giants who don’t budge, or (ahem) budget.

So of course we do appear comic, now and then.

But there’s also a reason that when Broadway and then Hollywood turned Cervantes’ classic into a musical, Don Quixote became something of a hero. The dream of justice, of economy, of equality before the law, of humility before the forces of nature, and resilience before the hordes of delusional politicians, does seem impossible.

But not fighting it, whatever peaceful way we can, would be disgraceful.

Ted Cruz is heroic.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Townhall: It’s not about drones

The key issue of last week’s great Rand Paul filibuster was not drone technology, as such, but whether those who run the government will accept the rules of the Constitution. That’s the message from Yours Truly this week on Townhall. Read the column, then come back here for some more links to further facts and opinion.

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Accountability national politics & policies U.S. Constitution

Droning On?

For my birthday, Sen. Rand Paul started a filibuster.

I jest. The junior senator from Kentucky had something more important than my big day on his mind: the U.S. Constitution.

At 11:47AM, Sen. Paul took the floor: “I rise today to begin to filibuster John Brennan’s nomination for the CIA. I will speak until I can no longer speak. I will speak as long as it takes.”

I didn’t watch all of his endeavor (yet). What I did catch was amazingly eloquent.

It was also very specific. The Kentucky senator had asked candidate Brennan not one but two substantial lists of questions regarding the drone strike program. He also asked the Obama Administration whether the president thinks he has the constitutional right to use drone strikes against non-​combatant Americans on American soil. Brennan had answered well enough, but left the administration to answer for itself. Attorney General Eric Holder responded, later, evasively.

And so Rand Paul took to the floor. And spoke at length — without teleprompter. He was joined, later, by Democratic Senator Ron Wyden. And then some Republicans, including Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio.

Though Rand Paul’s office had started a Twitter hashtag, #filiblizzard. It didn’t take off. Instead, #StandWithRand became the international trending topic.

The world watched.

But filibusters have to end. About 13 hours in, Rand Paul did end it, though not before insisting that, with regard to our rights, compromise is very, very bad: “The Fifth Amendment is not optional.”

If this filibuster solidified that constitutional principle, what a present that would be — and not just to me, but to all Americans. And the world.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies

Democrats versus Majoritarian Tyranny

Senate Democrats are firmly against any attempt to circumvent the 60-​vote majority that Senate rules require to prevent a filibuster of major legislation. On principle!

Forget that the recent election of Republican Scott Brown deprives Democrats of their filibuster-​proof majority. Democrats won’t even consider trying to shunt that rule aside so they can foist Obamacare on us. No, no, no.

Of course, strangely, newspaper reports say they looking at doing just that. But I can prove otherwise. With evidence from five years ago. Here’s what Senator Obama had to say in 2005: “… prompting a change in the Senate rules that really, I think, would change the character of the Senate forever … Majoritarian absolute power.… and that’s just not what the Founders intended.”

Senator Schumer: “We are on the precipice of a crisis, a constitutional crisis. The checks and balances which have been at the core of this republic are about to be evaporated by the ‘nuclear option.’ The checks and balances which say that if you get 51 percent of the vote, you don’t get your way 100 percent of the time.”

Senator Reid: “Mr. President, the right to extend debate is never more important than when one party controls Congress and the White House. In these cases, the filibuster serves as a check on power and preserves our limited government.”

Wow. Sounds like they really mean it. And they do, right?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.