Democrats want to get rid of the filibuster when they eventually return to the Senate. Fine, it has been long over due – even though they have hypocritically defended its practice while in the minority.
Needing 60 votes to pass legislation in the Senate is a voter-disenfranchising monstrosity because it gives the minority party more power to stop legislation than the majority has to pass it. They’re essentially being given votes never earned at the ballot box.
Right now with the GOP having 53 and the Democrats having 47, the Democrats effectively have the stopping power of 54 once you factor in that 7 between the GOP’s 53 and the 60 threshold necessary to overcome the filibuster.
This is a perversion of representative government that effectively makes the House like the Senate in the nonsensical name of ensuring that the Senate doesn’t become like the House!
The House can pass legislation with a simple majority but that’s ‘in name only’ since that same legislation is then subjected to a Senate super-majority of 60 that was never mandated by the Constitution.
Our founding document requires only a simple majority of “yeas and nays” in both chambers.
Since Democrats got rid of the filibuster for appellate and district court nominees as well as for cabinet positions, and the Republicans jettisoned it for Supreme Court nominees, neither side has any moral authority against getting rid of it for legislation.
Since Democrats have already announced that most of them want to get rid of it once they return to a majority, the GOP would be saps not to consider pulling the trigger on it now.
The bicameral dynamic of Congress is (in and of itself) enough of a consensus builder without requiring even more hurdles as an excuse for politicians to continue getting away with breaking campaign promises simply by pointing to the escape-hatch filibuster as the reason “their hands are tied.”
Screw that!
https://thehill.com/…/429049-dems-wary-of-killing-off-filib…
