The Senate Has Used the Filibuster to Block Civil Rights Bills for Decades....Ditch It.
Seems like we can be our own worst enemy.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/01/the-senate-has-used-the-filibuster-to-block-civil-rights-bills-for-decades-thats-another-reason-for-dems-to-ditch-it/
2 hours ago
The Senate Has Used the Filibuster to Block Civil Rights Bills for Decades. That’s Another Reason for Dems to Ditch It.
If Democrats want to get anything done, they’ll have to get rid of this “Jim Crow relic” first
Kara Voght, ReporterBio
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On matters of democracy reform, protecting the filibuster allows Republicans to hold onto their grasp of political power by blocking likely Democratic voters. Passing Merkley’s bill and the House’s voting rights bill, another top Democratic priority, would safeguard rights for the historically disenfranchised—most notably, Black Americans. In statehouses where Republicans retain control, lawmakers are already busy crafting tightened voting restrictions to dampen the chance Democratic candidates could succeed in future elections. Merkley says his Republican colleagues have told him McConnell has forbidden GOP senators from backing his bill.
That’s why Merkley sees ending the modern-day filibuster and his party’s proposed democracy reforms as two sides of the same coin. “You have this incredibly racist history of voter suppression, systemic discrimination,” he says, “and you have the filibuster deeply associated with systemic racism, as well.” Passing those bills would rectify “this tilt of power toward predominantly white conservatives in our system,” adds Adam Jentleson, who worked as an aide to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and recently published a book calling for filibuster reform. “The sequencing is important because you can’t do any of the other things unless you do filibuster reform.”
To Jentleson, the fate of the filibuster is a matter of political survival for Democrats, too. From his perch in Reid’s office, he had a front-row seat to the ways McConnell thwarted Obama’s agenda, then turned around and blamed Democrats for inaction. The tactic cost Democrats seats in both chambers of Congress over those election cycles. Jentleson says there’s tremendous political risk in “getting strung along” by Republican lawmakers only to end up with “small-ball deals” that fail to meet the country’s dire moment. “Bipartisanship is a worthy goal,” Jentleson tells me, “but delivering results to save this country has to be the ultimate goal.”
So how do Merkley and his fellow filibuster detractors prevail with their colleagues who still resist filibuster reform? The path, Merkley says, is probably to get caught trying to get 60 votes on top agenda items, then watch Republicans block them. If Biden’s coronavirus package fails, Merkley predicts, it will “move people’s hearts” to not allow McConnell a veto “that may cost tens or thousands or 100,000 people in this country their lives.” The same goes for his party’s democracy reform bill. “If it comes down to an issue as fundamental as the right to vote and Republicans block it,” Merkley says, “I think that would have a significant impact as well.”
That impact would have to be significant. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), who told the Hill last summer he was intrigued by Merkley’s pitch on filibuster reform, remains opposed to ending the practice. So too, does Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), whose spokesperson told the Washington Post this week that the senator is not only “against eliminating the filibuster,” but also “not open to changing her mind” on the matter. Optimists on the side of filibuster reform hope the moderate Democrats might be open to less extreme reforms than total abolition. One picking up steam is something Sen. Bernie Sanders floated during his presidential campaign: Expanding what’s allowed under budget reconciliation by overriding guidance from the Senate parliamentarian.
In the progressive imagination, abolishing the filibuster crosses a threshold toward more ambitious structural reforms. For the party’s left flank, the proposed democracy and voting rights bills are the baseline. Granting statehood for Washington, DC, abolishing the electoral college, expanding the numbers of seats on the Supreme Court, and enacting a ranked-choice voting system would be necessary steps to rebalance the scales against the tyranny of minority rule. Legislation has been introduced to address each impediment, but not all Democrats are on board with big moves. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) recently told the Atlantic that the votes for DC or Puerto Rico statehood aren’t there, even if the filibuster is abolished (even though the House passed a bill to grant DC statehood last year). For now, Democrats’ debate on the future of the filibuster delays facing up to the divisions that remain within their caucus.
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