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Opinion Thanks to McConnell, even Biden is losing faith in the filibuster - The Washington Post
Joe Biden has been a long time defender of the Filibuster. MoscowMitch may have blown it and made it easier for Democrats to use the nuclear option to gut the filibuster
Link to tweet
But this time, the Kentucky Republican’s cleverness may have caught up with him. By risking economic havoc in refusing to give Democrats a clean chance to suspend the debt ceiling, McConnell may destroy the very arrangements that have afforded him so much power.
Until this week, McConnell could count on President Biden’s affection for Senate traditions to keep in place a filibuster that vastly enhances the minority party’s power by requiring 60 votes to pass most measures, and not the simple majority our Constitution’s authors envisioned.
As long as Biden, who served in the Senate for 36 years, opposed filibuster reform, there was little chance that Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) — the adjudicators of just about everything in today’s 50-50 Senate — would reconsider their embrace of it.
But late Tuesday, Biden met McConnell’s hardball with some hardball of his own. Asked by a reporter if Democrats should consider altering the filibuster rules to get a debt-ceiling vote through, the president replied: “Oh, I think that’s a real possibility.”
Bang! With seven words, Biden brought home the profound irrationality of our current governing system.
It’s not just that the debt ceiling is a useless relic of the debates around the financing of World War I. It’s also that the filibuster of old has been transformed through abuse into a barrier to normal governing.
Until this week, McConnell could count on President Biden’s affection for Senate traditions to keep in place a filibuster that vastly enhances the minority party’s power by requiring 60 votes to pass most measures, and not the simple majority our Constitution’s authors envisioned.
As long as Biden, who served in the Senate for 36 years, opposed filibuster reform, there was little chance that Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) — the adjudicators of just about everything in today’s 50-50 Senate — would reconsider their embrace of it.
But late Tuesday, Biden met McConnell’s hardball with some hardball of his own. Asked by a reporter if Democrats should consider altering the filibuster rules to get a debt-ceiling vote through, the president replied: “Oh, I think that’s a real possibility.”
Bang! With seven words, Biden brought home the profound irrationality of our current governing system.
It’s not just that the debt ceiling is a useless relic of the debates around the financing of World War I. It’s also that the filibuster of old has been transformed through abuse into a barrier to normal governing.
At some point the filibuter will be reformed either with exceptions or change to a talking filibuster
