Five myths about the filibuster

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3. #5

Myth No. 5
A rule change would make the Senate just like the House.

Some believe that without the filibuster, the Senate would lose its essential character. This is what Brown University professor Rich Arenberg argued in The Post in 2019, that “leaving most questions to a simple majority vote would render the Senate much like the House of Representatives.” Responding to Democrats’ proposed rule change at a news conference Monday, McConnell said: “Make no mistake about it, this is genuine radicalism. They want to turn the Senate into the House. They want to make it easy to fundamentally change the country.”

It is true that the Senate was designed to be very different from the House: It represents states, gives those states equal footing and allots senators six-year terms. The Senate does not, however, derive its character from supermajority requirements. After all, the filibuster did not even exist when the body was founded. Democrats have proposed, for example, requiring that senators actually speak on the floor, or flipping the standard such that the Senate would require 41 votes to continue debate rather than 60 to end it. These reforms to the filibuster would not weaken the Senate, but would restore it to its rightful place in our political system.