Biden: 'Nothing at all will get done' if filibuster abolished

[BumRushDaShow]

25. I have a feeling

that he might be trying to work out a way to soften people like Manchin up. You also have Sinema and some others like Feinstein, who don't want to change the Rule. And one of the biggest defenders of it, is Chris Coons.

There was an interesting opinion piece I found in WaPo done last month that talked about Coons and how he has equivocated, and it seems to match how his fellow former Delawarean Senator-now-President, has handled the subject -

A top Biden ally just fired a warning shot on the filibuster. Should we believe it?

Opinion by Greg Sargent
Columnist
June 23, 2021 at 11:06 a.m. EDT

As a Democrat from Joe Biden’s longtime home state of Delaware, Sen. Christopher A. Coons is widely perceived to have a direct line to the president, so his views on what’s next after the failure of voting reform deserve careful attention. In an interview with NPR on Wednesday, Coons struck a careful balance. On one hand, he kinda sorta hinted that if GOP obstruction continues, Democrats just might have to reluctantly end the filibuster. On the other, he echoed some of the worst arguments for keeping it.

This ambivalence captures an essential problem among Democrats: They appear to believe the only defensible or safe way they can end or even modify the filibuster is if they are perceived to be getting pushed into it by Republican obstruction, against their will. But this cedes the argument up front. Democrats are still far too reluctant to give serious consideration to filibuster reform as the right thing to do on the merits, let alone to the idea that making a confident, affirmative case for it might be better politics than their oft-relied-upon theater of reluctance.

Every single GOP senator voted Tuesday against allowing any debate on the Democrats’ voting rights legislation. This didn’t merely block debate on the very ambitious For the People Act. It also nixed debate on the more modest compromise offered by Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), which includes some voting protections progressives want, but also national voter ID.

On NPR, Coons alluded to this and issued a warning shot. Coons pointed to bipartisan negotiations over other issues — infrastructure, immigration, police reform — and suggested that if action failed to materialize, Democrats might act. “If all of these come to the same end as the efforts around voting rights, where it’s blocked 50-50, that’ll sharpen the focus on the filibuster,” Coons said. That sure sounds like Democrats might be prepared to reform or end the filibuster. And yet, later in the interview, Coons echoed a bad argument in favor of keeping it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/23/chris-coons-filibuster-warning-npr/

One would also be a fool to reveal your strategy to the media so the enemy knows how to counter it.

And as a note, had he still been in the Senate today, Biden would have been the most senior of them all (including more senior than both Leahy and Ass-ley). So he knows what goes on behind the scenes in that chamber and where the bodies are buried.