Many frustrated Democrats are advocating that when we regain control of the Senate this year, we should immediately end filibustering so that President Biden can actually get something done. I urge caution on going ahead with this. The filibuster is there for a reason: the minority party relies on it to prevent dramatically bad legislation (and appointments) from being enacted. Hard as it may be to believe, and no matter how thoroughly we trounce the Republicans this time around, there WILL come a time when we are in the minority, and if there is no filibuster, we will have no way at all to prevent disaster.
Now I do understand that while the filibuster was invented to prevent disastrous legislation, it is now routinely applied to all legislation, so that nothing can go forward without 60 votes. But the solution is not to eliminate the filibuster, it is to bring it back.
You see, a filibuster used to be a filibuster, you know, a Jimmy Stewart speaking forever, either arguing his point or reading the phone book, but a physical act of defiance. But in the 1970s the rules were changed so that senators with an objection to legislation no longer have to torture themselves with a physical act, they simply declare their INTENT to filibuster and it is considered done. The public never knows who intended to filibuster; indeed, these days, I’m guessing nobody actually does. It is just assumed that every piece of legislation will be objected to by the minority party and therefore it takes 60 votes to pass.
But it does not have to be this way. The filibuster was designed to be used for SERIOUS objections, not just any old objection; and it was designed so that everyone could see and hear the hero (or asshole, depending on your point of view) who is standing there gumming up the works. And not just the people in the Senate. The whole country would know who is doing this, and why.
If every filibuster required someone to stand up and talk forever, explaining why they were so vigorously opposed to the motion on the table, it would be used much less often. Imagine if the Republicans had had to filibuster, for real, every judicial nomination that Obama made, halting the activity of the Senate to prevent the appointment of someone that everybody knows they didn’t really object to. Imagine how fed up the public would be, watching the Republicans physically bringing government to a halt. And they would not be able to blame it on us.
The problem with our current system is not that people can filibuster. It’s that they can filibuster invisibly. Bring back the real filibuster, and it will be used as intended, for serious objections, not just bills individuals oppose.