We’ve heard several leading proposals for how to alter the filibuster rules to allow Dems in the US Senate to finally pass long overdue fortifications to our elections. The most promising proposals seem to be returning to a talking filibuster or creating a special carve out for voting rights.
There are issues with both approaches. A talking filibuster is no guarantee the 50+1 Senate majority can overcome obstruction to pass meaningful legislation. The voting rights carve out approach does not have enough votes to enact the filibuster rules change.
In the shadow of the 1 year anniversary of an attack on the Capitol… an attempt to subvert elections and the constitution… we are in unprecedented times. Unprecedented times require an unprecedented response. But Sen Joe Manchin doesn’t want to change the institution of the Senate permanently. What about temporarily?
What if we take a lesson for recent temporary carve outs to the filibuster, and propose a carve out to the filibuster for elections and voting reforms that explodes at the end of the current Congress in 2022?
Let’s have a carve out to the filibuster for anything relating to elections, as a specific response to the attack on the Capitol and the continuing anti democracy push at the state level. Give Dems the rest of the session to get to agreement, pass election reforms, and pull up the ladder behind ourselves?
Republicans would have to “go nuclear” again to change the filibuster if and when they win back a majority… not that the media would make them pay a price. It is only Dems who have shame about changing the rules when they have the power. We all know Mitch McConnell will wring his hands at that notion of changing the filibuster, not out of concern for how it will be perceived, but in glee as he fabricates some new precedent on which to blame his abuse on the abused… Dems made me do it, he will moan. And he will hit us again and again.
Senate Dems need to step up and pass both voting and elections protections. Republicans refuse to help. Time to jettison the filibuster, at least as long as it takes to protect elections. McConnell will trash Dems no matter what, and doing nothing is essentially surrender.
I get it, the filibuster is undemocratic. It should be eliminated completely or altered more substantially. But we don’t have the votes for that. The next best thing is to alter it long enough to protect democracy. Doing nothing is NOT an option.