Congressional Filibuster Also on the Ballot November 5th

With so much attention being given to the presidential election itself, it is easy to overlook another critical factor that will be determined in the election: the filibuster.  Let’s refresh our recollection.  What is the filibuster and how is it utilized in the U.S. Senate?

The U.S. Senate website defines the filibuster and its close companion—the invoking of “cloture” (i.e., to close)—in this way:

“The Senate tradition of unlimited debate has allowed for the use of the filibuster, a loosely defined term for action designed to prolong debate and delay or prevent a vote on a bill, resolution, amendment, or other debatable question … In 1975 the Senate decided that 60 members of the 100-member Senate must vote to invoke cloture and end a filibuster.”   As a result, once a filibuster is begun the individual engaged in the filibuster may continue until 60 senators vote to end the filibuster or the individual literally collapses on the Senate floor from exhaustion.

Why is maintaining the 60-vote requirement to end a filibuster so important?  

Well, while the filibuster is not a literal part of the Constitution it is a longstanding and well-settled tradition that directly reflects what the Framers intended for the Senate to be, and the role it was to have.  After all, the U.S. Senate, which was viewed by the Framers as existing to check the heated and overwrought passions of the U.S. House, was designed to be a more methodical and deliberative body where calmer and wiser heads would prevail.  In fact, the analogy is that the U.S. House, as the body closest to the people, serves as the hot “cup” of rash and emotional legislative action and the U.S. Senate was viewed as the “saucer” onto which it spilled and cooled.  This is also why the term of office of a member of the U.S. House is two years and the smaller, and, theoretically, more rational and steadier Senate, is 6 years.

So why are Democrats swearing to abolish the 60-vote requirement to end a filibuster if Kamala Harris becomes president and they hold their majority?  Because they want to push through their Left-wing agenda with a bare majority vote.  In fact, Democrats in the Senate won’t even need a majority of 51 Senators to abolish the filibuster in a Harris presidency.  They would only need 50 Senators plus a Democrat Vice President breaking the tie.

What are some of the dangerous and radical steps Senate Democrats could then take in this scenario?

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has made clear that eliminating the 60-vote filibuster in a Kamala Harris presidency is a certainty and what would follow is alarming:  a strong push for a national abortion law, a federal election law (s) to protect “voting rights” that would take over most elections and make it much more difficult for states to conduct elections, including a blizzard of absentee ballots of the kind we saw during Covid, and the election fraud that would follow.  

Imagine the fundamental restructuring of the U.S. Supreme Court with “court packing” and other procedural changes that don’t require a constitutional amendment that would turn the Court into a third legislative body rather than the impartial, independent arbiter of law the Framers intended.  Imagine banning state right-to-work laws, to say nothing of massive new tax increases and regulation.  Schumer has also made clear he doesn’t have a problem with price controls for food—an historically, demonstrably bad idea—or price controls for drugs, and massive funding of the irrational doomsday Climate Change scenario.

With the 60-vote filibuster eliminated, the entire Socialist agenda becomes not just possible, but likely.  It is simply unwise and reckless to allow huge and sweeping changes of policy to be based on a slim, partisan majority of Senators.  If we are going to Medicare for All and are going to abolish private health insurance; or, if we are going to tax unrealized capital gains (a tax on money we haven’t even pocketed yet)—then at least 10 Senators from the opposition party should be in support of it.  I recall Thomas Jefferson’s vital governmental principle that “great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities.”

With four more years of destructive economic, foreign, and social policy, the America we know and love would be unrecognizable—and unrecoverable.  Trump simply must win and the U.S. Senate and U.S. House gain and hold Republican majorities.