Among the many “dangers to the Republic” if the Left has their way, is their promise to end the filibuster in the Senate. This is called “the nuclear option.” This would allow a Democratic (or Republican) majority to steamroll through legislation with just 51 votes, not 60. It’s mob rule that endangers the rights of the minority.
FTR: we were against ending the filibuster when Republicans have had Senate control.
We wanted to call to your attention to a brilliant piece from one of our favorite senators, Mike Lee of Utah, that explains why the 60-vote rule should be sacrosanct:
“Woke” leftists tend to see the Senate’s 60-vote cloture threshold not as a prudent protection of minority rights, but as an anti-democratic obstacle to progress. Indeed, former president Barack Obama — a prolific filibusterer himself during his Senate career — falsely derided the filibuster rule as a “Jim Crow relic.”
The Left seems to see nuking the cloture rule as a pure win for its side, with no tradeoffs or downsides. It’s a simple step, they believe, that will lead the United States, at long last, to the broad, sunlit uplands of Scandinavian social democracy…
The true purpose of nuking the filibuster is not to “finally get things done” or to “break through the gridlock” or any other hackish trope parroted by the political press. Rather, it is to allow a Senate majority to pass partisan bills that aren’t politically compelling enough to attract bipartisan support. That’s not a value judgment; it’s a fact.
What the Democrats’ “Nuke It!” caucus seems to believe is that such bills — those popular enough to get 51 Senate votes, but not 60 — are somehow, by definition, progressive. This is where they veer from theory into fantasy…
But make no mistake: It could be very, very good for many conservative activists and an absolute disaster for the Democratic Party’s woke, progressive elite.
Here, in no particular order, is an inexhaustive list of conservative policy reforms that have never had a serious chance to win 60 Senate votes under current rules, but that could very plausibly get 51 in a post-nuclear upper chamber after the next “red wave” election. Among them:
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- Education reforms embracing school choice, simultaneously rescuing poor families from lousy school bureaucracies and politically declawing left-wing teachers’ unions.
- Fully funding a border wall and workplace enforcement of immigration laws, including the overdue “E-Verify” system…
- Laws to improve America’s election security and integrity..
- Defunding critical-race-theory boondoggles at federal agencies and federal contractors…
- Barring federal aid to cities that defund their police departments.
- Turning the District of Columbia — over which Congress has total legislative authority — into a working laboratory of conservative policy experimentation…
- Further protecting Americans’ Second Amendment rights….
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Upon reading this, conservatives might now be licking their chops, begging Senate Democrats to hand us this gift. But as gratifying as it would be to see the aforementioned conservative reforms put into law after the next “red wave” election, and as happy as I would be voting for most of them, I still urge my victorious Democratic colleagues to resist the temptation. Partisan advantage aside, it remains the case that nuking the filibuster would still be bad for America.
Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema were the only two Senate Democrats who heroically saved the filibuster two years ago – but both will be gone from the Senate next year
Who among the remaining Senate Ds will vote to preserve it? This is a question that should be asked NOW of every candidate of BOTH parties running for the Senate this year.