Biden and His Enemy: The Filibuster
Two weeks ago, President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 into law. Now that Biden has passed through the first hurdle, he now faces significant challenges posed by the Senate’s filibuster.
The “filibuster” is a term for a blockade of bills on the Senate floor. Majority parties can surmount the filibuster with sixty Senators voting to end the debate. Up until recent decades, the filibuster was used sparingly by the minority party. For the most part, Republicans and Democrats would get their bill passed, with the President serving as the actual filibuster. In the Civil Rights Era, though, that changed.
A collection of Southern Democrats and Rural Republicans started to oppose many desegregation bills in the 50s-70s. They realized that the filibuster was a way to stymie Civil Rights bills. Back then, Senators would have to talk before a vote of the sixty-senators end the debate. Strom Thurmond (D-SC) used the debate to speak for an entire day on why the Civil Rights Act of 1957 should not pass. Notably, he had to maneuver around Senate rules to relieve himself throughout the speech. The Senate Majority Leader, Mike Mansfield (D-MT), opposed the continuation of addresses like Thurmond’s, so he removed debate before voting to end it. As a result, we have a filibuster requiring senators to vote to end a *non-existent* debate with sixty votes before voting on a bill that requires fifty votes.
Two exceptions apply to filibusters, including confirmation votes and bills that fall under reconciliation. In 2013, Senate Democrats finally were the ones to push the trigger ending the filibuster for confirmation votes, including Secretaries and judges. Bills that deal with taxes and economics will fall under reconciliation in the Senate, going straight past the option to end the debate with a final vote.
What does the filibuster have anything to do with President Biden’s four years? The filibuster is the last remaining barrier Democrats have to pass their crucial agenda. Because Democrats only have a fifty-seat majority in the Senate, they cannot afford to lose anyone, even Conservative Democrats like Joe Manchin (D-WV). A majority, though, does not mean Democrats can do whatever they want. Republicans have enough votes to drop Democratic bills, including popular legislation, like climate change or welfare programs. Therefore, Biden cannot do anything besides using his secretaries for regulations or passing bills that fall under reconciliation.
There are ways to remove the filibuster and let Biden do more meaningful actions. One way is to have sixty Senators from a party, which would then vote to disband the filibuster. Democrats do not have sixty Senators and will most likely not have that number in the foreseeable future. The other option is called “the nuclear option,” although there is nothing nuclear about it. With fifty Senators, Democrats can set a new precedent by changing parliamentary rules to ignore the filibuster.
Two people prevent Democrats from opening the floodgates of their policies: Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ). Senator Manchin is in a very red state, making opposing the end of the filibuster obvious. That said, Democrats are saying that these two figures are ruining the Democrat’s chances of reelection in 2022 because of their opposition. One thing could change this roadblock, though, with some compromises with Joe Manchin.
While the Senator from West Virginia opposes removing the filibuster, he is willing to amend it in the future so that the filibuster is back to its original “glory.” Instead of going straight to a vote to end the non-existent debate, Manchin’s idea is to debate before going to a vote ending the debate. That said, Manchin’s talking filibuster is fundamentally not stopping Democrat’s problem. Manchin still supports sixty votes to end the debate. Even though the talking filibuster would give Democrats valuable soundbites in the 2022 Midterms, their actual policies will not be influential. As a result, Democrats should get bills passed in the short-term that are most influential for 2022 by urging Manchin to consider it under reconciliation. In the long-term, though, the best situation for Democrats would be a talking filibuster with fifty votes to end debate.
For this article, Democrats will hypothetically have resolved the filibuster issue. What would Biden do in the next four years to prove that he should be reelected? Biden has many major policy proposals, below are just a few of his biggest:
Rebuilding America’s infrastructure.
Building upon the Medicaid expansion.
Shifting America to renewable sources.
Encouraging unionization of large companies.
Advancing the LGBTQ community.
Taxing the wealthy to pay all of the above.
Each of these provisions is immense by themselves, and more of them are relatively popular with Americans, both Democrats, and Republicans. Most of these topics will be covered in future articles, as each of them is very complex in terms of how depth we can go. That said, none of the above could happen, and almost none of Trump’s plan came to reality because of the filibuster.
Why Remove the Filibuster
There are a lot of issues facing Americans in this current day. For several decades, these issues have piled up, with no solutions provided. Infrastructure — no action, redlining — no action, rural broadband — no action. All of these proposals have passed in the House, but they have always been filibustered by enough votes in the Senate. These three issues are all popular with Americans. Republicans widely laud infrastructure reform, redlining is an issue everyone wants to see fixed, and rural broadband creates a more egalitarian America. The problem is the filibuster, and to see how removing the filibuster would work, take a look at the House of Representatives.
For all the problems the House has in producing shady congressmen, women, and people, inaction is not one of their problems. The House used to have a filibuster, where more than a majority had to vote in favor of the bill. Decades ago, though, the House removed the filibuster. Today, the House only has a final vote which requires a simple majority. Imagine the same idea happening in the future. This idea would help Democrats and Republicans alike, who could get their bills passed.
Democrats Have a Catch-22
Democrats could completely circumvent Senator Manchin and Sinema in blocking the filibuster. This idea would only occur in the 2022 Election, assuming if they could have a net gain of two seats. From there, they could altogether remove the filibuster, including the talking portion. The problem is, the House of Representatives will most likely flip to Republicans in 2022.
The incumbent party in the White House almost always loses seats in the House. 2022 further lowers the Democrats’ chances because of gerrymandering, where Republicans can get maps to favor themselves in Elections. Thus, even if Democrats were to remove the filibuster in 2023, they still could not pass their major legislation because Republicans would have a majority in the House.
For Democrats to have a chance at preventing gerrymandering by Republicans and have a chance at winning the House in 2022, they need to pass a bill that outlaws partisan gerrymandering with independent redistricting. Democrats have that proposal, which is called For the People Act. They need that bill to pass the Senate, which is subjected to the filibuster.
There is no way for Democrats to get their major legislation passed without going through Senator Manchin. Whatever Democrats do, all roads lead to Joe Manchin. If the bill does not pass the Senate, Manchin would consider using reconciliation to pass For the People Act. Ultimately, the future of Joe’s plan rests with another Joe.
There is no sign of bipartisanship coming along the way for Biden’s major proposals. Consequently, if the minority party can always stop the majority’s party legislation, even when the majority party were elected with more votes, then do we truly have a representative democracy?
References:
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Memmott, Mark. "How Did Strom Thurmond Last Through His 24-Hour Filibuster?"
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