Debating Busting the Filibuster

I’m freshly back from vacation; before I left, I went on Henry Olsen’s Conservative Crossroads podcast to debate the Senate filibuster with Rachel Bovard:

I’ve laid out my principal argument in print here, here, and here. I’ll add just a few observations here. First, significantly, Bovard concedes that the destruction of the 60-vote cloture rule as an obstacle to legislation would be a bad thing, and she at least professes not to seek that. But this not only lends the whole debate a certain air of unreality; it collides with the primary public messaging of the “talking filibuster” from figures such as President Trump:

“You’re going to hear the excuse it needs 60 votes…THAT’S NOT TRUE.” “If 51 Republicans show up — Democrats have to filibuster and talk for hours. As long as Republicans show a BACKBONE and stay united, Democrats eventually run out of time to talk!” “Tell your senator to make the Democrats actually DEBATE instead of just giving in to them!”

Second, Bovard’s go-to example of major legislation passed without 60 votes in the Senate was the partial-birth abortion ban. Democrats let it through the Senate with 56 votes when Bill Clinton was certain to veto it — and wanted to do so. Years later, when Republican fortunes were much more favorable, 17 Democrats joined them in passing the bill through the Senate for George W. Bush’s signature.

Third, Bovard argues that the theatrics of a filibuster can help move public opinion and change votes. I may have sounded more hostile to this than I should have been; I’m not against the idea of using the levers of the congressional rules to create theatrical confrontations that can move the public to apply pressure to members of Congress. But I don’t think those changes of votes come from debate persuading wavering members; they come from voter pressure. And that is, if anything, undermined by senators believing that their votes are not necessary to passage.

The Senate is dysfunctional, and it should debate and engage publicly more with the legislative process. But I continue to believe that watering down the final, fundamental rules-based 60-vote threshold, or signaling to the voters that there’s one weird trick to get around it, is more destructive than the benefits to be gained by any particular public debate on any particular item of legislation.