Progressives are increasingly coming to see ending the 60-vote Senate, and restoring majority rule, as a necessary step to making progressive governance possible. At the same, moving to a 51-vote Senate is also viewed as a nearly impossible political task.
None the less, the White House is starting to make some noise about ending the filibuster. Last week, when I asked David Axelrod about the possibility of ending the filibuster permanently, Axelrod told me "that isa discussion worth having," and that the White House "would have an interest in that discussion." Yesterday, Vice-President Joe Biden also implied an interest in permanently ending the filibuster (emphasis mine):
"From my perspective, having served here, having been elected seven times, I've never seen a time when it's become standard operating procedure," Biden said of the filibuster. "And I really mean this unrelated to the fact that Barack and I are sitting down in the West Wing now. For any president in the future, having to move through anything he or she wants, requiring a supermajority is not a good way to do business."
White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer piled on:
This isn't just a problem for nominees; it's become a problem for legislating, too. Historically, the filibuster has been used as a way to try and reach a bipartisan compromise; now it's just a tactic used to gum up the works. The Senate has had to cast more votes to break filibusters last year than in the entire 1950s and '60s combined. This has prevented an honest debate from taking place, which has made it impossible to find agreement on important legislation that would benefit working families in this country.
What's clear from all of this is that we need to change the way business is done in this city. If we're going to have a government that works for the American people, then we need to focus on the things that actually matter to them, like jobs and health care. Every day we waste delaying votes on well-qualified public servants or obstructing progress on problems that need solving is a day we're not doing our jobs. It's time to put an end to these partisan political games and get back to work.
There are two important things about these statements:
- By joining the calls to end the filibuster permanently, the White House is starting to build pressure on Republicans to stop filibustering. The implied threat is "if you keep filibustering, we will work to get rid of the filibuster."
- The White House is articulating a case for why the filibuster is bad for Americans in general, rather than just for their own administration. Biden points to "any President in the future," rather than just his own. Pfeiffer talks about the filibuster preventing "honest debate," "progress," job creation, and better health care. The filibuster becomes an attach on the American people, rather than just a procedural obstacle that few people understand.
Combined, all of these statements actually come off as longing for a stronger, more prominent, grassroots movement to end the filibuster. This is a movement the White House would not want to lead themselves, but which would give more weight to the implied threat in #1 and broader articulation of the arguments they are making in #2.
As difficult as ending the filibuster may appear, if it has become enough of a threat to the things the White House values, then it has certainly become a major threat to things other powerful Democrats value. And, once it becomes a major threat to something the party values, then the party leadership becomes increasingly likely to join in an effort to defeat it. At this point, it seems to me that many in the party leadership are waiting for the grassroots to start building this movement, so they can jump in later on.
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