Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is making threatening noises (as threatening as he can muster) over talk of ending (or tweaking) the filibuster. Some of that talk came on Tuesday from President Biden.
“Nobody serving in this chamber can even begin — can even begin — to imagine what a completely scorched-earth Senate would look like,” McConnell said. “The Senate would be more like a 100-car pileup. Nothing moving.”
Raw Story has Chris Cuomo’s reaction:
“Now, not only is this not true, but it is not to be believed,” said Cuomo. “I don’t know why anybody is seeing this with any type of sense of apprehension. It’s being viewed as a threat. It is not a threat. It is a promise from a political conniver without equal, who’s made a legacy of beating the Democrats. He eliminated the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations in 2017. Hello? Why would you listen to him about this? Why would you even consider what he’s saying? That was scorched earth.”
“No one can imagine it?” he continued incredulously. “You lived it, Democrats. You’ve lived it with him. He refused to even meet with a president from your party’s Supreme Court nominee. Remember his reasoning. It was too close to an election. Then what did he do? He confirmed his own party’s nominee in record time during an election. Millions of Americans had already voted. Why is anyone surprised by what he says or does? Why would you even weigh his words? Why would you even put it into the calculus of what you need to do to get your agenda done?”
“Be more like him when it comes to understanding manipulation of the power,” said Cuomo. “He only does scorched earth. Show me Mitch McConnell acting in bipartisan fashion on any regular basis. Scorched earth is passing unpopular, unpaid-for tax cuts for millionaires without a single Democrat vote. Scorched earth is burning millions of struggling Americans by holding relief hostage, and why? To protect corporations during a pandemic. Do you really think McConnell is going to work with the Democrats on [voting rights bills] H.R. or S. 1? This is a holy war for the opposition party. Expanding voting rights is an existential threat to a party banking on white fright.”
“By the way, the filibuster was born during the Jim Crow period to allow the senator who didn’t want progress to slow it down,” added Cuomo. “That’s where it comes from. It’s not in the Constitution. Just as now in the last wave of politics it’s about suppressing the minority vote, this time to block Biden’s agenda.”
Norm Ornstein responded with a brief tweet storm:
In other words, sound and fury from McConnell signifying nothing but his displeasure at being leader of the minority.
Something has got to give on the filibuster. Its elimination is not a matter of if but when and how. Especially now that President Biden has expressed support for change (Vox):
The president came out in favor of filibuster reform in an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. After Stephanopoulos asked Biden if he’ll have to “choose between preserving the filibuster and advancing your agenda,” the president initially answered “yes.” But he then clarified that he’s inclined to support a middle ground between eliminating the filibuster outright and preserving existing rules, which allows the Republican minority to block most legislation unless 60 senators agree that a bill should pass.
“Back in the old days,” Biden said, a senator who wished to maintain a filibuster “had to stand up and command the floor” and “keep talking on.”
The president, in other words, endorsed a so-called “talking filibuster,” a possible reform that recently received some tepid support from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), another Senate veteran who previously opposed changing the filibuster rule. Under this framework, at least one senator in the minority would have to stand on the Senate floor and keep talking in order to maintain a filibuster.
Yet, as is often the case with rules reform, the devil is in the details. Depending on how senators crafted a new filibuster rule, that new rule could provide a potent deterrent against future filibusters — or it could prove to be a paper tiger that does little to prevent the minority party from obstructing legislation.
Democrats had better craft craftily. If there exists a way to obstruct Democrats that Mitch McConnell has not found, he’ll find it. Or invent it.