With voting rights on the line, some senators flub history test

[LetMyPeopleVote]

If you are going to cite history as a reason to support the filibuster, then you need to know the actual history

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Senators are certainly entitled to their own opinions, but they're not entitled to just make up historical details that don't exist — and Sinema's argument about how the filibuster was created was just spectacularly and unquestionably untrue. It's not a matter of perspective: The historical record simply proved the Arizonan wrong.

Yesterday, the Senate's other Democratic opponent of overhauling the filibuster rules ran into similar trouble.

Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia reportedly told Fox News' Chad Pergram that the filibuster has been "the tradition of the Senate" for 232 years. According to the Capitol Hill correspondent's tweet, the conservative Democrat added, "That's what we've always had for 232 years."

This came a week after Manchin told reporters he cared about voting rights, but he was also focused on protecting "the Senate as it has operated for 232 years."

No.

[wyn borkins]

1. Review

Fili and Buster

[dalton99a]

2. Kick

What Manchin, Sinema, and others should not do, however, is argue that their position is rooted in the Senate's institutional history. It is not.

Jon Chait added overnight, "[T]he filibuster has changed repeatedly over the years. When it first appeared, unanimous consent was required to end debate, then two-thirds, then 60 percent. For the vast majority of its time, it was reserved by custom for rare instances of especially heated dissent (frequently, by Southerners to block civil rights bills.) The filibuster only came into its modern incarnation as a routine supermajority requirement during the Clinton era. Before then, legislation often passed through a majority vote."

As unsettling as it is to hear senators present ahistorical arguments, just as notable is the context in which they've been offered: Several members of the Senate Democratic Conference have spent the last several months negotiating with Manchin, hoping to convince him to help strengthen our democracy and restore the chamber's traditional model.

It appears those efforts are falling short.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

3. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it

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