Ronald Brownstein: Why Manchin and Sinema Will Be the Last Pro-filibuster Democrats

[Nevilledog]

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Ronald Brownstein
@RonBrownstein
It was a stinging loss for civil rights & democracy but the debate made clear ⁦@Sen_JoeManchin⁩ & ⁦@SenatorSinema⁩ are very likely to be the last 2 Dem Senators ever who support the filibuster for voting rights & maybe for much more. Here’s why

theatlantic.com
Democrats Moved the Filibuster Overton Window
Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema may be the last in the their party who support maintaining the procedure.
8:25 AM · Jan 20, 2022

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/01/manchin-sinema-democrats-filibuster/621298/

*snip*

The leading Democratic Senate challengers for 2022, even in tough swing states such as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, have already indicated support for changing the rules. They’re not alone: Key party constituencies are pledging to withhold support for Democrats who do not back filibuster reform. The movement has been as striking among incumbents, including those from tough swing states. Ultimately, every Democratic senator except Manchin and Sinema voted to change the filibuster rules in an attempt to pass the party’s twin voting-rights bills last night. That level of agreement seemed very much an uphill climb one year ago.

If Democrats lose unified control of Congress in November, it's not clear when they will regain it and the power to implement their new consensus on retrenching the filibuster. But it is clear that Manchin and Sinema are holding to a position that leaves them almost completely isolated in the party. “I think it is very likely they are the last two elected Democrats who support the filibuster,” Eli Zupnick, the spokesperson for Fix Our Senate, a group advocating for filibuster reform, told me. “It is no longer a tenable position to defend the broken status quo.”

All of this may be cold comfort to advocates smarting from last night’s defeat—and facing the prospect that red states could have almost unfettered freedom to restrict voting rights over the next few years if Republicans regain one or both Congressional chambers this fall.

But a series of events over roughly the past week suggest that by forcing the voting-rights fight to a climactic, if doomed, vote, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has accelerated the development of a new consensus position in the party. These rapid-fire developments include:

•Last Thursday, a coalition of leading party interest groups, including the League of Conservation Voters, Black Voters Matter Fund, the Latino Victory Fund, and End Citizens United/Let America Vote announced they would withhold endorsements from senators who opposed the filibuster changes.

*snip*

[FBaggins]

1. Hardly

Once we're back in the minority (particularly if we lose the white house), most will rediscover their love for the filibuster.

[ColinC]

5. You use the tools at hand to push through your agenda

There is nothing hypocritical about trying to make sure the best policies pass. It is is when those policies become at jeopardy that your principles are tested as to how much you actually believe in them.

[FBaggins]

7. The filibuster isn't a tool to push through an agenda

It’s a tool that allows the minority to block the majority’s agenda.

Some are claiming that’s not appropriate.

[ColinC]

11. (or block the worse policies)

If you are in the minority, you use the tools to block the bad policies. If you are in the majority, you try to do what you can to push through the best policies. If they are truly important enough then it very well might be worth it.

[FBaggins]

14. Agreed

I suspect that the republicans feel the same way. They just don’t agree on which things are truly important.

[ColinC]

17. Exactly.

[Klaralven]

2. If the Republicans win control of the Senate this Fall, most Democrats will support the filibuster

[Grins]

3. That's OK!

It’s still using the rules, the tools that let them do that. Republicans could have prevented that but in lock-step refused. Eff ‘em!

If they point out Democrats are OPENLY filibustering, accused Democrats should stand tall and say, “Damn right I am!! Whaddaya gonna’ do about it?”

Whatever - just don’t apologize!

[FBaggins]

4. It might take a bit longer than that

Obviously … many Democratic senators DO support the filibuster (they just used it last week)

But even if we ignore that… president Biden can always use the veto… so we won’t have to filibuster things unless they would be more politically damaging for him

[The Grand Illuminist]

6. Getting rid of the filibuster is a double edged sword...

That may do more harm than good.

[FBaggins]

9. It certainly did more harm than good with judges

But free are willing to admit it

[AZSkiffyGeek]

10. There is also a lot pointing out Turtle and the Supreme Court

While ignoring that Reid did the same thing for other judicial nominees. Would Turtle have done the carve-out had Reid not set the precedent? I'm not sure...

[FBaggins]

13. We don't even need to look at McConnell

Reid made clear at the time that if Republicans tried to filibuster a Supreme Court nominee, he would blow that up too. There’s no real question that the first Nuke effectively ended all judicial filibusters.

I’m not even sure what the argument would be - since the process is constitutionally identical

[The Grand Illuminist]

18. We cannot also forget

The Republicans were for ending the filibuster before they were against it during the Bush years. It took Robert Byrd to save it.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

8. One thing a Republican speaker said stood out to me yesterday

That Dems had filibustered a late-term abortion ban in 2017. It wouldn't make a difference in 2022 to be able to stop that, since we have the Presidency, but bills like that, I'd like us to have the power to stop.
I also wonder, if we keep the senate, what they will do when writing the new Senate rules in Jan. 2023 - will they switch it to talking? It ALMOST sounded like Manchin would support that, just not in the way it was done yesterday.
I dunno. All I'm sure of is we need to go full frontal assault to GOTV over the next 10 months.

[FBaggins]

12. Manchin has supported some form of "talking filibuster" for years

But, as with other changes, he’s unwilling to blow up the filibuster with a simple majority vote in order to achieve it. So it probably isn’t going far.

As for your GOTV comment - you’re entirely correct. We need to rapidly get off of the “death of democracy” rhetoric or it’s going to kill us. It will cost us far more votes in lost turnout than any restrictive voting measures that republicans states are pushing.

[Nevilledog]

15. Republicans will get rid of filibuster immediately.

And say they had to because Dems tried to.

Let the Republicans reap the whirlwind of passing wildly unpopular bills.

[FBaggins]

16. No they won't

Last edited Thu Jan 20, 2022, 03:50 PM - Edit history (1)

Not only to avoid looking immediately hypocritical... but because it doesn't do anything for them for a minimum of two years.

So what if they can narrowly pass something that would otherwise have been filibustered? They can't force Biden to sign it.

The next time the question comes up will be when they control House/Senate/White House and have something big that they can't get without it.

Here’s hoping that’s many years away