The Democratic Party said two years ago that the filibuster was nothing better than an evil relic of the racist Jim Crow era. But last week, Democrats fell in love with it again, seeing it as a vital tool for protecting minority rights. Elections and the transfer of power make such a difference.
Where once the far-left activist base of the Democratic Party ran independent Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin out of the caucus because they failed to vote with every other Senate Democrat to end the filibuster, now the same activists demand Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) be ousted, calling for him to be challenged in a primary election because he refused to use the once-racist filibuster.
On Jan. 19, 2022, after Senate Democrats failed to get 60 votes for a bill to ban voter identification requirements nationwide (84% of voters support voter identification), Schumer called for a procedural vote that, if agreed, would have ended the Senate filibuster rule forever. Senate Democrats may have claimed the vote was for just this one bill, but that is not how Senate precedent works. Once rules are changed by the majority for one bill, they can be changed for all.
Former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden recently called the filibuster “a relic of Jim Crow,” with Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) adding, “I just think the filibuster is fundamentally antidemocratic.”
Manchin and Sinema were the only Democrats who voted with Republicans against the rule change, denying Schumer the 50 votes he needed to change the rules. Then-Vice President Kamala Harris was standing ready to cast the 51st tiebreaking vote.
If Manchin and Sinema had voted to end the filibuster that night, it would have released a wave of leftist legislation that could have changed the nation permanently. Democrats had bills to criminalize opposition to same-sex marriage and transgender surgery for children, to pack the Supreme Court with activist judges, to add Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., as the 51st and 52nd states, to force taxpayers to fund abortions, and to give amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants Biden allowed into the country.
Maybe far-left-wing Democrats are right. As Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) argued this weekend, these changes may have solidified a Democratic Party victory last November. But maybe not. The Biden administration was already terribly unpopular, and pulling the country further left could have made the backlash against him even stronger.
Republicans would eventually have won back control over the government, and then, without the filibuster, Democrats would have no protection from what an unrestrained Republican Party would do.
The Supreme Court would be packed again, this time with conservative justices, the states of North Idaho and West Texas would be added to counter Puerto Rico and D.C., Obamacare would be repealed, and the Department of Education would be dismantled.
The filibuster always annoys the party in power, but it serves the republic well. The possibility of a filibuster forces parties to work together on significant changes to federal law that affect the country’s fabric. The reconciliation process allows a mere majority to change spending, debt, and deficits, but that rule was made legislatively, not by a simple majority vote, and is confined to budgetary questions.
It is unfortunate that the Democratic Party insists on crying “racism” whenever it doesn’t get its way. Victims of its venomous rhetoric, such as Sinema, have every right to call out its hypocrisy when it presents itself so obviously.