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Fix the Filibuster NOW
In September of 2020, I wrote an article that defended the filibuster as a way to stabilize our legislative process. Some laws should take a supermajority to change, and the filibuster was — I emphasize the past tense — a passable way to determine what those laws would be. (In the art of the possible, “passable” is a high grade.) The wonders of hypertext make it unnecessary for me to rehearse here my arguments there.
McConnell is in the details.
Today I want to talk about how crucial the changes in the filibuster were to the mess in which we find ourselves. I consider myself a reductionist, which is to say I look for pivot points, things that, to borrow from Robert Frost (but without the irony) “make all the difference.” I believe that the technical-sounding change in the Senate’s cloture rule from requiring a percentage of senators voting to a percentage of senators sitting made all the difference in how our politics have unfolded ever since. Without that change, I believe Obamacare would be Clintoncare, Hillary would have been President in 2008, and Barack Obama would be President now.
During Obama’s second term, Congress never had an approval rating higher than 20%. That is Mitch McConnell being “the most consequential majority leader” in history, his stated goal. Like…