Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) on Thursday said that Republicans have “no stomach at all” to blow up the legislative filibuster, though Senate Republicans voted earlier the same day to change the filibuster rules on Supreme Court nominations.
“There is no stomach at all to change the legislative filibuster, so there’s still the requirement to reach across the aisle to get 60 votes,” Flake said on CNN. “I’m glad there is.”
He cited Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) comment that there is “no sentiment to change the legislative filibuster.”
“If you want legislation that endures, that is durable, then you reach across the aisle, and that’s what we have to do on legislation,” Flake said. “We’ll still have to do that and I’m glad for that. That makes the Senate the Senate.”
Senate Republicans on Thursday went nuclear in the face of a Democratic filibuster and voted to change Senate rules in order to move forward Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court with a simple majority.
Give it time and a long sequence of dem legislative filibusters shutting down tax cuts, if not on reconciliation, abortion limiting, and other RW bigot legislation.
Oh, Lawd. Enough of this, start winning some elections and make the Republicans the minority they really are. There are more of us than them, we have the winning issues, we just have crappy messaging and no taste for getting down and dirty as necessary to do good.
Shorter Senator Flake: we need the Democrats to block all the terrible legislation the GOP seeks to pass.
In translation: I know how unpopular our ideas are and if we painted ourselves into a corner and had to actually deliver on them it would be back to selling second-hand RVs in Gilbert for me!
Exactly. Especially the crap that comes out of the House.
You know, if Dems get rid of the filibuster when they’re in power, it might be a win-win. When they’re in power, they pass what they want with a simple majority vote. And when the Republicans are in charge, they’re forced to either pass the garbage that comes out of the House or explain why they’re not “real conservatives”.