As I’ve noted, these leadership challenges don’t mean a lot if they don’t include abolishing the filibuster. This afternoon Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who just announced what remains a fairly longshot challenge to Chuck Schumer, says he supports getting rid of it.
“My personal opinion is that we need democracy in the United States Senate and that means allowing ultimately a majority of senators to answer the call of the American people, so that means 51 votes … My personal view has been all along that the filibuster is an anti-democratic — small “d” — provision. It’s not in our Constitution. It was put in there by senators to enhance their power over the power of the people.”
As you can see he’s framing this as his personal view. But that goes without saying. As I explained, a parliamentary leader isn’t a “decider,” as George W. Bush famously put it. He or she steers where their caucus wants to go. So it’s not a matter of him saying I will do this when I’m leader. But him pretty unequivocally supporting it is a big, big deal.
Let me add a few additional points of context. You’ll note that Van Hollen says “ultimately” the majority should get its way. This is a key point since many people say they support restoring the “talking” filibuster in which the minority actually has to hold the floor without interruption to prevent a vote on a bill. That old system is more a matter of movies than reality. It never worked quite that way. But the concept has merit.
As TPM Readers know, the filibuster has been a big issue for me for many years. I’ve generally avoided getting into these different flavors of filibuster since it tends to overcomplicate and confuse the issue, which is getting rid of the absolute requirement of 60 votes to pass most laws (the exceptions being high level judicial appointments and reconciliation bills.) If I were deciding this on my own I would choose a system in which the minority could meaningfully delay a vote on a big issue but never indefinitely. Many parliamentary systems have versions of this with multiple “readings” of a bill. Say perhaps that the minority could hold up a vote for two or three weeks. That would be reasonable.
What’s the point? Two really. The Senate is supposed to be more deliberative. You can’t just bang through a bunch of laws in a single day with no debate. The standard argument is that the filibuster drives compromise. But that’s demonstrably false based on the record of the last quarter century. It creates gridlock. Majorities, even large ones, can’t pass the legislation they promised on the campaign trail. But there is a logic to saying that really important legislation shouldn’t barrel through the Senate before the public has gotten a chance to know what’s happening. The best argument for some kind of slow-rolling mechanism is that it gives the minority some time to draw public attention to something the public may not really support. It’s a complicated question, how necessary this is. My point in raising this is only to note that an ability for the minority to slow or stymie legislative is workable as long as it is not absolute and the minority has to affirmatively do something to accomplish it. A few weeks seems like a reasonable timeframe.
