How government shutdown It's Day 22, some Republicans in both chambers are pushing an idea that few in their party ever even entertained: Get rid of the legislative filibuster to end the quagmire.
In recent years, Democrats sailed changing the filibuster. Former senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema blocked efforts create an exception to codify a new version of the Voting Rights Act. They was hoping to do it again with abortion rights as the Supreme Court planned to overturn Roe v. Wade V Dobbs vs. Jackson solution, only to fail.
But now some far-right Republicans are pushing the idea.
“I think I don't want children in my state to go hungry, which is literally happening now, under some Senate procedure,” Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) told Independent.
Hawley came to the Senate during Donald Trump's first presidency after then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell broke the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has expressed a willingness to end the filibuster to end the government shutdown. (Getty Images)
But McConnell did so only after his predecessor, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, invoked the “nuclear option” on the filibuster, the 60-vote threshold needed to pass nearly everything in the Senate, during Barack Obama's presidency after Republicans repeatedly blocked Obama's nominees.
The move had far-reaching consequences: although Republican obstructionism reached its zenith during Obama's presidency, it meant that presidents no longer needed to make consensus decisions. One could argue that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s control of the Department of Health and Human Services, Kash Patel's reign at the FBI, Pete Hegseth's leadership at the Pentagon, and, of course, Dobbsgoes back to Reed's choice.
But for young rebels like Hawley who came of age in the Trump era, it's just the last remnant of the old guard that needs to be scrapped.
“If this goes on for too long, it's worth thinking about,” said Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio). Independent Senator Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) said Independent. “One thing you could do is make it 55, and the rules would be you can't raise spending or taxes. So put some guardrails around it, but I don’t think we’re here to have that conversation.”
Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), a freshman Republican, spoke in favor of continuing to pass the resolutions. But this can have serious consequences. (Getty Images)
Moreno, a freshman who won just last year and is a staunch ally of the president, said it depends on whether Democrats vote Thursday to pay federal workers.
He is not alone. Not surprisingly, House Republicans supported the idea. Representative Chip Roy (R-TX) told reporters Republicans must get rid of the filibuster on Monday to continue passing resolutions. Of course, there is some irony in Roy's proposal, given that he was Sen. Ted Cruz's chief of staff when Cruz shut down the government in 2013 to defend the Affordable Care Act.
But just as the Democrats' nuclear option had long-term consequences that ultimately strengthened Trump, failure to continue passing resolutions would all but kill the appropriations process.
That would mean the majority party would simply pass continuing resolutions instead of working in a bipartisan manner on the 12 spending bills needed to fund the government for a full fiscal year. And given that Democrats are more comfortable with higher spending levels, they would have every incentive to keep revenues the same if they take back the Senate, killing any chance Republicans like Roy have of fiscal restraint.
The late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid killed the filibuster of judicial and cabinet nominees after Republicans blocked the election of Barack Obama. But it opened the door for Donald Trump to pack the courts with conservatives. (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
That's probably why Roy's former boss, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), brushed aside Roy's remarks.
“Chip in the Senate?” he asked Independent.
“The House is not the Senate, and the Senate is not the House of Representatives, and it should be a place where there is adequate debate and discussion, and that would be the Senate of the United States,” Cornyn said. “And the truth is that it's bad for the country because we can't change policies every two years when a new majority wins an election. So it may be advisable, but it's a bad idea.”
Other Republicans, such as Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), warned of a slippery slope.
“Do it the first time, do it the second time, do it the third time,” he said. Independent. “You start declaring which one is important. The legislative filibuster exists to get people to sit down and talk.”
McConnell understood this deeply, which is why he tried to keep the filibuster after removing it for Supreme Court nominees, even though Trump wanted him to remove it after Republicans failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
But last year McConnell left his seat at the head of the Republican Party in the Senate. While his successor and protégé John Thune supports it, he may have a harder time staying in the lurch. And all it takes is Trump making the call in a late-night Truth Social post.
The filibuster is already on its last legs after Reid killed it over nominations. It took another blow when both sides resorted to transferring policy priorities through budget reconciliation, although neither used it to reduce the deficit.
For a long time, Republicans hoped Democrats would kill him so they could play the blame game. But the government shutdown could be the final knife in the stomach for the procedure that will prevent the Senate from becoming the meat grinder that is the House.
