Our Rules or Theirs?

by Paul Jacob: Last Thursday, President Biden signaled “that he would be willing to consider supporting the elimination of the filibuster,” CBS News reported following his first news conference, “if Senate Republicans use it to block Democratic legislative priorities from receiving a full vote on the Senate floor.”

“If”? Stopping the majority party from taking its legislation to a floor vote without a 60-vote supermajority to end debate is what the filibuster does.

The president, a Democrat, is saying the filibuster is OK . . . as long as Republicans don’t use it.

You will of course not be shocked to learn that Biden has been a longtime, adamant supporter of the filibuster. In 2005, he gave an impassioned defense, arguing, “At its core, the filibuster is not about stopping a nominee or a bill — it’s about compromise and moderation.”

Biden called the GOP attack then a “fundamental power grab” and said his oration “may be one of the most important speeches for historical purposes that I will have given in the 32 years since I have been in the Senate.”

Yet, the filibuster is not in the Constitution.

It is simply a Senate rule. And the majority party in the Senate can thereby fiddle with it.

I’m not so much wed to the filibuster as I am wed to the idea that the rules with which Washington insiders wield power serve us and not just themselves.

The filibuster should be made official in law or Constitution precisely so politicians cannot change it on whim or passion.

Or it should be ended. But not before one party (or both) actually campaigns to end it, so that the American people can weigh in. Because these must be our rules if it is to be our government.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Paul Jacob (@Common_Sense_PJ) is author of Common Sense which provides daily commentary about the issues impacting America and about the citizens who are doing something about them. He is also President of the Liberty Initiative Fund (LIFe) as well as Citizens in Charge Foundation.

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