Come January, Democrats are going to have to deal with being completely out of power for the first time in four years. They lost the Oval Office, the House, and the Senate, and while this will give Trump and the GOP a relatively easy time getting the MAGA agenda passed, Democrats still have one tool at their disposal: the legislative filibuster in the Senate.
It's ironic because Democrats tried and falied to abolish it during Joe Biden's presidency. Oh, it seems like only yesterday they were calling it a relic of the Jim Crow era and all sorts of absurd things. Naturally, they're all for it now, and they intend to use it.
"Soon to be in the minority, Democrats are ready to use whatever tactics are at their disposal to put up roadblocks for Republicans and President-elect Donald Trump — including the 60-vote threshold many have long sought to abolish," notes the Washington Examiner.
“I’d be lying if I said we’d be in a better position without the filibuster,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said. “We have a responsibility to stop autocratic and long-headed [sic] abuse of power or policy, and we’ll use whatever tools we have available. We’re not going to fight this battle with one hand tied behind our back.”
Outgoing Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) also claims to view the filibuster as a key element in how Democrats will approach resistance in the upcoming Congress, where Republicans hold a 53-47 majority. “We had to live with it when we were in the majority,” he remarked, acknowledging the challenges it presents in a divided chamber.
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This is true, but he conveniently ignores the fact that Democrats tried to abolish it in 2022, and we can all feel confident that Democrats will try to abolish it again the next time they see it as a roadblock for their agenda and are in a position to abolish it.
“If the Republicans block cloture on the legislation before us, I will put forward a proposal to change the rules to allow for a talking filibuster on this legislation,” Schumer warned the GOP in January 2022, as the Democrats were hoping to pass legislation to radically change elections in the United States.
At the time, Schumer argued that abolishing the filibuster was necessary to pass the Democrats' agenda.
“The vast majority of our caucus strongly disagree with Senators Manchin and [Kyrsten] Sinema [D., Ariz.] on rules changes,” Schumer said. “The overwhelming majority of our caucus knows that if you’re going to try to rely on Republican votes, you will get zero progress on voting rights.”
The ironic thing about this is that the point of the filibuster is to protect the rights of the minority party by ensuring that legislation cannot pass without significant debate and compromise. Democrats don't want compromise—not when they have a majority, and that's why they go back and forth between loving and hating the filibuster.
The new Republican majority shouldn't delude itself into thinking that Democrats won't abolish the filibuster at some point. So they need to be tough with the Democrat minority next year and tell them abuse of the filibuster will not be tolerated. If they use the fllibuster to excessively block legislation, they can kiss it goodbye.
