WASHINGTON – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has a message for Democrats: Don’t end the legislative filibuster if you gain control, or you will regret it.
“The important thing for our Democratic friends is to remember that you may not be in full control in the future. And every time you start playing by the Senate rules, you should always put yourself in the other person’s shoes and just imagine what might happen when the winds change, “the Kentucky Republican told reporters Tuesday.
McConnell called on “responsible Democratic senators” not to be “trampled by the extreme left” and to preserve “the only institution that guaranteed that the United States remained in the middle of the road.”
McConnell’s comments come as Democrats debate among themselves whether they should preserve the supermajority requirement to pass legislation if they gain control of the White House and Congress this fall and their agenda is obstructed. Numerous progressive activists, as well as former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, support its abolition.
Democrats favoring change, including potential vice presidential candidate, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, say the 60-vote rule gives a minority of senators a permanent veto that precludes progressive governance, particularly given the structure The Senate that grants small red states like Idaho and Wyoming have the same representation as the big blue states like California and New York.
“If Mitch McConnell is going to do to the next Democratic president what he did to President Obama, and that is trying to block everything he does, then we are going to roll back the filibuster,” Warren said during a primary presidential debate. at the end of February
But other Democrats like the power that allows them to shape and block legislation while in the minority, and some of them have more centrist views, such as Senator Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., And Senator Joe Manchin, DW.V.
The debate was recently revived after Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware, a moderate ally of Biden who has supported the filibuster, told Politico that he is ready to abolish it. “I will not sit idly by for four years and will see the Biden administration’s initiatives blocked at every step,” he said.
A Biden campaign spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether he would support or oppose a Democratic effort to abolish the 60-vote threshold for the legislation.
The filibuster is a Senate rule that arose by historical accident as rule changes in the early 1800s deprived the majority party of a way to cut debate. It was rarely used for generations and stood out in the mid-1950s when southern senators used it to filter civil rights legislation. Under President Barack Obama, McConnell, then a minority leader, increased its use to block or reduce parts of his agenda.
Achieving “cloture” initially required unanimous consent. In 1917, it was cut to 67 votes. The last time it changed was in 1975, requiring 60 votes to end the debate. It is not a constitutional requirement and can be changed with 51 votes in the Senate.
However, McConnell defended the elimination of the filibuster for judicial and executive appointments, saying the 60-vote threshold for confirming nominees has been “a very recent phenomenon” dating back to the George W. Bush presidency.
“So that’s not really a revolution,” he said. “What would be a revolution, and turning the Senate into the House, would be to change the legislative filibuster.”
Adam Jentleson, who served as Reid’s spokesman, rejected McConnell’s characterization of the filibuster as a tool to promote moderation.
“It was invented to allow a minority of white conservatives to impose their will in a changing country, and that is the purpose it serves today,” he wrote on Twitter.
