Opinion | Abolish the Filibuster

In just a few months, Democrats will have their largest congressional majority since 2009.

But Donald Trump will still be president. And with Stephen Miller by his side as White House chief of staff, there is almost no chance that the president will want to work with that Democratic majority to pass legislation or make any kind of progress over the next two years. The most likely outcome will be a defiant Trump fighting Democratic-led investigations and defying any effort to rein in his authority and discipline his administration.

Most of what Democrats pass will be purely symbolic — less a set of actual laws than a preview of governance under a Democratic president.

Still, passing legislation, I think, will be a good thing. In fact, Democrats should pass as much as they can, even if Trump vetoes every bill they put on his desk.

But there is a problem.

The current rules of the Senate make productivity impossible. As long as the filibuster exists, Democrats will be bogged down in endless negotiations to try to win the minimum of four votes necessary to invoke cloture. Worse, the 60-vote threshold gives every Democrat leverage over the entire agenda. If, for example, John Fetterman does not want to pass a new Voting Rights Act, then a new Voting Rights Act will not get passed. Looking at the Senate landscape, it is hard to see where Democrats would pick up additional support. At no point in the last 20 years have Republicans shown any desire to work with Democrats to pass the party’s priorities.

I have made the case for abolishing the filibuster before. The supermajority requirement for legislation has bogged down and undermined the legislature’s ability to govern, weakening Congress and empowering the presidency and the courts. The filibuster impedes bipartisanship by killing most legislation; why work together when there’s almost no chance that the bill will pass? And Democrats should understand by now that the filibuster does far more to impede their program than it does the Republican agenda, which rests almost entirely on items — tax cuts and judicial confirmations — that can be accomplished with a simple majority vote.

The American people elected Democrats to hold Trump accountable for corruption and despotism, and to govern. Congressional Democrats can do the former of their own accord. But to have any hope for the latter, Senate Democrats need to end, or at least amend, the filibuster. Anything less would squander the opportunity they’ve been given by voters.

For most of its history, the Senate has operated by simple majority vote. The filibuster was used only in extraordinary circumstances. The routine supermajority threshold of the past 20 years is less sacred tradition than modern invention. And while it is not hard to imagine the risks of ending the filibuster, skeptics should consider the disillusionment that comes from seeing Congress grind to a halt over an arbitrary procedural rule. Whatever advantage Democrats won last week would probably be short-lived.

It should also be said that the recent habit of packaging all legislative plans into a handful of omnibus superbills has not paid political dividends for the Democratic Party. It is harder to tell a story about laws that contain everything and, from the perspective of voters, do nothing in particular. This was true with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act under President Barack Obama, and it was true with the Inflation Reduction Act under President Joe Biden. The alternative is for Congress to do what it did for most of its history: pass small, individual bills targeted at the particular problems they hope to solve. These bills are easier to craft, easier to explain and easier to sell to the public. And a Congress that is passing legislation at a regular pace is a Congress that looks productive to voters who want their government to be doing something.

The only way to do this is to cast the filibuster aside. If that is too much, if Senate Democrats want to preserve the tradition of unlimited debate, then Democrats could instead reform the filibuster to require 41 members on the floor to continue debate, rather than 60 members to end it. In other words, they could put the burden on the party that wants to obstruct or halt the process, not on the one that wants to work.

I have quoted Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts before: “The two great rights in our representative bodies are voting and debate,” he wrote in 1893. “If the courtesy of unlimited debate is granted it must carry with it the reciprocal courtesy of permitting a vote after due discussion.”

Or, as Senator-elect James Talarico of Texas said earlier this month, just before the election: “The majority has the right to govern in this country.”

The filibuster makes that impossible in the name of an illusory bipartisanship. And while I understand those Democrats who want to reach across the aisle in good faith, they should know that the most important, transformative political programs in the history of this country have been partisan.

Put differently, the voting public did not vote for bipartisanship; they voted for Democrats to govern as Democrats. The least the next Congress could do is to respect that choice and proceed accordingly.

What I Wrote

I wrote about the partisan transformation in the Deep South and the extent to which it rested on the activism, energy and faith of Black voters. I’ll note, as a postscript to this column, that Scott Colom was declared the winner of the Mississippi Senate race on Wednesday.

Here, it is important to remember that most Black Americans are just one or two generations removed from segregation. And although the generation that lived most of its adulthood under Jim Crow authoritarianism has begun to pass into memory, their children are still with us. Ruby Bridges, who helped desegregate New Orleans schools as a child, is younger than the president. Tens of millions of Black Americans, whether from direct experience or through received wisdom from elders, have knowledge of what it’s like to live subject to the whims of an unaccountable government.

I joined my colleagues Michelle Cottle and David French for a live, post-election edition of The Opinions. You can watch the whole thing here.

Now Reading

Adam Serwer on Scott Colom’s victory for The Atlantic.

David Shulman on the documentary “NAZA” for The New York Review of Books.

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor on the midterm elections for The New Yorker.

Jake Grumbach on the “blue wave” for Boston Review.

Samantha Hancox-Li on the Republican Party’s Trump problem for Liberal Currents.

Photo of the Week

Taken at the New York City Veterans Day parade on Wednesday, which I learned was the largest such parade in the country.

Now Eating: Chicken and Chickpea Tagine

Not only is this an easy meal to put together, but you can put your own spin on it as well. Add some fresh spinach at the end for color and a bit of extra nutrition. Or if you are vegetarian, omit the chicken and add chunks of butternut squash. I use boneless, skinless chicken thighs to simplify things even further, but then I also cook the chickpeas from scratch, so it is a wash. In any case, serve with couscous or fresh pita or crusty bread. Recipe from NYT Cooking.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons corn or canola oil

• 2 tablespoons butter

• 1 large onion, peeled and thinly sliced

• 2 cloves garlic, minced

• Salt

• Pinch nutmeg

• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

• 1 teaspoon ground ginger

• 1 teaspoon ground cumin

• 1 teaspoon ground coriander

• ½ teaspoon ground black pepper

• Pinch cayenne

• 1½ to 2 cups chopped tomatoes (canned are fine; drain excess liquid)

• 4 cups chickpeas (canned are fine; drain and rinse first)

• ½ cup raisins or chopped pitted dates

• ½ vanilla bean

• 8 chicken thighs, or 4 leg-thigh pieces, cut in two

• Chopped cilantro or parsley leaves

Directions

Put oil and butter in a large skillet or casserole, which can be covered later, and turn heat to medium high. When the butter melts, add the onion, and cook, stirring occasionally, until it softens, 5 to 10 minutes. Add garlic, a large pinch of salt and the spices. Cook, stirring, for about 30 seconds. Add tomatoes, chickpeas, raisins and vanilla, and bring to a boil. (If the mixture is very dry, add about ½ cup water or stock.) Taste, and add salt as necessary.

Sprinkle chicken pieces with salt, and nestle them into the sauce. Cover, and 5 minutes later adjust heat so the mixture simmers steadily. Cook until the chicken is very tender, 45 minutes to an hour. Taste, and adjust seasoning. Then garnish, and serve with couscous.