Why We Need to Chuck the Filibuster, and Fast
By Frankie James Albin
Recently, members of Sunrise Movement NYC and partner groups protested outside of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s house in Brooklyn to demand that he abolish the filibuster and act on this once-in-a-generation opportunity to deliver concrete change needed by the American people.
Although a common misconception, the filibuster actually came into existence by accident in 1806. In an attempt to streamline the process of passing legislation in the Senate, Vice President Aaron Burr retracted a rule that allowed the Senate to end debate on a bill with a simple majority, because he thought it was superfluous. This effectively created the filibuster, a parliamentary loophole where a senator can delay a vote on legislation indefinitely.
The filibuster was rarely used in the Senate — up until the Civil War. Fearing the declining power of slave states in Congress, Southern senators used the filibuster to defend the Confederacy and block anti-slavery legislation. At this point, it was the “talking filibuster,” meaning senators had to stand on the Senate floor and actively speak to delay a vote. This changed slightly during WWI, by allowing a two-thirds majority vote to end a filibuster.
The modern version of the filibuster, however, was popularized in the 1920s in an effort to block various civil rights legislation, such as the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill. The weaponization of the filibuster became an increasingly common phenomenon throughout the rest of the century. This included the longest talking filibuster to date against the Civil Rights Act of 1957, where Senator Strom Thurmond infamously launched an incredibly racist filibuster against the bill for 24 hours and 18 minutes. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was actually filibustered for 60 days before a cloture vote was invoked to stop it.
In 1975, the Senate changed the rules again so that instead of having to speak, a senator simply had to announce that they planned to debate and, unless there were 60 votes to stop it, the filibuster would be successful. In practical terms, the modern filibuster essentially means that 60 votes are needed to pass anything, allowing the minority party to continually block the party in power. Theoretically, 40 senators from the 21 least populous states, representing about 11% of the population, could overrule everyone else.
This is how Mitch McConnell became known as the “grim reaper of the Senate,” racking up more filibusters against legislation during Barack Obama’s presidency than there were in the ‘50’s, ‘60’s and ‘70’s combined. During his eight year presidency, 79 of Obama’s judicial nominees were blocked. Up until then, only 68 had been blocked in the entire history of the Senate.
The filibuster is not only a “Jim Crow relic” as dubbed by former President Barack Obama; it is a compromise with white supremacists. Between the current weaponization of the filibuster by a Republican party with white supremacists at its helm, and its explicitly racist history dating back to the Civil War, there is no question that it must not be allowed to continue.
Leading up to last year’s election, Chuck Schumer repeatedly told the media that “nothing is off the table” including abolishing the filibuster, expanding the Supreme Court, and statehood for DC and Puerto Rico. Since then, he has been silent on all three.
Schumer is now the majority leader, and he needs to use his position of power to eliminate the filibuster immediately. If the filibuster remains and we continue along the path we are on, no significant legislation will ever pass through Congress and our democracy, which is already dysfunctional, will cease to function entirely.
A functioning government should not have to pass emergency pandemic relief for its citizens through a budget loophole to circumvent a filibuster. Even with control of both houses of Congress and the presidency, a minority of senators with fascistic and racist intentions can block just about anything Democrats put forward from passing.
Some argue in favor of bringing back the original talking filibuster instead of abolishing the filibuster all together, which is just as ridiculous. That point has been made by multiple Republicans, including Senator Ted Cruz, who willingly read Dr. Seuss on the senate floor to filibuster Obamacare even though the current filibuster rules do not require him to speak at all. Republicans will likely have no trouble getting at least 41 members to hold the floor and filibuster indefinitely. Additionally, while a talking filibuster is in progress, no other Senate business can continue, making for a situation potentially more disastrous than the silent filibuster we have now.
Right now, the climate crisis is our biggest and most existential threat, and we need to eliminate the filibuster so that legislation is passed that meets the severity of the crisis. A big spending bill is not enough, and neither is watered-down legislation passed through budget reconciliation. We need to pass the Green New Deal for Public Housing Act, the Climate Equity Act, the Environmental Justice for All Act, the Build Green Infrastructure and Jobs Act, and many others in order to step closer to realizing a just, sustainable country.
Additionally, with no filibuster, we could directly address all of the challenges facing our country with essential pieces of legislation, including mass democracy protections like the For the People Act and John Lewis Voting Rights Act, a Green New Deal, Medicare for All, statehood for DC and Puerto Rico, meaningful gun control, and so much more.
Now is the time to act, because we may not get another shot at this. If we do not enact bold policy addressing the climate crisis immediately, we will likely be too late to stop its worst effects. If we do not pass essential voting rights legislation to strike down the over 250 voter suppression bills that have been introduced in 43 states just this year so far, and stop Republicans from gerrymandering their way to guaranteed control of the government for the next decade, we absolutely will be too late. The Democrats, and especially Majority Leader Schumer, need to immediately abolish the filibuster so we can get to work saving the planet and our people. We are running out of time.
