Biden comes out in support of filibuster change after Mitch’s ‘scorched earth’ warning

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By Edmund DeMarche | Fox News


https://i.imgur.com/qSRJVS6l.jpg

President Biden said in an interview Tuesday that he is in favor of overhauling the filibuster rules that could help Democrats use their Senate majority to steamroll legislative initiatives without so much as looking at their Republican colleagues.

Biden did not call for an elimination of the action-- he doesn't have the support in the Senate even if he did-- but he sided with lawmakers seen as moderates who want changes to some of the rules.

"You have to do what it used to be when I first got to the Senate, back in the old days. You had to stand up and command the floor, you had to keep talking … so you’ve got to work for the filibuster," he said.

Biden was interviewed by ABC News and signaled that he wants to bring back the "talking filibuster," which has been supported by a number of Democrats.

"It’s getting to the point where, you know, democracy is having a hard time functioning," Biden said.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans have been critics of the Democrat push that has been gaining momentum. McConnell on Tuesday warned of a "scorched earth" landscape if Democrats end the filibuster.

"Let me say this very clearly for all 99 of my colleagues: Nobody serving in this chamber can even begin — can even begin to imagine — what a completely scorched earth Senate would look like," McConnell said in a Senate speech.

McConnell said the partisan gridlock of the Trump and Obama eras would look like "child's play" compared to what's to come.

"Everything that Democratic Senates did to Presidents Bush and Trump, everything the Republican Senate did to President Obama, would be child’s play compared to the disaster that Democrats would create for their own priorities if — if — they break the Senate," McConnell said.

The Senate is evenly split 50-50, with the deciding vote going to Vice President Harris. In most legislation, there needs to be a 60-vote threshold to advance most legislation to President Biden’s desk. The filibuster can be invoked as long as there there are fewer than 60 senators willing to vote to end the debate on any particular bill.

The Washington Post pointed out that in past years senators trying to stall legislation would have to speak for hours, but currently, these senators just have to announce their desire to filibuster a bill.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., attacked the filibuster in a speech on the Senate floor on Monday and said he preferred to return to the "standing filibuster."

"If a senator insists on blocking the will of the Senate, he [or she] should have to pay some minimal price of being present. No more phoning it in," Durbin said. "If your principles are that important, stand up for them, speak your mind, hold the floor, and show your resolve."

McConnell on Tuesday quoted Durbin from a 2018 interview with ABC, in which he said the filibuster is essential to the Senate.

"I can tell you that would be the end of the Senate as it was originally devised and created going back to our Founding Fathers," Durbin said of getting rid of the filibuster. "We have to acknowledge our respect for the minority, and that is what the Senate tries to do in its composition and in its procedure."

Democrats do not have the votes to eliminate a filibuster, but some key senators have spoken out in favor of some rule changes.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va, has said that he would never vote to eliminate the filibuster but seemed open to a rule change during an appearance on "Fox News Sunday."

"Maybe it has to be more painful, maybe you have to stand there. There's things we can talk about," Manchin said.

Fox News' Tyler Olson and the Associated Press contributed to this report

[Teh One Who Knocks]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAtSxAqRHyw

TRANSCRIPT:


MITCH MCCONNELL, SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: Mr. President, today I’d like to begin today with a few quotations.

Quote: “The legislative filibuster… is the most important distinction between the Senate and the House. Without the 60-vote threshold for legislation, the Senate becomes a majoritarian institution just like the House, much more subject to the winds of short-term electoral change. No Senator would like to see that happen. So let’s find a way to further protect the 60-vote rule for legislation.”

That was the current Democratic Leader, Senator Schumer, in April of 2017. Less than four years ago.

Here’s another quote. “What about [the] nuclear option, doing away with the filibuster?”

“I can tell you that would be the end of the Senate as it was originally devised and created going back to our Founding Fathers. We have to acknowledge our respect for the minority, and that is what the Senate tries to do in its composition and in its procedure.”

End quote.

That was the Assistant Democratic Leader, Senator Durbin, in 2018. About three years ago.

A few years ago, 33 members of the Senate [Democratic] side signed a letter insisting that “we preserve existing rules, practices, and traditions” regarding legislation.

Now, under pressure from the outside, many of our Democratic colleagues are abandoning their stated principles as fast as possible.

Yesterday Senator Durbin said the filibuster is not a core principle, but, quote, “an offhanded clerical suggestion.” An offhanded clerical suggestion.

And a number of Senate Democrats are trying to pressure the senior Senators from West Virginia and Arizona to abandon their own very recent commitments to honor this central rule of the Senate.

***

Mr. / Madam President — the framers designed the Senate to require deliberation… to force cooperation… and to ensure that federal laws in our big, diverse country earn broad enough buy-in to receive the lasting consent of the governed.

James Madison said the Senate should be a “complicated check” against “improper acts of legislation.” Thomas Jefferson said, “great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities.”

Senate Democrats parroted all these arguments when they were the ones benefiting from minority protection. When President Trump pressed Republicans to kill the filibuster, our Democratic colleagues cried foul.

And when our Republican majority stood on principle and refused to wreck the rules, our Democratic colleagues happily used the filibuster themselves.

In some cases, they flat-out blocked legislation, like Senator Tim Scott’s police reform bill.

In many other cases, Democrats did what minority parties always do, and leveraged the existence of the filibuster to influence must-pass legislation long before it got to the floor.

There’s so much emphasis on the most extreme bills that either party might pass with a simple majority. People forget that the Senate’s 60-vote threshold is the only reason, the only reason, that any routine, must-pass legislation is bipartisan except during divided government.

Big funding deals. Appropriations bills. Farm bills. Highway bills. The NDAA. The Senate’s 60-vote threshold backstops all of it. It’s not just about controversial items; it’s about everything we do.

The Senate Democrats who are pressuring our colleagues from Arizona and West Virginia to reverse themselves are not just arguing for some procedural tweak. Not a procedural tweak. They are arguing for a radically less stable and less consensus-driven system of government.

Forget about enduring laws with broad support. Nothing in federal law would ever be settled.

Does anyone really believe the American people were voting for an entirely new system of government by electing Joe Biden to the White House and a 50-50 Senate? This is 50-50 Senate. There was no mandate to completely transform America by the American on November 3.

That may be what a few liberal activists want. Does anyone believe that’s what millions of Americans thought that’s what they were electing?

Of course it’s not.

***

There’s an ironic element to this whole conversation.

Some Democratic Senators seem to imagine this would be a tidy trade-off. If they could just break the rules on a razor-thin majority, sure, it might damage the institution, but then nothing would stand between them and their entire agenda. A new era of fast-track policymaking.

But anyone who really knows the Senate knows that is not what would happen.

So, let me say this very clearly for all 99 of my colleagues: Nobody serving in this chamber can even begin to imagine what a completely scorched-earth Senate would look like.

None of us have served one minute in a Senate that was completely drained of comity and consent.

This is an institution that requires unanimous consent to turn the lights on before noon…

To proceed with a garden-variety floor speech…

To dispense with the reading of lengthy legislative text…

To schedule committee business…

To move even noncontroversial nominees at anything besides a snail’s pace…

I want our colleagues to imagine a world where every single task, every one of them, requires a physical quorum — which by the way, the Vice President does not count in determining a quorum.

Everything that Democratic Senates did to Presidents Bush and Trump… everything the Republican Senate did to President Obama… would be child’s play compared to the disaster that Democrats would create for their own priorities if they break the Senate.

So this is not a trade-off between trampling etiquette but then getting to quickly transform the country. That’s a false choice.

Even the most basic aspects of our colleagues’ agenda, the most mundane tasks of the Biden presidency, would be harder, not easier, for Democrats in a post-“nuclear” Senate that’s 50-50, dead even.

If the Democrats break the rules to kill Rule 22, on a 50-50 basis, then we will use every other rule to make tens of millions of Americans’ voices heard.

Perhaps the majority would come after the other rules next. Perhaps Rule 22 would just be the first domino of many, until the Senate ceased to be distinct from the House in any respect.

This chaos would not open up an express lane to liberal change. It would not open up an express lane for the Biden presidency to speed into the history books. The Senate would be more like a hundred-car pile-up. Nothing moving.

***

And then there’s the small matter that majorities are actually never permanent.

The last time a Democratic Leader was trying to start a “nuclear” exchange, I remember offering a warning.

I said my colleagues would regret it a lot sooner than they thought. And just a few years and a few Supreme Court vacancies later, many of our Democratic colleagues said publicly that they did.

Touching the hot stove again would yield the same result. But even more dramatic.

As soon as Republicans wound up back in the saddle, we wouldn’t just erase every liberal change that hurt the country. We’d strengthen America with all kinds of conservative policies with zero—zero—input from the other side.

How about this? Nationwide right-to-work for working Americans. Defunding Planned Parenthood and sanctuary cities on day one. A whole new era of domestic energy production. Sweeping new protections for conscience and the right to life of the unborn. Concealed-carry reciprocity in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Massive hardening of security on our southern border.

We saw during amendment votes just days ago that some common-sense Republican positions actually enjoy more support right now than some of the Democratic committee chairs’ priorities.

And this is with them in the majority.

So this pendulum would swing both ways and it would swing hard.

My colleagues and I have refused to kill the Senate for instant gratification. In 2017 and 2018 I was lobbied to do exactly what Democrats want to do now. A sitting president leaned on me to do it. He tweeted about it.

What did I do? I said to the president at that time, “no.” I said no repeatedly because being a U.S. Senator comes with higher duties than steamrolling any obstacle to short-term power.

I meant it. Republicans meant it.

Less than two months ago, two of our Democratic colleagues said they mean it too.

If they keep their word, we have a bipartisan majority that can put principle first and keep the Senate safe.

[FBD]

the democrats want to kill the filibuster every time a democrat "wins," and they want to strengthen the filibuster every time a republican wins

[PorkChopSandwiches]

exactly

[perrhaps]

the democrats want to kill the filibuster every time a democrat "wins," and they want to strengthen the filibuster every time a republican wins

And, to be fair, vice versa.

It's hard to believe that the shenanigans of Tip O'Neill; Teddy Kennedy; Strom Thurmond, Everett Dirksen, et al would ever be called the "good ole days", but as personally repugnant as they were, somehow things got done without budget deficits, didn't they?

[FBD]

And, to be fair, vice versa.

It's hard to believe that the shenanigans of Tip O'Neill; Teddy Kennedy; Strom Thurmond, Everett Dirksen, et al would ever be called the "good ole days", but as personally repugnant as they were, somehow things got done without budget deficits, didn't they?

Yeah, we're just further down the bankster hole at this point and they have to keep siphoning money from all kinds of places just to keep the pensions "funded"