Basically, the filibuster has gone from being used 22 times the entire 19th century, to 8% in the 1950’s, to damn near everything today. It’s not in the Constitution and merely a Senate procedure. It’s interesting how government can basically be ground to a halt because only 59% of one house of Congress support it. I can see why you wouldn’t want to eliminate it completely, but I’d really like to see them start calling the Republican’s bluff and make them sit there 24/7 and “debate” instead of blocking everything with the mere threat of it. Ironically, I bet it will never go away unless the Republicans get back a majority, since the Dems wouldn’t have the balls to go nuclear and get rid of it
It’s both sides. The Republicans almost ditched the filibuster a couple years ago cause the Democrats were blocking their judges. Ironically, their asses got saved by the moderate “RINO’s” they love to hate, McCain, Graham, Chafee, etc. Either way, it’s getting to the point where the Senate is damn near ungovernable without using budget reconciliation for everything.
I take that more as a sign of how bitterly partisan everything has become than a sign that we should scrap the filibuster.
Both side needs to realize that their power is not absolute and they’re not going to get things 100% the way they want it. Compromise and start finding ways to prevent the filibuster from being an issue. And yes, that means no health care plans crafted by one party behind closed doors.
Not to double post but everything is so hyper-partisan these days because neither side wants to compromise on anything when they’re in the minority because when it passes the majority party will get the lion’s share of the credit and help them. The political endgame is to obstruct everything and run on a “They can’t get anything done” platform. Then, the majority party figures, they’re going to oppose it anyway, no point in compromising… might as well stick it to 'em, and we get what we have now.
