With Republicans now in control of the Senate, prominent conservatives are starting to speak out in favor of ending the filibuster. Hugh Hewitt floated the possibility here at the Washington Examiner, and now Charles Krauthammer has outright advocated abolishing the filibuster. This would be a terrible mistake.
However tempting it may be in the short term to scrap the filibuster now that Republicans hold the Senate, in the long term, it would be a disaster for conservatism, removing one of the last remaining barriers to the United States becoming a European socialist welfare state. There’s a good reason why ending the filibuster has become a cause of many leading progressives in recent years.
Krauthammer argues that right now, the filibuster is preventing Republicans from getting a Homeland Security funding bill to President Obama, making it much more likely that they’ll be blamed for any shutdown. Going forward, Krauthammer argues, were it not for the filibuster, Republicans could use the next two years as a chance to pass bills that lay out their agenda, and force Obama to veto them.
Exerting power is always appealing when your side has it, but as it always works with power, it’s important to consider what would happen if that power were to fall into the wrong hands.
As an example, just imagine if Republicans had triggered the so-called nuclear option for judicial nominations back in 2005, when many were urging them to do so. Using this as a pretext, Harry Reid certainly would have pressed the button to end the legislative filibuster once Democrats took control.
And the first two years of the Obama administration, before they had to face voters, Democrats could have gone even further in expanding the role of government. The economic stimulus bill would have been more expensive and Obamacare would have injected government even further into the healthcare system (at a minimum, a “public option” would have been a certainty). Democrats would have been able to deny workers the right to a secret ballot in union elections, allowing Big Labor to intimidate workers into joining unions.
This is just a small taste. Not only does the filibuster block legislation, it also helps run out the clock in the Senate. Scrapping it would only mean more time for Democrats in Washington to pass ever more expansions of government with little resistance when they have power.
Both Hewitt and Krauthammer note that the 60-vote threshold is not found in the Constitution. But the Constitution does say that, “Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings” and the filibuster dates back to the 19th Century. Prior to 1975, the threshold for killing the filibuster was 67 votes.
Employing a popular talking point of the Left, Krauthammer writes that, “The filibuster has grown in use and power over the decades to the point of dysfunction.”
If the federal government were actually living within the means established by the Constitution, there would be less need for Republicans to cling on to the filibuster. But in a world where the Commerce Clause (originally intended to ensure the free flow of commerce) is used as an opening to regulate virtually all economic activity, eliminating the filibuster would be dangerous.
The Founders may have not mentioned the 60-vote threshold, but they certainly believed in setting up a government that protects the rights of smaller states and political minorities. They wanted to make it difficult for one party to gain power and enact sweeping changes that are imposed on the entire nation. That’s why, among other things, they originally had senators elected by the legislatures of their states, to make them more protective of state interests.
As I’ve noted before, if we followed the original vision of the Founders, many battles would be fought out at the state level. But now that the federal government has so much control over so many aspects of American life, the stakes of any legislation passed by Washington are much higher. Thus, it’s only natural that the filibuster has become so routine.
“Elections have consequences,” the popular refrain goes. That’s true and as it should be. But ending the filibuster would make the consequences of any future Democratic victories much more punishing for conservatives — and Republicans have never proven the ability to significantly roll back expansions of the welfare state that took place when Democrats were in power. End the filibuster, and the United States will devolve into a barely recognizable socialist nation within a few generations.
