Democrats have big plans for their small congressional majorities but realize that to make the kind of sweeping changes they really want, they will need to eliminate the filibuster, add new states, and expand the Supreme Court.
For this reason, congressional Democrats are advancing statehood for Washington, D.C. New proposals for Puerto Rican statehood have also been introduced. They likely lack the votes to eliminate or change the Senate’s filibuster rules, which effectively create a 60-vote threshold for most legislation in the chamber, but have been more outspoken in denouncing it as a Jim Crow relic, and liberals are making support for its abolition a litmus test in next year’s primaries.
Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the longtime nonvoting D.C. delegate in Congress, connected statehood for the federal district with the fate of the filibuster. “The filibuster is on its last legs,” the Democrat told an interviewer. “That puts D.C. closer to statehood than we have ever any chance of believ[ing] we would have.”
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Liberal intellectuals have increasingly argued that not only the filibuster but also basic parts of the U.S. constitutional structure — equal representation among states in the Senate, the Electoral College, and the nation’s capital existing outside of any state — are racist, undemocratic, and lead to minority rule. Changing some of this is also seen as conducive to Democratic power.
A widely read interview with top Democratic operative David Shor that was shared on Twitter by former President Barack Obama advised Democrats that it was “very important that we add as many states as we can” to balance against possible Republican gains in next year’s midterm elections.
“Basically, we have this small window right now to pass redistricting reform and create states,” Shor said. “And if we don’t use this window, we will almost certainly lose control of the federal government and not be in a position to pass laws again, potentially for a decade.”
President Biden, viewed in some quarters as a Washington institutionalist reluctant to change the rules of a Senate in which he served for 36 years and then presided over as vice president for another eight years, signaled support for filibuster reform short of abolition last week. He also suggested last year that his commitment would “depend on how obstreperous” Republicans were. None voted for his $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.
“Filibuster reform is a bet that most Democrats are willing to take,” said Democratic strategist Brad Bannon. “The upside is that eliminating the filibuster allows Biden to get his big Build Back America Plan. If that works and reinvigorates the economy, Americans will vote their wallets and reward Democrats with bigger congressional majorities in November 2022. The downside isn’t anything worse than the status quo, where it is already difficult for Biden to get the Senate to do much of anything to move the country forward.”
Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, a pair of centrist Democrats, have indicated they oppose scrapping the filibuster. That means Democrats probably don’t have the votes to do that or pursue the entire liberal wish list this year. But they might be able to get more liberal Democrats nominated in primaries next year and pick up Senate seats in states such as Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Wisconsin.
“We might not be able to get Manchin and Sinema to change their minds,” said a second Democratic strategist, “but we can make them less relevant.” The filibuster is likely an obstacle to Supreme Court expansion, district statehood, and other further-reaching liberal goals.
But entertaining such proposals also gives Republicans something to run against in the midterm elections.
“Across the country, Democrat candidates for Senate are tripping over themselves to prove who is the most liberal,” said Chris Hartline, communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is the Senate GOP’s campaign arm. “Eliminating the filibuster so they can enact the most radical legislative agenda in history — destroying Medicare, killing American energy, massive tax increases on American families and job creators — has become a new litmus test. They are out of touch with where the vast majority of American voters are on these issues.”
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Democrats hold just 219 seats in the House, only one more than is needed for a majority. They only control the 50-50 Senate thanks to Vice President Kamala Harris’s tiebreaking vote.
While Biden made inroads with centrist suburban voters who liked the idea of a bipartisan deal-maker in the White House, he also enjoyed the support of his party’s most liberal wing, which boasted of plans to make his administration “the most progressive” since Franklin D. Roosevelt.
