Some Democrats pushing to end or change the filibuster have argued this week that the 60-vote threshold for passing bills in the Senate is racist and therefore should be eliminated — but one legal expert says that charge is simply untrue.
“That is an absurd claim and historically inaccurate,” Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Heritage Foundation’s Election Law Reform Initiative and senior legal fellow at the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, told the Washington Examiner.
“It has nothing to do with Jim Crow. In fact, remember, it started in 1806, when slavery was legal throughout the United States.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, said on Thursday that the filibuster “has deep roots in racism.” Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Democrat, this week said the filibuster is “a relic of Jim Crow.”
And others are pointing to the historical role the filibuster has played in delaying the passage of civil rights legislation to argue that the Senate should no longer allow an archaic rule to obstruct progress.
THE FILIBUSTER EXPLAINED: BREAKING DOWN THE DEBATE SUPERCHARGED BY BIDEN
The filibuster was not created specifically to uphold slavery or to block civil rights bills — although lawmakers ultimately used it for that purpose at times. The idea of delaying legislation by speaking at length dates back to the first session of the Senate in 1789, according to the Senate’s official history, and became increasingly common through the 1800s.
However, the longest filibuster on record involved a more than 24-hour speech delivered by Sen. Strom Thurmond in 1957 as he sought to block a civil rights bill that gave African Americans the right to vote. Other senators used the filibuster to attempt to block more bills that sought to remedy racist practices.
Democrats have ascribed urgency to the perennial filibuster debate due to a major piece of voting reform legislation that the House passed earlier this month. Many have likened the bill, H.R. 1, to the civil rights laws that lawmakers tried to block using the filibuster decades ago. And they have argued the filibuster should not stand in the way of passing H.R. 1, which Republicans have vowed to oppose.
Von Spakovsky said stripping away the filibuster would fundamentally change the way the Senate operates.
“It will turn the Senate into the House, and that’s not a good thing,” he said. “They have different functions.”
Supporters of retaining the filibuster argue the rule forces the upper chamber to be more deliberative and less susceptible to partisan antics. By requiring bills to attract at least 60 votes, the filibuster encourages both sides to make concessions in order to craft legislation that can overcome that threshold, these supporters say.
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Von Spakovsky said ending the filibuster would mean eroding confidence in bills passed without bipartisanship.
“There’s going to be disrespect for laws that are passed by only one political party because they’re going to be seen as partisan and not something that is intended to apply to all Americans.”
