In most ways, President Biden and former President Donald Trump couldn’t be more different. But they have one thing in common: frustration at the Senate’s filibuster rule, which has blocked both of their big-ticket initiatives from passing even though their party controlled the White House, House, and Senate.
For Democrats, the script is flipped from the Trump administration’s early days four years ago. Biden is unable to push through his proposed $1.9 trillion COVID-19 aid bill, along with a series of environmental plans and other legislative proposals, because Democrats cannot overcome the Senate’s 60-vote requirement for ending debate.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, has not taken eliminating the filibuster off the table, though fierce opposition from Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona makes that unlikely.
But even the possibility of ending the filibuster, the Senate’s “nuclear option,” stands in stark contrast to how his predecessor in the role, now-Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, handled the issue. The Kentucky Republican, in the Trump administration’s early days, resisted repeated pressure from the boisterous president to end the filibuster.
The first showdown over the filibuster came after Trump appointed Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court in 2017. Democrats were enraged that in the year prior, during election season, McConnell blocked former President Barack Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland, now Biden’s nominee for attorney general, from a single hearing or vote.
In 2013, Senate Democrats, led by then-Majority Leader Harry Reid, went forward with the “nuclear option” and eliminated filibusters for most nominees, except for Supreme Court justice nominees, but kept it for legislation.
Trump later encouraged expanding filibuster elimination to Supreme Court nominees after announcing his Gorsuch nomination. “If we end up with that gridlock, I would say, ‘If you can, Mitch, go nuclear,’” he said.
McConnell ruffled his feathers at Trump butting into Senate business. “That’s not a presidential decision. That’s a Senate decision,” he said. But he did not rule out the idea, simply saying, “We’re going to get this nominee confirmed,” and how was up to Democrats.
Democrats did move to block Gorsuch through filibustering, and McConnell hit the red button, eliminating the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations.
Immediately following that, Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware co-authored a letter, signed by 61 senators, in support of keeping that 60-vote threshold for legislation.
McConnell agreed. “I would be the beneficiary, and my party would be the beneficiary” of ending legislative filibusters, he said. “I’m opposed to changing it. I think that’s what fundamentally changes the Senate.”
McConnell was first elected to the Senate in 1984, and since then, the chamber has changed majority control seven times. Most recently when Democrats won a pair of Georgia runoff races on Jan. 5, leaving the Senate split 50-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris ready to cast tiebreaking votes in favor of the Democrats. If either party eliminated the filibuster, guaranteeing minority rights in the Senate, they would surely come to regret it once they were inevitably relegated to the minority without tools to stop legislation with which they disagree.
The issue of “nuking” the filibuster on legislation up again in 2018 amid Democratic opposition to spending bills. “If stalemate continues, Republicans should go to 51% (Nuclear Option) and vote on real, long term budget, no C.R.’s,” Trump tweeted.
And he got some support from Republicans. Then-House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy suggested ending the filibuster if Democrats held spending bills “hostage,” and Montana Republican Sen. Steve Daines also floated the possibility of getting rid of it.
McConnell resisted.
“The president has much to be pleased about,” McConnell said. “I don’t think the legislative filibuster, which has been around for a long time, is a problem.”
In December 2018, Congress was stuck in gridlock over a funding bill that included money for wall construction on the U.S.-Mexico border. Democrats sharply opposed the proposal.
The day before the start of the longest-ever government shutdown, Trump again pressured McConnell to get rid of the filibuster.
“Mitch, use the Nuclear Option and get it done! Our Country is counting on you!” Trump tweeted.
A spokesman for McConnell, though, shut down that request: “The Leader has said for years that the votes are not there in the Conference to use the nuclear option. Just this morning, several Senators put out statements confirming their opposition, and confirming that there is not a majority in the conference to go down that road.”
Biden is not exerting the same kind of pressure on fellow Democrats, but he has made a major shift from being strictly opposed to ending the filibuster to being open to eliminating it. The question, at least for the next two years, is whether Manchin and Sinema follow suit if faced with enough pressure.
