Conservative activists don’t believe Republicans have done enough with their congressional majorities, just months away from those majorities appearing on the ballot in the midterm elections.
It has become arguably the top issue in a contentious primary between Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the subtext of broader debates about the filibuster and the SAVE America Act, which have ensnared the Senate Republican leadership team.
Conservative groups are clamoring for the Republican-controlled Congress to pass more legislation and codify President Donald Trump’s agenda, which, outside of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, has substantially been implemented through executive action.
“Conservative trifectas don’t come often,” Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts wrote on X, referring to Republicans holding both chambers of Congress and the White House. “With a $38 trillion debt growing without restraint, Congress cannot squander this historic opportunity to pass a second reconciliation bill.”
“The American people handed Republicans a trifecta and a mandate,” posted the conservative Republican Study Committee. “We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to deliver real affordability wins for hardworking families and undo the damage Democrats inflicted on this country over the past four years.”
Trump signed into law the first reconciliation bill passed by this Congress last year, extending his tax cuts, funding immigration enforcement, and strengthening work requirements for certain federal social welfare programs.
Faced with pressure from Paxton, his conservative primary challenger, Cornyn on Thursday relented on the filibuster in an op-ed for the New York Post.
“Today, Democrats are weaponizing the Senate’s rules to block the SAVE America Act, defund the Department of Homeland Security and hurt the American people — all to spite President Donald Trump,” he wrote. “But they say openly that if these same rules ever get in Democrats’ way, they won’t hesitate to rip them up.”
This is a departure for Cornyn, disappointing some defenders of the effective 60-vote threshold for the passage of most legislation in the Senate.
Former Sen. Joe Manchin, who, along with former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, prevented their fellow Democrats from abolishing or curtailing the legislative filibuster during the last Democratic Senate majority, protested on X, “Eliminating the filibuster would consolidate even more power into the hands of the majority party’s leadership — and take power away from the minority and everyday Americans.”
“When I was a U.S. Senator, there was not another person more committed to keeping the filibuster than Senator John Cornyn,” Manchin continued, later adding, “It’s deeply disappointing to see that Senator Cornyn is now willing to scrap the very rule he once praised and personally thanked me for defending.”
Like the progressives who once criticized centrist Democrats like Manchin for not letting them get enough out of their congressional majorities, conservatives and Trump-era populists increasingly see rules such as the filibuster and institutional timidity as obstacles to passing legislation while they possess the political power to do so.
“You can just do things” is a popular saying among the New Right, especially during Trump’s second term.
Senior Republicans under pressure from conservative activists and GOP primary challengers are starting to take notice.
“We can either unilaterally disarm, or we can stand and fight,” Cornyn wrote. “We can let the Democrats keep obstructing today and then smash the rules the first chance they get, or we can act now and use the mandate the American people gave this president and this Congress to secure our elections, protect our homeland and bring back common sense.”
“The answer is clear: We need to stand, fight and win,” he concluded. “Democrats started this fight. Now Republicans should finish it.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) is also planning to bring the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility Act to the floor for a marathon debate session, though he is stopping short of the talking filibuster maneuver championed by conservative activists.
“I can’t guarantee an outcome on this legislation, but I can guarantee that we are going to put Democrats on the record, that they will be forced to defend their outrageous positions on these issues, and explain to the American people why common sense and the Democratic Party have parted ways,” Thune said in a Thursday speech on the Senate floor.
The perception that Republican elected officials fail to enact conservative laws dates back at least to Pat Buchanan’s 1975 book Conservative Votes, Liberal Victories: Why the Right Has Failed. But it really took off in the tea party era, culminating in Trump’s decadelong dominance in the GOP and a crisis of confidence in most other Republican leaders.
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In the 1940s, conservatives admired the Republican-controlled “Do Nothing Congress” that stalled much of President Harry S. Truman’s legislative agenda during a period of New Deal liberal political hegemony. But Truman used this Congress as a campaign issue to win in 1948, the fifth straight Democratic presidential victory.
Now, conservatives say they are witnessing another Do Nothing Congress with Republican majorities, and they don’t like it at all. It could be a base morale issue in a midterm election where Republicans can ill afford it.
