Mark it down as another flip-flop: President Joe Biden came out against abolishing the legislative filibuster on Wednesday night after previously suggesting he would support leftist efforts to get rid of it.
When asked whether the filibuster was his priority over voting access, Biden said during a televised townhall: “No, it’s not. There’s no reason to protect it other than you’re going to throw the whole Congress into chaos, and nothing will get done.”
That sounds like a pretty important reason, Joe!
Biden is, of course, correct. The filibuster, the term now used to refer to any legislative stall tactic that forces parties to win over 60 votes to move forward on most Senate bills, serves an important purpose.
It protects the rights of the minority and forces majorities to either compromise or win broader electoral mandates. Although it was not part of the original constitutional structure of the Senate, the filibuster has helped preserve the Founders’ vision by stimulating debate and deliberation, making it difficult to pass sweeping legislation along party lines with every change of government.
Abolish the filibuster, and the Senate will be no better than the House of Representatives — a chaotic group of legislators more interested in performative action than substantive lawmaking.
Biden said as much himself back in 2005. Eliminating the filibuster, he argued, would “eviscerate the Senate and turn it into the House of Representatives … It is not only a bad idea; it upsets the constitutional design, and it disservices the country … Altering Senate rules to help in one political fight or another could become standard operating procedure, which, in my view, would be disastrous … God save us from that fate.”
It’s nice to see Biden return to a reasonable position on this. Just a few months ago, he openly entertained leftists’ push to gut the filibuster for short-term gain when he realized it was the one thing standing in the way of his agenda.
“We’re going to get a lot done, and if we have to, if there’s complete lockdown and chaos as a consequence of the filibuster, then we’ll have to go beyond what I’m talking about,” Biden said in March after endorsing a return to the filibuster, which requires senators to hold the floor to block legislation.
Biden still supports returning to a talking filibuster, as he made clear on Wednesday. But it seems he’s realized a couple of things.
First, much of his agenda can pass with the filibuster in place if Democrats successfully exploit the budget reconciliation process.
Second, endorsing the total abolition of the filibuster would put centrist Democrats in a precarious situation. Better to endorse reform, which might earn bipartisan support, than force vulnerable Democrats to take a hard stand that could be used against them in 2022.
Still, if we’ve learned anything about Biden’s stance on the filibuster, it’s not reliable. If, for some reason, the Senate parliamentarian decides to scratch several of Biden’s wish list items from Democrats’ reconciliation proposal, he might change his mind again.
Biden is going to do whatever is most advantageous to him. For right now, that is good news for the filibuster.
