Some pro-lifers still don’t get how hard it is to govern. Frustrated conservatives continue to mistakenly believe that Republicans should have had an easy time passing legislation because of their numbers, a fallacy we have refuted many times over. After all, it’s hard to be the speaker of the House when your party has a majority but no supermajority in the Senate. At the end of the day, each member of Congress, no matter how committed he or she may be, has only one vote to cast on any given matter that Congress is considering.
Easing frustration with the legislative process begins by remembering the Civics 101 we all learned: For a proposal to become a law, it has to pass both the House and the Senate by majority votes and then go to president’s desk to be signed. However, the minority has power, too. If the minority does not want a decision to be made, they will stonewall. Endless debate is employed by the minority so no decision is made.
To deal with this problem, the House made a rule to permanently limit time debating an issue before voting on it, thus eliminating filibusters in the House. In the Senate, however, any one of the 100 senators can still filibuster and prevent a vote. If a filibuster is even threatened, the majority might put the matter aside and move on to other things. That is how the minority wins.
Thankfully, there is such a thing called cloture, to fence in or limit debate and remove unreasonable obstacles to a vote. Eventually the Senate introduced a rule to bring debate to a close. It would require two-thirds of senators to decide it. But two-thirds was a very high threshold to reach, so the Senate changed the rule to require only three-fifths of all senators to invoke cloture. This 60-vote requirement is sometimes referred to as a supermajority.
Unfortunately, Republicans do not have the supermajority required to pass legislation in the Senate. That has hurt pro-life Republicans in public opinion. That is unfortunate, because when you look at the House of Representatives, they have passed many strong pro-life measures such as the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, and the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. And, of course, the House passed but Senate Democrats infamously blocked a measure to defund Planned Parenthood.
The fact that these measures have not become law is not because of any lack of commitment or conviction on the part of House or Senate members. It’s because of the rules of the Senate, as explained above.
Yet now, because of the perceived ineptitude of Republicans in Congress, critics within both Republican and Democrat circles claim Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is stepping down because he is afraid of the “blue wave” of Democrats that will presumably take over a Republican House and end our already-fragile Senate majority. As proof they point to President Trump’s low approval ratings.
But, according to more and more polls, the anticipated Democratic tsunami in the fall may turn out to be more of a ripple, if that. When Quinnipiac University, for example, asked voters in February whether they would vote for a Republican or Democrat for Congress, the generic Democratic candidate held a 15 percentage point edge; today, that advantage has shrunk to 3 percentage points.
Before a wave of pessimism infects pro-life supporters, it is important to remember that those predicting a Democratic takeover in Congress are the very critics who laughed at the idea that Trump would ever be president. If we want to get a feel for how the public leans in regards to Trump still, the ratings for “Roseanne” might be a good indication. Although it is certainly not a pro-life or even a morally conservative show in the least, it does tell us something about how people are feeling. They don’t like to be pushed around by liberal bullies and they will turn up in quiet majorities to prove it. I’m confident that the 2018 midterm elections will demonstrate this.
Ryan’s resignation is no reason at all to become demoralized or pessimistic. We should not believe the majority will be diminished or lost. There are three judges on the Supreme Court who are at least 80 years old. In order to claim those seats, we have to elect pro-life Senators who will confirm pro-life judges.
Now is the time to focus all our energy on the 2018 elections and claim what we started in 2016. We are winning and will only continue on that trajectory of voting for pro-Trump conservatives in 2018. I am confident we will get to our goal. At Priests for Life, we are kicking into high gear in 2018 to get candidates elected who will work to restore the rights of children in the womb.
Father Frank Pavone (@frfrankpavone) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is the national director of Priests for Life. Victoria Garaitonandia Gisondi is an outreach associate with Priests for Life.
