Why Getting Rid of the Legislative Filibuster Would Mean the End of Our Republic
Breaking the American system beyond repair
One of the things near and dear to the hearts of Democrats has become getting rid of the legislative filibuster. In fact, only the diehard opposition of West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema to removing the legislative filibuster kept it in place, and disturbingly, both of them decided not to run again. Kamala Harris has also explicitly called for getting rid of the filibuster for legislation, ostensibly, just as a way to reverse Roe v. Wade:
"I've been very clear, I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe, and get us to the point where 51 votes would be what we need to actually put back in law the protections for reproductive freedom and for the ability of every person and every woman to make decisions about their own body and not have their government tell them what to do," Harris told WPR host Kate Archer Kent.
Of course, once you get rid of the Senate filibuster for one thing, it’s practically guaranteed that you will get rid of it for all things. There’s always some shiny new issue that’s so “important” (voting rights and gun rights are obvious examples) that they’ll want to make exceptions for it.
Now you might say, “Well, they’ll still have the Supreme Court standing in their way,” but that wouldn’t be true for long because the next natural step after they get rid of the legislative filibuster would be to stack the Supreme Court. This is also quite popular on the Left. Everyone from Elizabeth Warren to Ron Wyden to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Kamala Harris has advocated it.
Some Democrats undoubtedly want these changes for malevolent reasons, but many of them just want what they want, right now. They have no interest in compromise and no patience for going through the long, slow process that making changes often entails.
The problem with all this is that it’s kind of like saying, “I want the car to go faster, so let’s get rid of the brakes,” or “We want to make the boat lighter, so let’s throw the anchor, motor, wheel, and helm overboard.” These are not minor changes. They would fundamentally break the way our system of government works in an incredibly dangerous way.
Why?
Well, as I previously noted, ending the legislative filibuster would almost inevitably also mean stacking the Supreme Court.
Why is that dangerous?
As a starter, it could mean that the Supreme Court’s rulings may no longer be treated as valid by much of the country. If let’s say, the Supreme Court was stacked with 4 new liberal justices who ruled that something Florida or Texas was doing was illegal, it’s entirely possible those states might just say, “You’re no longer legitimate and we don’t accept your authority.” That is a very real possibility and if you get to that point, you have a constitutional crisis that would threaten to completely destroy the way our system works, especially if a large number of other red states were to join them. What do you do when multiple states just flat out ignore the Supreme Court? Send the military to fight half the country? Would they go? Could you see the military fighting the National Guard? Maybe. It would be an incredibly dicey and dangerous situation.
However, let’s say that this very realistic possibility doesn’t happen. It would still destroy our system of governance because only conservative justices believe in sticking to the Constitution, while liberal justices vote almost entirely based on ideological concerns. Honestly, it doesn’t matter one iota whether you’re talking about Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson or Whoopi Goldberg, Hillary Clinton, Michael Moore, and Bernie Sanders. They’d all vote almost exactly the same way on every issue for exactly the same reasons, which would be 100% ideological. In other words, we’d be in a post-Constitutional era where the Supreme Court would be nothing more than a rubber stamp for whatever their masters in Congress wanted to do.
Think about the implications of that if the Democrats had the House, Senate, Presidency, and a rubber-stamp Supreme Court. It would essentially be like one of those failed South American states that calls itself a democracy in name, but really is a dictatorship. Because once the Democrats (or for that matter, Republicans) get into that position, they can do ANYTHING. They could make it legal for illegal immigrants to vote, decide that votes from Texas and Florida don’t count, or decide that guns were illegal, and the Supreme Court would say it was fine.
In other words, we would no longer have a Republic.
It just wouldn’t exist anymore. In fact, the only question at that point would be which party would rig the system in their favor to such an extent that their opponents could never get into power again. The Democrats would have the opportunity to move first, but if they were reluctant or too slow to move and the GOP got back in, it’s entirely possible they’d do it. After all, if the country is going to inevitably be controlled by one party, you want to be that party, not the party locked out of power and at the mercy of your political enemies in a world where anything they do is considered legal.
Of course, it’s highly unlikely that Americans in a deeply split, roughly even country would accept one-party rule. You have to think that if you told either Democrats or Republicans that they were never going to be in power again, they’d be more likely to embrace a civil war, secession, revolution, or coup than meekly accept slavery to the other side.
Where would we go from there? Once you smash Humpty Dumpty, we’re not putting him back together again unless there’s some kind of war that one side decisively loses. In other words, once the legislative filibuster goes, our Republic goes and we enter a post-constitutional era where we are practically destined for a one-party dictatorship or violent conflict. This is not something to take lightly or treat like it’s just another political game. We’re talking about nothing less than the end of America as we know it, followed by terrible strife and suffering.
I truly hope the Democrats don’t ever make this mistake because it’s highly likely to be a nation-ender and none of us should want that.
This is the most reasoned treatise of "Getting Rid of the Legislative Filibuster" that I've read. It's highly recommended reading and re-posting. Your point is well made. "We’re talking about nothing less than the end of America as we know it, followed by terrible strife and suffering."
Exactly the problem with that notion. I know Democrats aren't all stupid, but I can't figure out how so many are unable to see past the first move, to what happens down the road. A reckless power grab that IMO would bring civil unrest. Thanks for writing this piece, I'm glad that you are back at work, John!