Since Joe Biden took office, Democrats have been getting closer to the possibility of ending the filibuster. Republicans in the Senate have made it clear that their #1 priority is blocking any Democratic legislation and the filibuster—a somewhat broad term for attempts to block or delay a vote—allows them to do that whenever they want.
This week Republicans filibustered their way out of even having to debate the For the People Act, Democrats’ voting rights bill that would have introduced absolutely essential election reforms. To push through the Republicans’ filibuster, Democrats need 60 votes but to abolish or reform the filibuster, they only need 50. That would require every single Democrat to get on board, which is not happening. Right now there are two holdouts essentially holding their party hostage: Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.
Both Manchin and Sinema have defended the filibuster as a tool to facilitate bipartisanship, which is simply false. And in a new op-ed published this week in the Washington Post, Sinema doubles down on the bipartisanship issue and takes things a step further by insisting the filibuster is unnecessary because when Republicans inevitably eventually take back the majority in Congress, they’ll just undo everything Democrats did while in power.
Sinema writes: “To those who want to eliminate the legislative filibuster to pass the For the People Act (voting-rights legislation I support and have co-sponsored), I would ask: Would it be good for our country if we did, only to see that legislation rescinded a few years from now and replaced by a nationwide voter-ID law or restrictions on voting by mail in federal elections, over the objections of the minority?”
Sinema lays out other examples of legislation that could be overturned once Republicans take back power, whenever that may be, including environmental protections and Medicare expansion. What’s the point of making progress in these or any areas, she argues, if Republicans can just change things back at some point in the future?
Except they already can. Setting aside the fact that Sinema is demanding giving the minority party an amount of control that discredits the decisions American voters made when they voted Democrats into power, Republicans have ways to change or eliminate spending programs with a simple majority and we know that they will when they’re able.
Sinema even addresses this possibility, writing, “And to those who fear that Senate rules will change anyway as soon as the Senate majority changes: I will not support an action that damages our democracy because someone else did so previously or might do so in the future. I do not accept a new standard by which important legislation can only pass on party-line votes — and when my party is again in the Senate minority, I will work just as hard to preserve the right to shape legislation.”
Her hard work will mean absolutely nothing when Republicans have the 51 votes necessary to steamroll their way through any legislative acts they feel like. We’ve seen it before and we’ll see it again and while the filibuster has been a problem for a long time, there is an urgency to the issue right now, with this voting rights bill on the line. Republicans are set on doing all they can to gain power through gerrymandering, racist voter ID laws, and other suppressive tactics, and Sinema’s insistence that we respect the minority opinion will have absolutely no benefit whatsoever when Democrats are that minority.
This is why it’s not enough to tell people to vote. People did vote. These voter suppression laws are in response to people organizing and voting. Our democracy is on the cusp and we cannot treat this as politics as usual.
— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) June 22, 2021
As Sen. Raphael Warnock said from the Senate floor Tuesday, “What could be more hypocritical and cynical than invoking minority rights in the Senate as a pretext for preventing debate about how to preserve minority rights in the society?”
The right to vote is sacred—it is the foundation of our democracy. Congress cannot stand idly by as attacks on the ballot box ramp up nationwide. This body has a solemn duty to protect the people’s voice.
We must pass voting rights. No matter what. https://t.co/HpqeBzfDs3
— Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock (@SenatorWarnock) June 22, 2021
In her op-ed, Sinema wrote that “Everyday Arizonans are focused on questions that matter most in their daily lives.”
