For just about as long as America has had a two-party system, the very idea, let alone the actual existence of the congressional filibuster, has been controversial, to say the least. Year after year, decade after decade, one party or another seems to complain about its presence and push that it be forever removed from the halls of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
But seeing as how the party doing the complaining is always the one with the majority and that majority is privy to changing quite often, no one can ever really agree to actually put the long-held tradition to rest.
Currently, the party that wants to get rid of it is the Democratic one, as they now hold the majority in both congressional houses, if not by much, and have a president and vice president in the White House.
It’s not really surprising to anyone that Democratic leaders such as Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, and even President Joe Biden have recently made comments about the need to abolish the “nuclear option.”
In fact, during his first and only solo press conference thus far, Joe Biden said on Thursday that the filibuster was a “Jim Crow relic” that is “being abused in a gigantic way.”
Of course, it’s important to point out who is doing all of this “abuse.”
According to Fox News’s research, last year, the filibuster was used a total of 328 times. Of those, one was used by the Republican Party. The other 327 times were used by the Democrats…
And yet, now that they are on top in both houses, leaving Republicans with little option but to use the filibuster to make themselves heard, they want it abolished. This would essentially leave the Democratic Party in the majority and Republicans with virtually no say so in whatever matter was brought to the floor.
On top of that is the apparent contradiction given by Democratic leaders themselves.
Take Joe Biden’s words on the matter in 2005, for instance.
He said during a speech on the Senate floor, back when he had all of his cognitive abilities, that getting “rid of the filibuster has long-term consequences. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my years here, once you change the rules and surrender the Senate’s institutional power, you never get it back.”
Former President Barack Obama has been known to make similar comments on the filibuster’s existence, as have Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. All have warned of the dangers that nixing the filibuster from Congress would bring upon the nation.
And yet, here we are with a Democrat majority once again, and they are suddenly all changing their stories.
According to the left, the whole idea of the filibuster is racist.
How?
Well, seeing as how both parties have diverse populations, this seems unlikely. But as I’m sure you are well aware, this is the latest method of getting anything canceled or abolished by the Democratic left.
It obviously worked for them in getting rid of Trump, although there was also a bit of voter fraud to blame as well…
But I doubt it’s going to continue to work, and definitely not for the filibuster.
What are they going to claim? That minority voices aren’t being heard because of Republicans using the filibuster?
They might try. However, Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina would say differently.
Scott recently interviewed with Fox News, describing how one of his proposed bills for police reform was blocked from being voted on last year because of constant Democratic filibustering. According to Scott, who is black, the bill “would’ve positively impacted – disproportionately – African American communities.”
He said, “Here’s what we know about Democrats: They were for the filibuster before they were against the filibuster. I keep asking myself, will the real Chuck Schumer please stand up?”
Scott continued, noting that both Biden and Obama were also once for the filibuster, but “(n)ow, of course, they use the word ‘racist’ whenever they’re trying to scare people into their corner. It has nothing to do with race, but they don’t care.”
Meanwhile, real race issues are being largely ignored, and American citizens’ rights trampled on, all in the name of the Democrats keeping their power…
