Chuck Schumer is doing us a favor.
Often, parties try to conceal or deny their radical plans before an election, but the Senate majority leader is more frank.
In a session with reporters at the Democratic National Convention, Schumer suggested that — if Democrats win the White House, Senate and House of Representatives in November — he would seek to end the filibuster in an effort to pass voting rights and abortion laws.
This would constitute an inflection point in American government.
There is no chance of ending the legislative obstruction.
Circumventing the Senate’s longstanding requirement that 60 votes be needed to pass a non-tax bill could start with voting rights and abortion, but it surely wouldn’t stop there.
If nationwide abortion on demand can pass with 51 votes, why not Medicare for All or the Green New Deal?
Schumer has already said he wants another massive climate bill and has brushed off any criticism of the national debt.
Drooling over pet causes
Once the legislative filibuster has been significantly violated, any group of Democratic senators who want a particular bill would demand that their pet cause also be exempted.
And left-wing interest groups would also insist on equal treatment: If Planned Parenthood gets an exception for national abortion laws, why shouldn’t unions do the same for all their priorities?
Appetite increases with eating.
Anything Democrats want but are currently out of reach due to a lack of 60 votes or bipartisan support would become achievable, from comprehensive immigration reform to national gun control.
Joe Biden’s unilateral measures, which have been struck down by the courts, including his student debt relief program, would be revived and rejected by Congress.
A filibuster-free Democratic trio in Washington could easily tilt the political order fundamentally in its favor.
He could enact “judicial reform” that would allow him to instantly eliminate the constitutional majority on the Supreme Court that has been built up over decades, and have the states of Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., add easy electoral votes and more senators to the Democratic column.
The configuration of the parliamentary filibuster has changed over the years, but it is a practice that has defined the Senate since its creation.
The function of the filibuster, which is to make it difficult to pass extremely important legislation based on transient majorities, is entirely consistent with the spirit of the American constitutional structure, which is precisely why progressives disdain it today (although they used it extensively during the Trump years).
Schumer doesn’t make empty threats.
Its Senate majority has already tried to blow up the parliamentary obstruction in the name of “voting rights” in 2022.
The only Democrats opposed were West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin III and Arizona Sen. Kristen Sinema, who are now no longer members of the Democratic Party and are both leaving the Senate.
Moderate Democrats remain silent
It is entirely possible that other Democratic senators privately believe that it would be a mistake to defeat the filibuster, but they are unlikely to speak out.
Everyone could see the pressure and abuse Manchin and Sinema were subjected to.
As for the potential new Democratic senators after the November elections, they have all come out against the filibuster, and there are no moderates like Manchin or Sinema in sight.
If Schumer wins, the nature of one institution, the Senate, would be fundamentally changed in order to fundamentally change others.
It would be a pure power play.
It would trample norms and centralize power in Washington in an unprecedented way for progressive ends.
The best thing to say is that we were warned.
