Day: May 15, 2022

After last week’s Lexicon entry about abortion, I wanted to do something in a lighter vein.

So, we’re talking about the filibuster. I know! I’m as excited as you are!

Actually, we do have to go back to the abortion debate for a little while because it plays a role in the discussion, and we have Senator Elizabeth “Chief Running Mouth” Warren to thank for it. See, the Senate tried to make the abortion protections laid out in Roe v. Wade federal law last week in the form of The Women’s Health Protection Act, but it ran into a little snag: it didn’t have enough votes to bypass a potential filibuster (which is absurd as we’ll find out later). As a result, Chief Running Mouth took to the media to renew her call to eliminate the filibuster.

Hoo boy. We’re going to need Mayflower to help us unpack all of the wrong here.

filibuster

What the Left thinks it means – an antiquated unconstitutional Senate rule that threatens democracy

What it really means – a Senate rule that Leftists will rue eliminating if they get their way

Time for a quick civics lesson. Although we tend to work on a majority rule model here in America, there are some exceptions designed to prevent the majority from totally steamrolling the minority. One such tool is the filibuster, which is when the minority can cobble together at least 60 votes to prevent a bill from going forward. Even the threat of a filibuster can be enough to change how a bill is written or presented.

In today’s hyper-partisan world, that happens less often than David Duke gets invited to the NAACP Spirit Awards.

Since Democrats hold a numerical majority thanks to Vice President Kamala Harris, they don’t necessarily feel they need to reach across the aisle to get things done, which puts their current opposition to the filibuster into perspective. It also puts their previous use of the filibuster into perspective, since they love to use it when they’re in the minority. If it wasn’t for double standards, Leftists would have no standards at all.

Leftists by their very nature are control freaks (in addition to being other kinds of freaks). They feel they have to rule completely because anything else gives opponents the ability to disagree with them. With enough naysayers, Leftists can’t get done what they want, which is a sin in their eyes akin to killing puppies, destroying the planet, and worst of all…not being a Leftist!

This desire for control has been at the core of a lot of defeats for Senate Democrats, including The Women’s Health Protection Act. Instead of reading the room and coming up with a bill that would get Republican votes, Leftists tried to ram through a bill banking on Republicans to surrender out of fear of public opinion. Wellll…that didn’t happen, and one Democrat Senator, Joe Manchin, sided with the Republicans to make the vote to move forward with the bill 51-49. And it shouldn’t be overlooked it was the Senate Democrats who forced the vote. Talk about a self-own! On the plus side for Leftists, Senator Kyrsten Sinema voted with the Democrats, so she might be able to get back on their Winter Solstice card lists.

But the failure wasn’t because Senate Democrats fucked up! It was that damn filibuster! And it’s about time to we got rid of that unconstitutional rule that prevents progress!

Not so much.

First, let’s deal with the constitutionality argument. Although it’s true the filibuster doesn’t appear in the Constitution, there is this passage from Article I Section 5 that would apply here:

Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings…

This has been interpreted to mean the House of Representatives and Senate can make their own rules, which means the filibuster is constitutional. You would think someone who taught law might be able to figure that out, but we’re dealing with Elizabeth Warren here. She’s as sharp as a Nerf ball, as anyone who understands her missives on economics an attest.

Or as anyone who understands what a majority is can attest, for that matter. The filibuster literally had very little to do with the failure because, and let me spell it out for the good Senator and any other Leftists who are reading this…the votes weren’t there. You had a threshold and failed to meet it. Those were the rules in place at the time, and you lost. Until you change the Senate rules or amend the Constitution to remove the filibuster as a means of ending debate or altering legislation, those are the rules you have to live by.

Of course, nothing can stop you from bitching about it, even if we didn’t have a First Amendment in place. But can you at least bitch about it intelligently? A tall order, I know, but could you do it for your Uncle Thomas? Please?

Although it’s fashionable to shit on the filibuster, it does serve an important role, even today. Just because one party or the other has a majority doesn’t mean that party is right. The fact the filibuster exists in the Senate is a feature, not a flaw, because the Founding Fathers established the Senate as a more deliberative body. If you want bills written up on the fickle whims of the public, you go to the House. If you want substantive discussions, you go to the Senate.

Well, nobody’s perfect, not even the Founding Fathers.

Even though the filibuster isn’t working well today, it still provides a necessary release valve for impulsive legislation not well thought out and poorly presented. You know, like The Women’s Health Protection Act? (On a side note, how does this bill protect women’s health when statistically the most babies aborted would be female? But I’m not a biologist, so there’s that.)

So, before you Leftists throw out the unborn baby with the bathwater, consider this. Senate Republicans have resisted calls to do away with the filibuster when they’ve been in the minority because they understand it still has value, even when the previous President believed otherwise.

That’s right, Leftists. You now are on the same side as Donald Trump.

As the meme says, congratulations. You just played yourself.