Republicans and Democrats have been guilty of attempting to abolish the filibuster when they held power. The truth is that the filibuster is merely a Senate procedure to shut off debate that has existed since 1917. The abolition of the filibuster is a bad idea that will destroy the Senate’s nature and make the government less responsive than it is today (if that is even possible).

The filibuster is a procedural, not a policy, matter. It extends the debate and allows all 100 members of the body to participate. Getting rid of the power of individual senators to engage in extended debate will make the Senate look more like the House, where all power resides in the speaker’s office.

The filibuster rule was memorialized in Rule 22 of the Senate’s Rules of Procedure. That rule allows 16 senators to sign a petition to shut off debate on a matter with “three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn,” or 60 senators voting in the affirmative to close debate. Opponents of legislation from both parties have used the tactic of threatening extended debate to slow or block its passage.

The right to filibuster nominations was attacked by Democrats in 2013. Then, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., falsely claimed that the filibuster of certain nominations was unconstitutional and used a simple majority to ignore the rules. The Senate’s written rules can only be changed after shutting down debate with a two-thirds’ majority, yet Reid used the so-called “Nuclear Option” to change the rules by violating them.

One must imagine that Democrats regret giving up the power to extend debate on President Donald Trump’s most controversial Cabinet nominations. Democrats forgot the adage that “majorities are temporary.”

The right to filibuster legislation is under attack with a new threat to use the Nuclear Option by Republicans. The Trump administration was frustrated that it could not pass an appropriations bill to fund the government in the Senate and demanded that senators abolish the filibuster. That bill passed without the need to attack the rules, but history should make Republicans think twice before launching procedural nukes.

For Republicans angry that the filibuster has blocked some of the Trump agenda, look no further than the last election to see the grave danger of abolishing the filibuster. On September 24, 2024, Vice President Kamala Harris called for the abolition of the filibuster to codify abortion rights, thinking she was going to win. Harris also campaigned on eliminating the filibuster to combat “climate change.”

I guarantee all the Republicans calling for the abolition of the filibuster would be crawling over glass to fight it if Harris had won the presidency.

The power of a senator to engage in extended debate and offer amendments on legislation is central to the identity of the Senate. The Senate was organized to represent the interests of the states and to operate differently from the House, which represents the will of the people. We live in a democratic republic with a unique system that reserves power to the sovereign rights of states.

There are two essential benefits to allowing extended debate. The most important thing is to allow the American people to participate in crafting and passing legislation. If legislation sails through the Senate in a day, that does not allow for any input from the people who elected senators. Furthermore, the lack of a filibuster makes it far easier for cronyism to creep into the legislative process, because there will be little time to read legislation that is frequently over a 1,000 long and complicated to the typical reader.

A second great benefit is that the Senate is an institution that reserves power to individual senators. All the power in the House of Representatives lies with leadership. Yet, in the Senate, any member can take control of the agenda by engaging in extended debate or offering an amendment that allows debate on a subject of the senator’s choosing. Abolish the filibuster, and you abolish the power of individual senators to be anything but rubber stamps for their leadership.

Abolishing the filibuster gives the party in power an excuse to avoid the hard work of passing controversial legislation with support from the American people. It is a bad idea for Republicans or Democrats to abolish the filibuster.

_____

ABOUT THE WRITER

Brian Darling is a former counsel for Sen. Rand Paul and wrote a paper defending the filibuster for The Heritage Foundation in 2011. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.

_____

©2025 Tribune Content Agency, LLC