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The filibuster is a parliamentary procedure in the United States Senate used to delay or block a vote on a bill by extending debate. While traditionally associated with long speeches, it is now more often a private indication to leaders that a senator or group will obstruct a bill, requiring 60 votes to overcome via a “shutdown” motion. If 60 senators do not vote to close, the bill cannot be brought to a final vote and is effectively put on hold.
The founders wanted the legislative process to be ponderous and deliberate, not susceptible to the whims of lawmakers seeking to score short-term political points at the expense of the long-term good of the country. Today, these considerations and what makes the Senate a unique legislative body are at risk.
On Tuesday, advisors President Donald Trump he said the principal was planning a rampage if Republican senators had not voted to abolish current controls on power in the first branch of government.
- “It will make their lives hell,” one Trump adviser told Axios.
- “He will call them at 3 a.m. He will blow them up in their neighborhoods. He will call them un-American. He will call them old creatures of a dying institution. Believe me, he will make their lives hell,” the source continued.
- Another advisor emphasized, “He’s really mad about it.”
- “The more he thinks about it, the more he finds the filibuster outrageous and antidemocratic,” one adviser said.
Writing in Federalist No. 10, James Madison he outlined the dangers of mob rule, as well as the many ways in which government was constructed to prevent it. In Federalist No. 63, he warns against a scenario that is as relevant today as the day it was written:
“Just as the cool and prudent sense of the community should in all governments, and indeed will in all free governments, ultimately prevail over the views of its rulers, so there are particular moments in public affairs when the people, excited by some irregular passion or forbidden advantage, or misled by the artful deception of the people concerned, may demand measures which they themselves will afterwards be most apt to deplore and condemn.”
– James Madison, Federalist No. 63
Trump also tried to rally support on social media, writing that “Democrats have a much better chance of winning the midterms and the next presidential election if we do not end the Filibuster (nuclear option!). If we end the Filibuster, EVERYTHING will be approved like no Congress in history. END THE FILIBUSTER NOW, END THE SMILING SHUTDOWN IMMEDIATELY, AND THEN WHAT MOST IMPORTANTLY, CARRY OUT EVERY GREAT REPUBLIC POLICY THAT WE HAVE DREAMED FOR YEARS BUT NEVER GOT, WE WILL BE THE PARTY THAT CAN’T BE DEFEATED – THE INTELLIGENT PARTY!!!”
Senator John Fetterman is the lone wolf among Democrats in the upper house when it comes to supporting a nuclear strike to end a government shutdown.
“I want to remind all of us Democrats that we wanted to destroy this entire filibuster,” he told Fox News last week. “I mean calling it specific now… it’s really not that different from an en bloc appointment, and I think that was appropriate in this situation as well. Removing the filibuster would make it almost impossible to shut down our government in the future.”
Its Pennsylvania counterpart – Senator Dave McCormick – shared his thoughts on eliminating the filibuster in an interview with Fox News on Sunday, calling it “tempting.”
McCormick acknowledged frustration with Democrats and said the Republican Party must continue to keep the pressure on them, saying: “This is shutting them down. They are standing in the way of innocent people getting the food they need. And listen, imagine a world where there is no filibuster. And you have an insanely radical part of the Democratic party that is on the forefront of us becoming a socialist country.”
The junior senator actually said during his successful 2024 campaign against his former Senator Bob Casey that “I think the filibuster is a way to test a majority of either side.”
