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Mitch McConnell is convinced of one thing: The Democratic Party would have the support it needs to kill the Senate filibuster if it takes full control of Washington this year.
The outgoing Republican leader told Semafor on Thursday that he now believes Democrats, should they sweep into power this fall, would dispense with the Senate’s 60-vote threshold to pass most legislation.
“I don’t think they’re kidding. I think they’ll do it,” McConnell said.
Vice President Kamala Harris reiterated this week that she hopes to eliminate the filibuster for the purposes of writing Roe v. Wade’s abortion right into law, a move that doesn’t have full backing on her side of the aisle yet. Her comments reignited the Senate’s yearslong battle over an arcane filibuster rule that Democrats famously weakened in 2013 by eliminating the 60-vote bar to confirm most presidential nominees, citing GOP obstruction.
Republicans presided over their own weakening of the filibuster by voting in 2017 to end it for confirmation of Supreme Court justices. Democrats tried again to chip away at the filibuster two years ago in order to pass a voting rights bill, a move stopped by Independent Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.
Since then, it’s become clear that anti-filibuster sentiment which first spiked on the left has become a more mainstream Democratic position, with ample interest in killing the filibuster for other issues too. McConnell is taking the opposing party at its word.
“What I concluded is, whenever they think it’s getting in the way of something they really want to do, they’re going to break the rules,” the Kentuckian said of Democrats. “And once you do it once, it’s over.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., declined to discuss changes to the filibuster this week, saying it would be something Democrats would discuss next Congress. Of course, the question is only relevant if Democrats can take back the House and hang onto their Senate majority; they’re currently in a brutal battle to do just that.
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McConnell’s view is buoyed by the likelihood that a future Democratic majority would be more liberal than today’s, which includes the retiring Manchin and Sinema. Democratic candidates running for Senate seats this year have largely endorsed at least weakening the filibuster, if not outright eliminating it.
Getting agreement among a small majority of senators for such a consequential change is tough, though, so there’s no guarantee that Democrats would be able to pull it off. For McConnell, there’s little mystery.
“They’re all committed to it now, because Chuck has made them take a public position. Every Democratic challenger, I’m told, running for the Senate is taking the same position,” McConnell said. “I think they fully intend to do it if they can.”
From Schumer on down the ranks, however, several Democrats hedged over the past month about their plans. After all, the election is around the corner and there’s little utility in talking about theoretical changes before they win the majority.
But progressive reform advocates say they are tired of Republicans using the 60-vote threshold to block Democratic priorities and then push through tax cuts with a simple majority, as the GOP did in 2017. Democrats passed their own big legislation without Republican votes in 2021 and 2022, but they ran into big procedural problems trying to squeeze some of their agenda into it.
Burgess’s view
Most conservatives will admit the filibuster benefits their party more than Democrats. That’s why the Senate didn’t change the rules when former President Donald Trump was in office, even as he pushed to kill the filibuster while his party controlled all of Washington.
“That is a fundamental imbalance. So basically, McConnell has said: ’Look, we benefit from obstruction. It’s a heads, we win; tails, they lose proposition,” said Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, a top backer of weakening the filibuster.
McConnell spoke relatively often to Manchin and Sinema over the past few years about preserving the filibuster. He even cut deals that allowed Democrats to raise the debt ceiling, which were unpopular among Republicans, in order to avoid what he perceived as a risk of the filibuster’s demise.
I asked McConnell Thursday if he had tried to change Democrats’ minds about the issue, but he answered by emphasizing his public remarks against changing the filibuster.
He said he doubted Democrats could be swayed “because it’s become party policy, and Harris taking that position again only underscores that this is part of their playbook.” The only way to keep the filibuster, he insisted, is for Republicans to win the Senate.