emocrats spent years planning to kill the filibuster the moment they retake the Senate. They put it in a progressive caucus resolution. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) confirmed it on a podcast. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New york promised court-packing and Senate \u201creform\u201d in the same breath. The plan was airtight.<\/p>\n
Then someone remembered Angus King exists. The independent senator from Maine who caucuses with Democrats told the Washington Post he has changed his mind on the filibuster \u2014 he supported the effort to eliminate it in 2022, but no longer. \u201cThey were right, and I was wrong,\u201d King said, praising Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema for blocking the rules change.<\/p>\n
This is significant for a specific reason. If Democrats flip the Senate in November and need to eliminate the filibuster to pass their agenda \u2014 the court packing, the voting \u201crights\u201d bill, the open borders legislation \u2014 they may need 51 votes to do it, not 50, if King holds firm. That means flipping the Senate alone isn\u2019t enough. They\u2019d need a King-proof majority.<\/p>\n
The caveat that deserves emphasis: this is good news only if Republicans fail to do what they should have done months ago. The correct lesson here is not \u201cgreat, we\u2019re protected, the filibuster is safe\u201d \u2014 it\u2019s \u201cpass the SAVE America Act now, before Democrats find a way around King or pressure him into reversing course again.\u201d King changed his position once. He can change it again. Politicians who pride themselves on independence have a way of finding reasons to accommodate their caucus when the pressure gets intense enough.<\/p>\n
The Joe Manchin comparison is instructive here. Manchin held out on the disastrously expensive trillion-dollar falsely named \u201cBuild Back Better\u201d for months, extracting concessions, positioning himself as the moderate bulwark against progressive overreach. Then he voted for the Inflation Reduction Act \u2014 a massive climate and spending bill that was Build Back Better with a new coat of paint. Manchin\u2019s \u201cprincipled opposition\u201d had a price. King\u2019s may too.<\/p>\n
More fundamentally, the question of whether Democrats can kill the filibuster if they win the Senate is downstream of the question of whether they win the Senate. Republicans hold it right now. They spent their August recess arguing about procedural options instead of passing the SAVE America Act with the majority they already have. The time to act was before the vacation. The time to act is now, when they come back in September.<\/p>\n
King\u2019s filibuster position is a pleasant surprise and a potential speedbump for Democratic plans. It is not a substitute for Republicans doing their jobs while they still control the chamber.<\/p>\n
Pass the SAVE America Act. Don\u2019t leave the fate of American election integrity to the goodwill of an independent senator from Maine who already flipped once and might flip again. Republicans have the majority now<\/em>. Use it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" emocrats spent years planning to kill the filibuster the moment they retake the Senate. They put it in a progressive…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tastykitchen.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tastykitchen.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tastykitchen.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tastykitchen.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tastykitchen.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2574"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tastykitchen.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2576,"href":"https:\/\/tastykitchen.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2574\/revisions\/2576"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tastykitchen.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tastykitchen.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tastykitchen.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tastykitchen.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}