[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 15 (Tuesday, January 26, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S134-S135]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               FILIBUSTER

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, yesterday, two Democratic Senators 
confirmed they will not provide the votes to eliminate the legislative 
filibuster. The senior Senator from West Virginia issued a public 
``guarantee'': ``I do not support doing away with the filibuster under 
any condition.''
  Any chance of changing his mind? ``None whatsoever.''
  The senior Senator from Arizona made the same commitment. She opposes 
ending the legislative filibuster and ``is not open''--not open--``to 
changing her mind.'' Our colleague informed me directly last night that 
under no circumstances would she reverse course.
  Now, it should not be news that a few Members of the majority pledge 
they won't tear up a central rule, but the Democratic leader was 
reluctant to repeat the step I took as majority leader in unified 
government when I ruled out that step on principle.
  Rather than relying on the Democratic leader, I took the discussion 
directly to his Members. Basic arithmetic now ensures that there are 
not enough votes to break the rule. This victory will let us move 
forward with the 50-50 power-sharing agreement containing all the 
elements of the 2001 model because it will sit on the very same 
foundation.
  I want to discuss the precipice from which the Senate has stepped 
back. In 2013, Senator Harry Reid began the ``nuclear'' exchange over 
nominations. I said Democrats would regret it. A few years later, we 
have many Federal judges, including three Supreme Court Justices, who 
were confirmed with fewer than 60 votes.
  The back-and-forth exchange over nominations had one institutional 
silver lining, because, routinely, filibustering nominations was itself 
a modern invention pioneered by Senate Democrats in the 2000s. So, on 
nominations, for all the fighting, the Senate just simply circled back 
to the simple majority threshold that had been our longstanding norm on 
nominations; that is, on the Executive Calendar.
  Legislation is very different. When it comes to lawmaking, the 
Framers' vision and our history are abundantly clear. The Senate exists 
to require deliberation and cooperation. James Madison said the 
Senate's job was to provide a ``complicated check''--a ``complicated 
check,'' he said--against ``improper acts of legislation.'' We ensure 
that laws earn enough buy-in to receive the lasting consent of the 
governed. We stop bad ideas, improve good ideas, and keep laws from 
swinging wildly with every election.
  Our friend, Lamar Alexander, put it this way in his farewell speech. 
He said: ``The Senate exists to produce broad agreements on 
controversial issues that become laws most of us have voted for and 
that a diverse country will accept.''
  More than any other feature, it is the Senate's 60-vote threshold to 
end debate on legislation that achieves this. It ensures narrow 
interests cannot ignore the rest of the country. It embodies 
Jefferson's maxim that ``great innovations should not be forced on 
slender majorities.''
  The bar for lawmaking is high. It should be high, even if both bodies 
take turns at being slightly frustrated by it. If your legislation 
can't pass the Senate, you don't scrap the rules or lower the 
standards. You improve your idea, take your case to the people, or 
both.
  Four years ago, Republicans had just won unified control. President 
Trump and others pressured us heavily--me, in particular--to scrap this 
rule when it was protecting the Democratic minority. But we stood firm. 
I stood firm and endured many tweets on the subject. I said we would 
not do that to our colleagues in the minority.
  No short-term policy win justifies destroying the Senate as we know 
it, especially since laws would become so brittle and reversible. So 
Democratic Senators used the 60-vote threshold to shape and block 
legislation. They stalled COVID relief, they blocked police reform, and 
they stopped even modest measures to protect innocent life because I 
chose not to destroy the tool that allowed them to do that.
  That same tool that some Democrats now want to destroy, they used 
freely and liberally throughout their years in the minority, and I 
protected their ability to do that. Republicans understand you don't 
destroy the Senate for a fleeting advantage. Our friends across the 
aisle must see the same.

[[Page S135]]

  I have talked a lot about principle. We should also make this a 
little more tangible. So let's take a look at what would happen if in 
fact the legislative filibuster were gone. If the Democratic majority 
were to attack the filibuster, they would guarantee themselves 
immediate chaos, especially in this 50-50 Senate. This body operates 
every day and every hour by consent, and destroying the filibuster 
would drain comity and consent from this body to a degree that would be 
unparalleled in living memory.
  So let's look at some examples.
  The Constitution requires the Senate to have a quorum to do any 
business. Right now, a quorum is 51, and the Vice President does not 
count to establish a quorum. The majority cannot even produce a quorum 
on their own, and one could be demanded by any Senator at almost any 
time.
  Our committees need quorums to function as well. They will also be 
evenly split. If this majority went scorched-earth, this body would 
grind to a halt like we have never seen. Technically, it takes 
collegiality and consent for the majority to keep acting as the 
majority at any time they do not physically--physically--have the 
majority.
  In a scorched-earth, post-nuclear Senate that is 50-50 like we have 
today, every Senate Democrat and the Vice President could essentially 
just block out the next 2 years on their calendar. They would have to 
be here all the time.
  It takes unanimous consent to schedule most votes, to schedule 
speeches, to convene before noon, to schedule many hearings and 
markups. As Democrats just spent 4 years reminding us, it takes consent 
to confirm even the lowest level nominees at anything beyond a snail's 
pace.
  None of us has ever seen a Senate where every single thing either 
happens in the hardest possible way or not at all. Heck, once or twice 
every day the majority leader reads through an entire paragraph of 
routine requests. Objections could turn each one into multiple, lengthy 
rollcall votes.
  None of us on either side wants to live in a scorched-earth Senate. 
The institution and the American people deserve a lot better. But there 
is no doubt--none--that is what we would see if Democrats tear up this 
pivotal rule. It would become immediately and painfully clear to the 
Democratic majority that they had indeed just broken the Senate.
  This gambit would not speed the Democrats' ambitions. It would delay 
them terribly, and it would hamstring the Biden Presidency over a power 
grab which the President has spent decades warning against and still 
opposes.
  Finally, at some point, the shoe would find its way to the other 
foot. When Republicans next control the government, we would be able to 
repeal every bill that had just been rammed through, and we would set 
about defending the unborn, exploring domestic energy, unleashing free 
enterprise, defunding sanctuary cities, securing the border, protecting 
workers' paychecks from union bosses--you get the picture.
  But a few years later, the Democrats would try to flip it all back. 
So instead of building stable consensus, we would be chaotically 
swapping party platforms, swinging wildly between opposite visions that 
would guarantee half the country is miserable and resentful at any 
given time. We would have inherited resilient institutions but left 
behind a chaotic mess.
  We are in a politically charged period, but when factional fever runs 
hot, when slender majorities are most tempted to ram through 
radicalism, these are the times for which the guardrails exist in the 
first place.
  Republicans said no--emphatically no--to pushing the Senate over this 
precipice. When I could have tried to grab the power, I turned it down. 
I said: ``President Trump, no,'' repeatedly, because the Nation needs 
us to respect the Framers' design and the Senate's structure, and 
because, as I said in a different context on January 6, we have a 
higher calling than endless partisan escalation.
  We have placed our trust in the institution itself, in a common 
desire to do the right thing. I am grateful that has been reciprocated 
by at least a pair of our colleagues across the aisle. I am glad that 
we have stepped back from this cliff. Taking that plunge would not be 
some progressive dream; it would be a nightmare. I guarantee it.

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