[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 51 (Thursday, March 18, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1626-S1627]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Filibuster

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, once again, we are hearing chatter from 
some Democratic Senators about abolishing the filibuster. I had hoped 
we would move on from such talk after multiple Democratic Senators 
pledged to uphold the filibuster but apparently not. Apparently, some 
Democrats think that they can pressure or bully those Senators and 
other Democratic Senators who have expressed reservations into going 
back on their word.
  Let me quote a former Senator on attempts to change filibuster rules 
in the Senate, and I am quoting:

       We should make no mistake. This nuclear option is 
     ultimately an example of the arrogance of power. It is a 
     fundamental power grab by the majority party. . . . Folks who 
     want to see this change want to eliminate one of the 
     procedural mechanisms designed for the express purpose of 
     guaranteeing individual rights, and they also have a 
     consequence, and would undermine the protections of a 
     minority point of view in the heat of majority excess.

  That was former Senator Joe Biden.
  Here is what a current Senator had to say on eliminating the 
legislative filibuster, and again I quote:

       I can tell you that would be the end of the Senate as it 
     was originally devised and created going back to our Founding 
     Fathers. We have to acknowledge our respect for the minority, 
     and that is what the Senate tries to do in its composition 
     and in its procedure.

  That was a statement from the current Democratic whip in 2018.
  In 2017, 33 Democratic Senators signed a letter urging that the 
legislative filibuster be preserved--2017.
  Of course, Democrats have not limited their support of the filibuster 
to words; they have supported it by their actions. In the last 
Congress, Democrats set a record for forcing cloture votes, which is 
what has to happen in order to end a filibuster. They repeatedly used 
the filibuster when they disagreed with legislation that Republicans 
were advancing. They filibustered COVID relief. They filibustered 
police reform even though Senator Scott and Leader McConnell had 
committed to a robust, bipartisan amendment process. They filibustered 
pro-life legislation, and they made it very clear that they deeply 
regretted the fact that they could not filibuster judicial nominees--a 
situation, I would point out, of their own making. Even without the 
judicial filibuster, they used every tool at their disposal to slow 
down judicial nominations.
  So, as of last year, Democrats' actions clearly demonstrated their 
firm support of the filibuster, but now that they have actually taken 
power here in Washington, albeit by the slimmest possible majority, 
they are pushing to get rid of it.
  Democrats, of course, would like people to believe that this is a 
principled change; that all of a sudden, they have realized that it is 
really much better for the country if the majority party gets to do 
whatever it wants when it is in charge. Well, I just have to say, if 
you believe that, I have some nice oceanfront property in South Dakota 
to sell you.
  I doubt that there is anyone anywhere in the country who seriously 
thinks that the Democrats' dramatic 180-degree turn on the filibuster 
is a principled reversal of their previous position. No, this isn't 
about principle. It is partisanship. It is political expediency. 
Democrats' principles haven't changed; their power in the Senate has. 
They are in charge now. They don't want anything holding them back, 
like that pesky Senate rule that they have used so often to their 
advantage.
  The truth is, Democrats want a one-sided advantage. Last year, they 
were perfectly happy to exercise their rights as a minority and 
filibuster any Republican legislature they didn't like, but now that 
they are in charge, they want to deny the minority a right Democrats 
repeatedly exercised when they were in power. They are apparently too 
shortsighted to see that their proposal could be turned back on them in 
an instant.
  When Democrats abolished the filibuster for judicial nominees, Leader 
McConnell warned Democrats that they would reap the whirlwind, and they 
did. Much to Democrats' horror, President Trump ended up being the 
chief beneficiary of the abolition of the filibuster for judicial 
nominees, appointing a vast number of conservative judges to the 
Federal bench.
  Several Democratic Senators have openly admitted that they had made a 
mistake by abolishing the judicial filibuster. The junior Senator from 
Delaware came to the floor in April 2017 and said he regretted changing 
the rules in 2013. The senior Senator from Minnesota not only said she 
regretted changing the rules, she went so far as to say in 2018 that 
she would support bringing back the 60-vote requirement. Yet now 
Democrats are apparently ready to abolish--abolish--the legislative 
filibuster. How have they not learned their lesson? Unless Democrats 
are so arrogant as to think they will never again be in the minority.

  Some Democrats have suggested that we need to abolish the filibuster 
because otherwise the Senate won't get anything done. Well, not quite. 
Not quite. It is not that the filibuster could prevent us from getting 
anything done; it is that it could prevent us from getting everything 
Democrats want done. That is a big difference.
  The truth is, Democrats could easily get something done in the Senate 
if they were willing to actually work with Republicans. And by ``work 
with Republicans,'' I don't mean inviting Republicans to join their 
bills while excluding any meaningful Republican input. I don't mean 
threatening Republicans to support their bills on pain of having the 
filibuster abolished or substantially altered. No, I mean genuinely 
inviting Republicans to the table.
  Now, it would mean the Democrats wouldn't get everything they want 
done, and, of course, Republicans certainly wouldn't get everything we 
want done, but we could get something done. In fact, we could get some 
pretty meaningful things done. We could negotiate an infrastructure 
bill. We could pass section 230 reform, like the bipartisan bill I 
introduced with Senator Schatz yesterday. We could pass police reform 
legislation, expand domestic manufacturing capacity, and protect 
election integrity. We could do all of that and more if Democrats would 
engage in genuine bipartisan negotiation.
  Is it really too much to ask that Democrats find 10 Republicans to 
work with on major legislative items? Everyone would like to pass their 
unedited agenda just like they want it, but that is not how things are 
supposed to work, at least not in the U.S. Senate, and it is certainly 
not how it is supposed to work when, like Democrats, you barely have a 
majority. The Senate and, indeed, our whole system of government were 
designed to prevent a partisan majority from steamrolling through its 
unedited, unchecked agenda.
  Let's just talk for a minute about the purpose of the Senate. 
Actually, let me take a step back and talk about the purpose of our 
whole system of government.
  Our Founders established not a pure democracy, where the will of the 
majority reigns unchecked, but a democratic Republic. It was their 
intention

[[Page S1627]]

to combine majority rule with representation and protection for the 
minority. Why? Because the Founders knew very well that it wasn't just 
Kings who could be tyrants. They knew that majorities could be tyrants, 
too, and that a majority of citizens could easily trample the rights of 
the minority. So they put safeguards in place throughout our 
government, checks and balances to keep the government in check and 
ensure that minority as well as majority rights were protected.
  One of those safeguards was the U.S. Senate. Wary of, to quote 
Federalist 62, ``the propensity of all single and numerous assemblies 
to yield to the impulse of sudden and violent passions,'' the Founders 
created the Senate as a check on the House of Representatives. They 
made the Senate smaller and Senators' terms of office longer, with the 
intention of creating a more stable, more thoughtful, and more 
deliberative legislative body to check ill-considered or intemperate 
legislation and attempts to curtail minority rights.
  As time has gone on, the legislative filibuster has become a key tool 
in preserving the Founders' vision of the Senate. The filibuster does 
indeed make it harder to get legislation through the Senate, and that 
is a good thing. That is what the Founders intended. The Senate was not 
designed to be a rubberstamp for a partisan agenda; it was intended to 
check partisanship or, as the Founders might put it, faction.
  Now, does the filibuster sometimes stop good legislation from getting 
passed? Of course it does. Last Congress, it stopped us from passing 
legislation to protect unborn babies who can feel pain from being 
killed by abortion. The failure of the Senate to pass that bill, I 
think, is a tragedy, but just as you don't abolish the burden of proof 
in criminal cases just because some criminal sometimes escapes justice 
for lack of evidence, you don't permanently remove protections for 
minority rights because you might be able to force through a good piece 
of legislation.
  In 2005, when some Republicans were suggesting eliminating the 
filibuster for judicial nominees, then-Senator Joe Biden said:

       I say to my friends on the Republican side: You may own the 
     field right now, but you won't own it forever. I pray God 
     when the Democrats take back control, we don't make the kind 
     of naked power grab you are doing.

  Fortunately, in 2005, Republicans didn't take that step. And in 2017 
and 2018, when President Trump was pushing for Republicans, who were in 
the majority at the time, to abolish the legislative filibuster so he 
could push through our agenda and we could push through our agenda, we 
said no.
  For the future of the Senate and our system of government, I pray 
that Democrats will make the same decision.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Booker). The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.