[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 54 (Tuesday, March 23, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1682-S1683]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               FILIBUSTER

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, while House Democrats try to overturn a 
certified election result from last November, some Senate Democrats are 
agitating to break Senate rules to ram through a partisan rewrite of 
all 50 States' election laws--all 50 States' election laws.
  The 60-vote threshold is the reason huge pillars of domestic policy 
don't oscillate back and forth every time a different party wins the 
majority. So let's think of something like the Mexico City policy, the 
executive branch policy about funding overseas abortions. It has 
flipped back and forth every single time the White House has changed 
parties since the 1980s. Republican Presidents issue the memo; the 
Democratic Presidents retract it.
  The legislative filibuster is what keeps the entirety of Federal law 
from working that way. For a long time, Senators on both sides have 
recognized the Senate and the country are better off with some actual 
stability. Both sides have understood there are no permanent majorities 
in American politics, so a system that gives both sides a voice 
benefits, actually, everyone in the long term.
  That is what 33 of our Democratic colleagues said just a few years 
ago, when they all signed a joint letter insisting that rules 
protecting debate on legislation be preserved.
  That is what President Biden believed consistently throughout his 
long Senate tenure. About 15 years ago, then-Senator Biden said killing 
the filibuster would be, ``an example of the arrogance of power.'' That 
was President Biden. He restated his long-held position during the 
campaign just last year.
  Here is what my colleague the Democratic leader said in 2017. Senator 
Schumer said:

       The legislative filibuster . . . is the most important 
     distinction between the Senate and the House. . . . [L]et's 
     find a way to further protect the 60-vote rule for 
     legislation.

  That was the Democratic leader in 2017.
  And Democrats didn't just spend the last 4 years supporting the 
filibuster; they spent 4 years using it. Senate Democrats used the 
filibuster to kill Senator Tim Scott's police reform bill in the wake 
of the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
  We could have had Federal legislation on the books since last summer, 
putting more body cameras on police officers, requiring fuller incident 
reporting to the FBI, and finally making lynching a Federal crime, 
among other things. Democrats stopped it. They stopped it using the 
filibuster.
  A few months before, they used the filibuster to briefly turn the 
bipartisan sprint toward the CARES Act into a partisan standoff. The 
press marveled that Senate Democrats had the gall to block relief--a 
tactic that helped tank the markets--in order to demand further 
changes.
  Back in early 2018, Senate Democrats used the filibuster to block 
government funding and force a brief governmen shutdown over, of all 
things, immigration. One of the Democratic leader's first major acts as 
the leader of his conference was to wield the filibuster to shut down 
the entire Federal Government.

  So, look, the Democratic side just spent 4 years defending and, of 
course, happily using the same Senate rule that many of our colleagues 
now attack. So this reversal is not about principle. It has nothing 
whatsoever to do with principle. It is just raw power--raw power.

[[Page S1683]]

  Three years ago, the assistant Democratic leader was asked about the 
Senate majority going ``nuclear'' and killing the legislative 
filibuster. Here's what Senator Durbin had to say:

       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.

  That was Senator Durbin in 2018, just a few years ago. Now he argues 
the opposite.
  Now I understand our colleague has rotated through several different 
explanations for his reversal in just the last few days.
  First, our colleague from Illinois indicated he changed his mind--
changed his mind--because Republicans, and I specifically, had used the 
filibuster so much in the intervening years. But, Mr. President, 
Republicans were in the majority the whole time. We were in the 
majority the whole time. It was the Democrats who used the filibuster 
in the minority in 2018, 2019, and 2020--not Republicans. That argument 
makes no sense whatsoever.
  A few days later, there was a new made-up rationale: It is just that 
the Senate hasn't been getting anything done, so the institution needs 
an overhaul. Except we have just had a uniquely terrible year to make 
that argument.
  Last year was not a good year to make that argument. We passed five--
five--bipartisan COVID bills with big bipartisan majorities that spent 
the most money in American history and helped save the country. Don't 
see any obstruction in that. We passed a historic bipartisan bill for 
national parks and public lands. Didn't see any outrageous use of the 
filibuster on that.
  So there is fake history swirling all around the discussion--fake 
history.
  About a year ago, former President Obama launched a new, coordinated, 
and very obvious campaign to get liberals repeating the claim that the 
Senate rules are somehow a relic of racism and bigotry. That came just 
a month after Democrats had used the filibuster to kill Senator Tim 
Scott's police reform and anti-lynching bill.
  So these talking points are an effort to use the terrible history of 
racism to justify a partisan power grab in the present. It is not 
unlike what we saw last summer, when some protest mobs ended up 
defacing statues of people who actually crusaded for justice--like 
Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and the abolitionist Matthias 
Baldwin--mistakenly damaging good institutions because of our troubled 
past.
  Multiple fact checkers have torn into this simplistic notion that the 
rules of the Senate are rooted in racism: ``Historians told PolitiFact 
that the filibuster did not emerge from debates over slavery or 
segregation.'' One scholar's account was that ``the very first Senate 
filibuster was over a bridge across the Potomac River.''
  The very first filibuster was over a bridge over the Potomac River.
  The junior Senator from Massachusetts just got three Pinocchios from 
the Washington Post for these arguments.
  Their look--the Washington Post's look--at history found ``the first 
recorded filibusters in the Senate concerned issues such as where to 
locate Congress, what to do about Andrew Jackson's censure over 
withdrawn federal deposits, who would be appointed to a publication 
called the Congressional Globe and whether to create a national 
bank''--nothing to do with racism.
  But I am curious. If my Democratic colleagues really believe what 
they are saying, did they themselves use a racist tool against Senator 
Scott's police reform bill just last year?
  Did they use a racist relic when they delayed the CARES Act or 
blocked legislation to protect unborn babies who can feel pain?
  Were Senators Schumer and Durbin and their 33 colleagues who signed 
that letter all endorsing a racist relic?
  Or is our colleagues' story that the filibuster was not an offensive 
relic as recently as last summer but magically--imagine this--just 
magically, within a year, magically became an offensive relic the 
instant the Democrats came to power? All of a sudden, it is an 
offensive, racist relic when the Democrats came to power. Jaw-dropping 
hypocrisy. These backflips insult the intelligence of the American 
people.

  The far left is desperate to change the subject to the 1960s because 
they want people to forget how Senate Democrats behaved just last year. 
This is not about the 1960s. It is not a racist relic.
  Look, if some of my Democratic colleagues want to keep lobbying two 
of their colleagues to go back on their word, they should at least have 
the courage to be honest.
  The far left wants Democrats to break the Senate rules for no other 
reason--no other reason--than they want more power. They want more 
power. The same people who are trying to overturn a certified election 
result over at the House want to break Senate rules so they can 
override the election laws of all 50 States from right here in 
Washington. It is that simple. And it is not going to be hidden by a 
coordinated campaign to change the subject.

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