[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 7 (Tuesday, January 11, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S123-S124]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Filibuster

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, something disturbing is happening in 
Washington this week. A group of politicians are trying to set aside 
election results, overrule American voters, and break--break--our 
institutions to get a political outcome they want.
  I am speaking, of course, about the Senate Democratic leader and the 
radical left. The Senate Democratic leader is trying to bully his own 
Members into breaking their word, breaking the Senate, and silencing 
the voices of millions of citizens so that one political party can take 
over our Nation's elections from the top down.
  In January 2021, a mob tried to intimidate and change the Senate, and 
they failed. In January of 2021, the Senate stayed true to itself, and 
it stood strong.
  But in January of 2022, some of the Senate's own Members want to 
permanently damage this institution from within. They want to shatter 
its central feature. The Democratic leader is using fake hysteria--fake 
hysteria--about 2021 State laws to justify a power grab he began 
floating actually back in 2019 and an election takeover that was first 
drafted in 2019.
  President Biden has spread so much misinformation about the basic 
facts of State voting laws that he was called out and debunked by--
listen to this--the Washington Post. A sitting President of the United 
States who pledged to lower the temperature and unite America now 
invokes the brutal racial hatred of Jim Crow segregation to smear--to 
smear--States whose new voting laws are more accessible than, for 
example, Delaware. Ten days of early voting and excuse-only absentees 
in Delaware is just fine, but 17 days of

[[Page S124]]

early voting and no-excuse absentees in Georgia is racist Jim Crow?
  The Senate Democratic leader pretends it is a civil rights crisis 
that Georgia has enshrined more early voting and more absentee 
balloting than his own State of New York has ever allowed. This is 
misinformation. It is a Big Lie designed to reduce faith in our 
democracy, justify a top-down election takeover, and justify smashing 
the Senate itself. Some years back, a veteran Democratic Senator 
explained:

       [The] nuclear option is ultimately an example of the 
     arrogance of power . . . [it] would transform the Senate from 
     the so-called cooling saucer our Founding Fathers talked 
     about . . . to a purer majoritarian body.

  That was then-Senator Joe Biden. He continued:

       At its core, the filibuster is not about stopping a nominee 
     or a bill, it is about compromise and moderation.

  Now, before President Biden abruptly reversed this position he held 
for decades, he was actually in very good company. Senator Robert Byrd 
of West Virginia, the legendary Senate institutionalist, was this 
crucial tradition's fiercest defender. The current Democratic leader 
has tried to invoke Senator Byrd in support of this push to vandalize 
the Senate. This is more misinformation. Senator Byrd went out of his 
way to rebut Leader Schumer's arguments, years in advance. Here is a 
direct quote from Senator Byrd:

       Proponents of the so-called nuclear option cite several 
     instances in which they inaccurately allege that I blazed a 
     procedural path toward an inappropriate change in Senate 
     rules. They're dead wrong--

  Said Senator Byrd--

       Dead wrong. They draw analogies where none exist and create 
     cockeyed comparisons that fail to withstand even the 
     slightest intellectual scrutiny.

  That is how Senator Byrd felt about it. Down to his final public 
statements before his death in 2010, Senator Byrd was completely 
consistent:

       I oppose cloture by a simple majority, because it would 
     immediately destroy the uniqueness of this institution . . . 
     minority rights would cease to exist in the U.S. Senate.

  Senator Byrd, shortly before his death.
  That Democratic leader knew how to serve and protect the Senate.
  This Democratic leader wants power so badly he will misrepresent his 
own late predecessor if it helps him get it. Senator Byrd's successor, 
the current senior Senator from West Virginia, has eloquently restated 
the very same points. Our colleague Senator Manchin published an op-ed 
explaining why ``there is no circumstance in which I will vote to 
eliminate or weaken the filibuster''--Senator Manchin.
  He pointed out that finding compromise across party differences and 
differing regional interests was ``never supposed to be easy . . . but 
it is the work we were elected to do.'' He noted that current rules 
guarantee ``that rural and small states and the Americans who live in 
them . . . always have a seat at the table.''
  Our colleague also pointed out that the 60-vote threshold keeps 
Federal law durable and predictable:

       If the filibuster is eliminated or budget reconciliation 
     becomes the norm, a new and dangerous precedent will be set 
     to pass sweeping, partisan legislation every time there is a 
     change in political control . . . our nation may never see 
     stable governing again.

  This has been a key point for Senators on both sides going back 
generations. In his farewell address before retirement, our former 
colleague, Lamar Alexander, put it this way: The Senate rules exists to 
``force broad agreements on controversial issues that become laws that 
most of us will vote for and that a diverse country will accept.''
  In other words, major changes need major buy-in. Otherwise, every 
policy would ping-pong wildly whenever the gavels change hands.
  This is a point which our colleague, the senior Senator from Arizona, 
has explained powerfully. As Senator Sinema wrote just a few months 
ago, ``the 60-vote threshold . . . compels moderation and helps protect 
the country from wild swings . . . and radical reversals in Federal 
policy.''
  Sometimes the effect of the filibuster is to block bills outright. 
Republicans are using the tool to stop one-party election takeovers. In 
2020, Democrats used it to kill Senator Tim Scott's police reform bill. 
But as President Biden argued decades ago, the filibuster is about more 
than what gets blocked. It shapes almost everything the Senate actually 
does pass. It gives all kinds of citizens and all kinds of States a 
meaningful voice in nearly everything.
  By breaking the Senate, this Democratic leader wants to silence the 
voices of millions and millions of Americans. He wants to throw whole 
regions of the country into a political power outage because those 
voters don't agree with his radicalism. We will see which Senators have 
the courage and the principle to put a stop to it.
  Finally, on a more practical level, I want to make something very, 
very clear. Fifty Republican Senators, the largest possible minority, 
have been sent here to represent the many millions of Americans whom 
Leader Schumer wants so badly to leave behind. So if my colleagues try 
to break the Senate to silence those millions of Americans, we will 
make their voices heard in this Chamber in ways that are more 
inconvenient for the majority and this White House than what anybody 
has seen in living memory.
  Last year, the Senate passed major bipartisan legislation on 
infrastructure, on hate crimes, on government funding, on competing 
with China. Last year, Senators helped speed through noncontroversial 
nominations.
  So what would a postnuclear Senate look like? I assure you, it would 
not be more efficient or more productive. I personally guarantee it.
  Do my colleagues understand how many times per day the Senate needs 
and gets unanimous consent for basic housekeeping? Do they understand 
how many things would require rollcall votes, how often the minority 
could demand lengthy debate?
  Our colleagues who are itching for a procedural nuclear winter have 
not even begun to contemplate how it would look. Our colleagues who are 
itching to drain every drop of collegiality from this body have not 
even begun to consider how that would work.
  If the Democratic leader tries to shut millions of Americans and 
entire States out of the business of governing, the operations of this 
body will change. Oh, yes, that much is true. But not in ways that 
reward the rulebreakers, not in ways that advantage this President, 
this majority, or their party--I guarantee it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican whip.