[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 140 (Tuesday, September 10, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5908-S5909]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Filibuster

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, it is no secret that Democrats increasingly 
subscribe to the philosophy that if you don't like the way the game is 
going, you change the rules. We have seen it in striking fashion with 
the Supreme Court. Democrats respond to pretty much every Supreme Court 
decision that they don't like these days with claims not just that the 
Court's decision was wrong but that the Court itself is illegitimate.
  As the President made clear with the release of his de facto Court-
packing plan this summer, if Democrats are elected, we can confidently 
expect them to lose no time in remaking the Court to their liking to 
ensure they get the policy outcomes they want.
  Of course the Supreme Court is not the only institution the Democrats 
have a problem with. Democrats are also frustrated they haven't gotten 
a blank check for their far-left priorities in the Senate. So if 
Democrats win in November, they intend to change the rules of the 
Senate--specifically the filibuster rule--to ensure that they can 
steamroll through their plans to remake the government and the country.
  The Democrat leader made that very explicit last month at the 
Democrat National Convention when he said that his party would change 
the rules to pass Democrats' so-called voting rights legislation--more 
accurately described as a Federal takeover of elections designed to 
give Democrats a permanent electoral advantage.
  He also indicated that his conference would move to change the rules 
to pass abortion legislation--perhaps Democrats' bill to codify 
abortion up until the moment of birth.
  Really, the only question remaining seems to be whether Democrats 
will abolish the filibuster completely or just render it meaningless by 
carving out exemptions for all Democrats' most cherished priorities.
  I have spoken on the floor more than once about the importance of the 
filibuster. The Founders intended the Senate to be a counterbalance to 
the House. It was designed as a more stable, more thoughtful, and more 
deliberative legislative body to check ill-considered or intemperate 
legislation or tyranny by the majority.
  As time has gone on, the legislative filibuster is the Senate rule 
that has had perhaps the greatest impact in preserving the Founders' 
vision of the Senate. The filibuster acts as a check on imprudent or 
highly partisan legislation, it forces discussion and compromise, and 
critically, it ensures that Americans whose party is not in power also 
have a voice in Congress.
  As one Senator said a few years ago when abolishing the filibuster 
was under consideration, ``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 would undermine the 
protections of a minority point of view in the heat of majority 
excess.'' That Senator was Joe Biden.
  As another Senator once said when a change to the filibuster rule was 
under discussion, ``The bottom line is very simple: the ideologues in 
the Senate want to turn what the Founding Fathers called the cooling 
saucer of democracy into the rubber stamp of dictatorship. . . . They 
want, because they can't get their way . . . to change the rules in 
midstream, to wash away 200 years of history. They want to make this 
country into a banana republic where if you don't get your way, you 
change the rules! . . . It'll be a doomsday for democracy if we do.
  ``It'll be a doomsday for democracy if we do.''
  The Senator who said that, of course, was the current Democrat leader 
of the Senate--the same leader who has announced that his party will 
``change the rules in midstream'' to force through Democrats' 
priorities.
  I suppose the Democrat leader could have had a change of heart. This 
once-fierce defender of the filibuster could have become convinced that 
the filibuster no longer serves a useful purpose. But if that is what 
this is, if this is truly a principled change, then I would like to 
hear the Democrat leader endorse the abolition of the filibuster if 
Republicans win the election. I would like to also hear him argue that 
a Republican Congress and a Republican President should be able to 
force through every legislative priority Republicans want, whether that 
is real border security legislation or a ban on killing unborn children 
past the point in a pregnancy where they can feel pain.
  I suspect, however, that the Democrat leader has not had this change 
of heart. In fact, I suspect that if President Trump wins the election 
and Republicans take the House and the Senate, the Democrat leader will 
be happy to use the filibuster to check Republican legislation, just as 
he did during President Trump's first term.

  Funnily enough, I don't recall hearing much from Democrats about the 
need to abolish the filibuster back then. In fact, 32 Democrats, 
including then-Senator Kamala Harris, signed a letter in April of 2017 
calling on Senate leadership to preserve--preserve--the legislative 
filibuster.
  In short, it is pretty clear that the Democrat leader's change of 
heart isn't principle; it is political expediency. Democrats believe 
that the rules should apply when they serve the aims of the Democrat 
Party and that the rules should be abolished whenever they interfere 
with Democrats' far-left agenda.
  If Democrats abolish the filibuster in whole or in part, it would, to 
quote the current Democrat whip, ``be the end of the Senate as it was 
originally devised and created going back to our Founding Fathers.''
  The minority party in the Senate and in the country would no longer 
have any meaningful voice in legislation. The loss of the filibuster 
would also create legislative whiplash, with one party passing all its 
most controversial proposals when it has unified power in Washington 
and then the other party undoing all of that legislation and passing 
its own proposals when it gains unified power. To say that that kind of 
legislative instability would be bad for our country is an 
understatement. Sharp changes in Federal policy every few years would 
mean endless confusion for Americans and could spell serious trouble 
for the economy.
  Abolishing the filibuster would not only be bad for our country, I 
suspect Democrats would regret it on their own behalf--and sooner 
rather than later.
  I realize that Democrats have hopes that if they pass their so-called 
voting rights legislation, it will help them stay in power, but 
surely--surely--Democrats don't believe they can maintain a permanent 
hold on government.
  There have been some pretty robust Senate majorities in American 
history, but sooner or later, power has always shifted. When it 
inevitably does, Democrats are likely to bitterly regret the loss of 
the legislative filibuster. Democrats have already had cause to regret 
the loss of the filibuster for judicial nominations. More than one 
Democrat Senator has openly admitted regretting the Democrats' move to 
abolish the filibuster for judges and for other nominees. They ought to 
take a lesson from that.
  If Democrats have the incredibly naive idea that they can somehow 
preserve the filibuster by simply creating a carve-out for their top 
legislative priorities, they should think again.

[[Page S5909]]

  The unravelling of the filibuster for judicial nominations should be 
a lesson to both parties on how well weakening the filibuster or 
creating a filibuster carve-out would work. Democrats carved out a 
filibuster exception for executive and judicial nominees, and 
Republicans, when they got power, took it to its logical conclusion.
  A legislative filibuster carve-out would be the end of the 
legislative filibuster--period.
  It has become disturbingly clear that the Democrat Party is committed 
to getting its way in whatever way it can, no matter how many 
institutions it damages or how many rules it breaks in the process. But 
I would hope that at least some of my Democrat colleagues might think 
about the fact that their operating principle of ``the rules don't 
apply to us'' is generally more associated with despots than democratic 
republics and that they would put the long-term health of our country 
and our institutions above short-term partisan gain.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.