Make Them Filibuster? A Second Look

February 13, 2010

The reason the majority party in the Senate doesn’t make the minority follow through on threats to filibuster—i.e., doesn’t make them actually filibuster by holding the floor in endless “debate”—is that allowing a real, live filibuster to happen is a no-win strategy for the majority. In fact, there are three different ways the majority will be the loser in a filibuster standoff.

First, they lose on the bill being filibustered. As I mentioned previously, there’s simply no way for the majority to break the filibuster if the minority controls 41 votes.

Second, they lose time to do other things. Every day the minority occupies the floor is a day that nothing gets done. Incidentally, this is why choosing a less important bill than the healthcare bill isn’t a good idea either. In fact, considering that the only hope that the majority has of gaining anything at all from a live filibuster is the possibility of winning the PR battle, forcing the filibuster on a small-beer bill is a much worse idea, because it makes the majority rather than the minority look ridiculous. Even with an important bill, the majority is in danger of looking incompetent if they let the process get shut down by filibuster. If they let it get shut down over something trivial, they look incompetent and their motives are incomprehensible even to their supporters.

And third, they may well lose the PR battle over the long haul. That is, the majority party may be the one that voters punish at the polls for legislative inefficacy.

Now, on that the third point, the majority’s cause might not be completely hopeless—particularly if the objective is not specifically to win a vote on the filibustered bill. Forcing a live filibuster might even be a smart ploy if used to kick start an orchestrated campaign to end the filibuster altogether. (More on that to come, but I agree with Ezra Klein that the way to do filibuster reform is to give it a delayed start far enough in the future that no one can be certain who will have the majority when the new rules take effect.)

The key here is that you don’t have to “beat” the specific filibuster to win the larger argument and move public opinion against the other guys and against the filibuster itself. But you have to be willing to let the minority shut down the Senate for long enough to make your point. And you have to be ready to mobilize an organized, national campaign to win the argument.

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