By Douglas V. Gibbs
One of the unique characteristics of the American System is its series of checks and balances. The Constitution was designed not to create a democracy, but a republic, and a part of being a republic is the concept that the majority must be held back and not allowed to act unilaterally without the minority voice having a say. That is the reason for the creation of the Electoral College, the reason the Founders established it to be two Senators per State in the U.S. Senate, the reason the State Senates used to be one senator per county (changed by Reynolds v. Sims in 1964), the reason the U.S. Senators were voted into office by the State Legislatures rather than by a democratic popular vote (changed in 1913 by the 17th Amendment), why the States originally analyzed the federal budget before providing the income tax (changed in 1913 by the 16th Amendment), why it takes a super-majority to ratify amendments to the Constitution, why it takes a super-majority to ratify treaties, why it takes a super-majority to convict during an impeachment hearing, and why the Senate came up with the Filibuster Rule.
Checks and balances are not something that tyrannical authoritarians are fond of, which is why Democratic Party and their presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, are promising to get rid of the United States Senate’s 60-vote legislative filibuster. Without it any majority will get whatever they want with no obstacles in the way, and in their arrogance they believe they will hang on to the tight majority they have in the Senate, if not solidifying their majority by picking up more seats in November.
The Constitution may not be an obstacle to them, but the filibuster is. Without the filibuster, and if they were able to grab a majority in the House of Representatives and the White House in the next election, they believe they will be able to do as they please like the Democrats do in California with their Golden State Super-Majority.
Harris has indicated during her current campaign for President that she wishes to eliminate the filibuster so that they can do an end-around the United Supreme Court who invalidated Roe v. Wade in 2022 with their ruling of the Dobbs v. Jackson case. Never mind that the Constitution gives the federal government no authority to be involved in the abortion issue, which is why the Supreme Court sent it back to the States; Harris plans to unconstitutionally push legislation codifying unrestricted abortion nationwide despite the Constitution and despite the High Court.
“I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe and get us to the point where 51 votes would be what we need to actually put back in law the protections for reproductive freedom,” Harris told Wisconsin Public Radio.
That’s what tyrants do. They change the rules to eliminate the voice of the opposition, they silence anyone who could get in their way, and they push for unilateral law-making and a single-party system.
Harris defended the filibuster when the Democrats were in a solid minority during her years in the chamber in 2017 with a letter urging then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and then-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to preserve the filibuster amid fears from Democrats at the time that Republicans would kill it.
“We are united in our determination to preserve the ability of Members to engage in extended debate when bills are on the Senate floor,” the letter stressed, alluding to the filibuster.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) highlighted the letter after Harris’ recent interview during which she call for nixing the filibuster, stating that “Her word is meaningless” and “She’ll do anything to get elected.”
While the recent call last week by Kamala to get rid of the filibuster is the first time she verbalized her desire since the launch of her presidential campaign, she has indicated many times prior to the coup that put her in Biden’s place on the Democratic Ticket that she wants the filibuster done away with. Many of her fellow Democrats have advocated for doing so, as well.
The filibuster rule establishes that to reach cloture (end of debate) 60 Senate votes must be achieved calling for an end to debate on a piece of legislation, regardless of how many members are present in the chamber. Supporters of the filibuster say that the number that exceeds a simple majority is needed to prevent a narrow majority from enacting radical, sweeping changes.
As with all other checks and balances instilled in the American System, it is designed to make sure that the tyranny of the majority is not allowed to run wild through unilateral means.
Abortion has been a major issue for the Democrats with the claim that a mother desiring to kill her own baby is her “reproductive right” and it must be preserved without any restrictions at all costs, even if that means violating the Constitution and legislating a national law to accomplish the feat. While Democrats hysterically claim Republicans wish to nationally ban abortion, a false claim since Trump and a majority of Republicans have echoed the Constitution and the Supreme Court that the decisions regarding abortion belongs to each of the States individually, following the Supreme Court’s ruling regarding Dobbs v. Jackson, Biden said he would support eliminating the filibuster in order to nationally codify unrestricted abortion while Harris, as president of the Senate, said she would cast a tie-breaking vote to eliminate the filibuster if needed.
The primary reason the Democrats have not been able to achieve ending the filibuster has been because two former Democrats, who now consider themselves independents, oppose the change. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Krysten Sinema of Arizona, however, according to Schumer at the Democratic National Convention, will no longer be Senators in 2025, and in their arrogance the Democrats are convinced that they will have a majority, and will have no opposition keeping them from removing the filibuster from the Senate’s rules once Manchin and Sinema are out of the way.
Manchin told CNN regarding Harris’ comments about killing the filibuster, “Shame on her. She knows the filibuster is the Holy Grail of democracy. It’s the only thing that keeps us talking and working together. If she gets rid of that, then this would be the House [of Representatives] on steroids … I think that basically can destroy our country and my country is more important to me than any one person or any one person’s ideology.”
“To state the supremely obvious,” Sinema reacted on X, “eliminating the filibuster to codify Roe v Wade also enables a future Congress to ban all abortion nationwide. What an absolutely terrible, shortsighted idea.”
Kamala Harris blasted Manchin and Sinema for daring to stand in dissent against her plan to put the filibuster into a grave.
The Democrats, in their arrogance, are not worried about any rule changes being used against them. They are convinced that they will never have to look back after this election. Trump and the MAGA Republicans will be a forgotten anomaly, and their journey toward a single party system without anyone standing in their way will be complete.
Filibusters are nothing new, dating all the way back to the Founding Fathers who put it in place during the U.S. Senate’s inaugural sessions in 1789. The filibuster was used as a mechanism to extend debate, but the idea of cloture (a vote beyond a simple majority to end debate) was not established until 1917, which then added a need for a two-thirds majority (then 64 senators) to end debate. In 1975, Senate rules were tweaked to reduce the cloture threshold to 60 votes. In 2013 the nuclear option was put into effect changing the cloture vote to a simple majority for ending debate on federal judicial nominees. In 2017 it was expanded again to 60 votes regarding the confirmation of Supreme Court nominees.
Harris has been urging Wisconsin voters to re-elect Democrat Tammy Baldwin, who has been losing ground to her GOP opponent, knowing that Baldwin’s seat might be a key in the Democrats holding on to a 51-49 majority.
“It is well within our reach to hold onto the majority in the Senate and take back the House. And so I would also emphasize that while the presidential election is extremely important and dispositive of where we go moving forward, it also is about what we need to do to hold onto the Senate and win seats in the House,” Harris said.
The reality is that the Presidential Election, while a key part of preserving the Republic, is not enough. The Democrats are going for broke. They are aiming for the White House, and all of the down-ballot seats. And, even if they somehow do not win the White House, it is their contention that if they own both Houses of Congress, any Republican President would be neutralized from the start, making their opposition ineffective, and ultimately all it would do is push their scheme’s ultimate goals a little farther down the road.
However, if they get the trifecta, White House and both Houses of Congress, they will change (and possibly dismantle) the Supreme Court to fit their fancy, and fundamentally change this country in ways that Obama could only imagine. No check and balance, much less the Constitution, from their point of view, would be an obstacle again. They would be free to rule, free to dominate, and free to fundamentally transform America into a collectivist failed state that the Founding Fathers specifically wrote the Constitution the way they did to stand against.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
