Elizabeth Warren: “We should get rid of the filibuster”

Presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) wants to be clear: The filibuster — a Senate procedure that has been used to essentially require 60 votes on any piece of legislation — is racist and should be abolished.

“For generations, the filibuster was used as a tool to block progress on racial justice,” Warren said at Rev. Al Sharpton’s civil rights group National Action Network’s convention Friday. “And in recent years, it’s been used by the far right as a tool to block progress on everything.”

Warren was explicit. If Democrats reclaim power, they should get rid of the filibuster, she said.

“So let me be as clear as I can. When Democrats next have power, we should be bold and clear: We’re done with two sets of rules — one for the Republicans and one for the Democrats,” Warren said. “And that means when Democrats have the White House again, if Mitch McConnell tries to do what he did to President Obama, and puts small-minded partisanship ahead of solving the massive problems facing this country, then we should get rid of the filibuster.”

The filibuster has become the center of one of the biggest government reform debates of the 2020 presidential election cycle. The filibuster is any attempt to block or delay action on a bill by debating it at length. According to Senate procedure, if a senator is recognized, they usually have the right to the floor as long as they wish. The only way to end a filibuster in the Senate is to pass cloture, which limits debate to 30 hours, with the support of 60 members of the Senate.

In other words, because almost every bill gets filibustered in the Senate, every single piece of legislation essentially needs 60 votes to pass — a rule that would inevitably serve as a death blow to bold progressive ideas like Medicare-for-all, $15 minimum wage, and so on.

And as Warren points out, the filibuster has also been used to hold back major civil rights progress in the past.

“Do you know when the first bill to make lynching a federal crime was introduced? 1918,” Warren said at the convention. “One hundred years ago. And it nearly became the law back then. It passed the House in 1922. But it got killed in the Senate — by a filibuster. And then it got killed again, and again, and again. More than 200 times. An entire century of obstruction because a small group of racists stopped the entire nation from doing what was right.”

Warren has expressed an openness to ending the filibuster in the past. She told Pod Save America that “all the options are on the table.” Now she is cementing her position on the Senate rule.

And while she’s not completely alone in this stance — candidates South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee have also supported it — she’s in the minority among her Senate colleagues running for president.

“We should not be doing anything to mess with the strength of the filibuster,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) has said. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) said she is “conflicted.” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) has raised the concerns most filibuster defenders have: She’s nervous what would happen if Democrats end up in the minority.

Even Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who has always campaigned on the boldest progressive ideas that don’t even have the buy-in of most sitting Democratic senators, says he’s “not crazy about getting rid of the filibuster,” instead calling for statehood for the District of Columbia. It’s a position that some have argued is tantamount to Sanders admitting he’s not serious about actually making any of his policies law.

There’s no question that the filibuster makes it much harder for the Senate to pass major legislation and would render almost all the ideas that progressive 2020 candidates are currently running on extremely difficult to pass into law. There is one workaround, through an obscure process called budget reconciliation, which allows the Senate to pass one piece of legislation a year with a simple majority. It’s how Republicans attempted to repeal and replace Obamacare and passed their tax bill. But budget reconciliation has a bunch of restrictions that would prevent Democrats from passing minimum wage increases or robust health care changes.

But as Vox’s Matt Yglesias explains, the filibuster also has given lawmakers some political cover on difficult votes:

A senator can even take a position in favor of some sweeping piece of legislation and then quietly reassure interest group opponents that everyone knows this isn’t getting 60 votes and really just represents an opening bid. Senators in purple states, meanwhile, often enjoy the ability to avoid taking clear positions on issues. Since many areas of policy can, in practice, only be legislated on via bipartisan deals, it’s usually possible for a member to remain ambiguous whenever that seems most suitable.

Warren, however, isn’t going to wait for progressives to suddenly take supermajorities in the Senate. And her case for getting rid of the filibuster is twofold: It not only allows for an unjust class system to worsen in this country but also perpetuates racial divides.

“We can’t sit around for 100 years while the rich and powerful get richer and more powerful and everyone else falls further and further behind,” Warren said. “We can’t sit around for 100 years while climate change destroys our planet, while corruption pervades every nook and cranny of Washington, and while too much of a child’s fate in life still rests on the color of their skin.”