President Biden says he supports changing Senate filibuster rules

“I don’t think you have to eliminate the filibuster, you have to do it like it was when I first came into the Senate,” Mr. Biden said in an ABC News interview. “You had to get up and do the talking, you had to keep talking.”

When asked if that meant his support for bringing back the speaking filibuster, an idea supported by a growing number of Democratic senators, Mr. Biden: “That’s me. That’s what it should have been. “

Mr. Biden’s comments came on the same day that Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell threatened to bring the Senate to a halt if Democrats made any changes to the filibuster.

“This chaos would not open a direct path for liberal change. It would not open a fast track for the Biden Presidency to rush into the history books, ”Mr McConnell (R., Ky.) Said in a speech on Tuesday. The Senate would be more like a pile of a hundred cars. Nothing moves. “

Democrats are at least two votes shy of the 51 it takes to kill the legislative filibuster, a move that would pave the way for them to pass comprehensive legislation on voting rights, immigration, gun regulation, and other measures unlikely to be bipartisan. to get.

Alternatively, Senate Democrats are exploring a return to traditionally talking filibusters, such as the one famously portrayed by Jimmy Stewart in the movie ‘Mr. Smith goes to Washington. The idea was recently put forward by Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a centrist Democrat who, like Mr. Biden, has said he is against the complete abolition of the filibuster but is open to revisions.

Today’s senators can submit a bill without talking. They don’t even have to show up in the room. Now the momentum is growing to at least adjust the rules to make filibustering more difficult.

“Senators don’t have to stand for a minute to close the Senate,” said Senator Dick Durbin, Senate No. 2 of the Senate, in a speech on the Senate floor on Monday. All they have to do is threaten it, call it up, catch a plane, go home from Washington and come back Monday to see how their filibuster is doing. Mr. Smith calls it up. ‘That wouldn’t really have been a movie, would it? “

Democrats blame a 1975 rule change that allowed absent senators to count against the 60 votes it took to end the debate on a bill and move on to its final passage. They say it made filibusters less expensive for the minority.

“What’s the pain?” Mr. Manchin asked on Fox News Channel last week.

Mr. Manchin’s support to restore the talking filibuster is not new. In 2011, he was one of 46 Democrats to vote in favor of a proposal by Senator Jeff Merkley (D., Ore.) That would require senators to speak up and make comments to block legislation. Not a single Republican voted for it and the measure failed.

Had it passed, it would have allowed the Senate to enter a period of extensive debate if a simple majority of senators voted to end the debate on a bill. Senators seeking to block legislation would have to make sure that at least one of them was present on the floor with arguments, otherwise the majority with 51 votes could advance to the final passage.

Mr. Merkley said he is not married to his 2011 approach. “There are many nuances of different ways it can be done,” he said. “And I’m not ready to say a certain way.”

In a senate split 50-50 between the two sides, the filibuster’s fate is key to much of President Biden’s agenda, including his pledge to raise the minimum wage and sign a major voting right. His $ 1.9 trillion Covid-19 aid package was passed with only Democratic votes in the Senate through an accelerated process known as reconciliation, which is limited to budget-related bills.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki reiterated earlier Tuesday that it was Mr. Biden’s preference not to make any changes to the filibuster. But she said he remained open to hearing ideas about the discussions in Congress.

After the Democrats won control of the Senate in January, Mr. Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D., Ariz.) Publicly reiterated their opposition to the filibuster’s abolition, but neither senator ruled out an amendment to it. Earlier this month, Democratic Sens. Bob Casey from Pennsylvania and Catherine Cortez Masto from Nevada joined Mr. Manchin’s endorsement of talking filibusters, as does Senator Raphael Warnock (D., Ga.).

“This is not a theoretical debate for us at this point, given what is happening in Georgia with regard to voting rights,” said Mr Warnock, noting the GOP bills that would add requirements or restrictions to postal voting and the number of early voting times would decrease. . “I’m willing to consider the speaking filibuster and other options,” he said.

Senator Angus King of Maine, an independent who consults with the Democrats, said that talking about filibusters is “ worth discussing, ” along with another idea cited by Mr. Manchin that would need 41 senators to address it. to keep debate going, in place of the 60 it takes to end the debate under the current rules. Mr. King is a long-standing defender of the filibuster and does not prefer change. But he said his vote depends on Mr. McConnell. “If he takes the position that ‘we are going to hinder everything’, I can reconsider my position.”

Mr. McConnell told reporters last week that he wants to keep the filibuster’s status quo. In his speech on Tuesday, he added that Democrats who put pressure on Sens. Manchin and Sinema “don’t just advocate some procedural adjustment. They argue for a radically less stable and less consensus-driven system of government. He warned that Republicans could refuse to show up by denying Democrats a quorum to do business in the Senate.

Asked by reporters on Tuesday if he could support changes to the filibuster, Mr. McConnell said, “It’s not broken and it doesn’t need to be fixed.”

But some Republicans say they are willing to talk bills to death if necessary to maintain the 60-vote threshold.

“This is what I would encourage Senator Manchin to do: stick to your guns,” said Senator Lindsey Graham (R., SC). “If you have to give in to something, if we have to talk, you’re fine.”

Senator Jerry Moran (R., Kan.) Said that talking about filibusters is common sense. “If you care passionately enough, powerful enough about a subject, you should be willing to use the filibuster as it was originally intended,” said Mr Moran.

“I am absolutely open to that and it resonates with me,” said Senator Todd Young (R., Ind.). Still, Mr. Young is reluctant to see the change take place when the Democrats are in power. “I think that rewards very bad and cynical behavior,” he said.

According to Senator Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.), Fixing up the Senate shouldn’t be easy.

“Let’s have the beds again,” Mr. Blumenthal said, referring to senators who snooze for hours on makeshift beds in the Senate during hours of filibusters. Let’s go back to the nightly debates if that’s what they want to do, to block a very necessary and popular measure. Let them play on the ground and let the American people see them for what they are. “

—Ken Thomas contributed to this article.

Write to Lindsay Wise at [email protected] and Siobhan Hughes at [email protected]