Democracy now: Washingtonians want the filibuster abolished in the U.S. Senate

Min­utes ago, Repub­li­cans in the Unit­ed States Sen­ate blocked con­sid­er­a­tion of a bipar­ti­san bill to cre­ate a bipar­ti­san com­mis­sion to inves­ti­gate the Jan­u­ary 6th, 2021 attack on the Unit­ed States Capi­tol. It’s the first fil­i­buster this Con­gress, and like­ly the first of many fil­i­busters this year by Mitch McConnell and his caucus.

As Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate read­ers are like­ly aware, in the Unit­ed States Sen­ate, fil­i­buster has become a catch-all term that means “any attempt to block or delay Sen­ate action on a bill or oth­er mat­ter by debat­ing it at length, by offer­ing numer­ous pro­ce­dur­al motions, or by any oth­er delay­ing or obstruc­tive actions.” That def­i­n­i­tion is from the Sen­ate’s own glos­sary, which is avail­able here.

In the House, obstruc­tive maneu­vers can usu­al­ly be over­come by the major­i­ty par­ty. A major­i­ty of greater than fifty per­cent is suf­fi­cient to pass a bill. That’s not the case in the Sen­ate, where the few con­trol the out­come instead of the many. The Sen­ate requires a six­ty vote thresh­old to be met to move legislation.

That thresh­old was­n’t met when the Sen­ate vot­ed min­utes ago on H.R. 3233, the Jan­u­ary 6th Com­mis­sion Act, so the bill is stuck indef­i­nite­ly. Even though a major­i­ty of sen­a­tors (includ­ing some Repub­li­cans!) were in favor of the bill, it was stopped in its tracks by a minor­i­ty of sen­a­tors from just one party.

The fil­i­buster is a crea­ture of Sen­ate rules, cus­tom, and tra­di­tion. The Unit­ed States Con­sti­tu­tion does­n’t pro­vide for a fil­i­buster in the Sen­ate, and in fact, the Framers of the Con­sti­tu­tion are on record as say­ing that Con­gress was designed to oper­ate on the basis of major­i­ty rule. (See The Fed­er­al­ist No. 22 and 58.)

Ear­li­er this week, through our poll­ster, we asked Wash­ing­to­ni­ans to weigh in on the fil­i­buster. The results came back yes­ter­day, and now seems like the per­fect time to share them. Thanks to our sur­vey, we can say that Wash­ing­to­ni­ans are also on record as want­i­ng the Unit­ed States Sen­ate fil­i­buster abolished.

56% of respon­dents to our poll said that they sup­port get­ting rid of the Sen­ate fil­i­buster, while 37% are opposed. 7% said they were not sure.

Although this poll was only of like­ly vot­ers from a sin­gle state (Wash­ing­ton), our find­ing is in sync with pre­vi­ous nation­al polling that sug­gests Amer­i­cans don’t con­sid­er the fil­i­buster a beloved insti­tu­tion worth sav­ing, like this one.

Here’s the full text of the ques­tion we asked, and the responses:

QUESTION: The Unit­ed States Sen­ate cur­rent­ly oper­ates under pro­ce­dures com­mon­ly known as the fil­i­buster which allow as few as forty-one sen­a­tors out of one hun­dred to block the con­sid­er­a­tion of leg­is­la­tion like increas­ing the min­i­mum wage to fif­teen dol­lars an hour or expand­ing vot­ing rights through­out the entire coun­try. Do you strong­ly sup­port, some­what sup­port, some­what oppose or strong­ly oppose get­ting rid of the fil­i­buster to allow a sim­ple fifty per­cent major­i­ty of Unit­ed States Sen­a­tors to bring leg­is­la­tion to the Sen­ate floor for debate and pos­si­ble adoption?

ANSWERS:

• Sup­port abol­ish­ing the fil­i­buster: 56% 
  • Strong­ly sup­port: 44%
  • Some­what sup­port: 12%
• Oppose abol­ish­ing the fil­i­buster: 37% 
  • Some­what oppose: 7%
  • Strong­ly oppose: 30%
• Not sure: 7%

Notice that the per­cent­age that strong­ly sup­ports abol­ish­ing the fil­i­buster is greater than the entire per­cent­age of respon­dents who are opposed.

This find­ing sug­gests that there is deep enthu­si­asm for mak­ing the Unit­ed States Sen­ate a more respon­sive, demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tion in our state.

If a bipar­ti­san com­mis­sion can’t sur­vive a fil­i­buster, then no leg­is­la­tion of con­se­quence can. What we’re see­ing today is a pre­view of what we’ll be see­ing reg­u­lar­ly through the end of this Con­gress if the fil­i­buster remains in place.

The clock is tick­ing, and the coun­try’s sur­vival is on the line. End the filibuster!