http://www.realclearpolitics.com/201...ct_411921.html
actual link
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fil...act-1496358477
The Filibuster Is Not a Suicide Pact
Democrats will abolish the 60-vote rule when they find it expedient. The GOP should consider it now.
Sen. Strom Thurmond (D., S.C.) after filibustering the 1957 Civil Rights Act. Photo: Bettman Archive/Getty Images
By Peter J. Wallison
June 1, 2017 7:07 p.m. E
President Trump urged Republican lawmakers this week to overrule the Senate filibuster and get on with passing his agenda. “The U.S. Senate should switch to 51 votes, immediately,” he tweeted on Tuesday, “and get Healthcare and TAX CUTS approved, fast and easy. Dems would do it, no doubt!”
Mr. Trump has a point. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said the Senate will not abandon the filibuster rule, which requires the consent of 60 senators to advance legislation to a vote. “There’s not a single senator in the majority who thinks we ought to change the legislative filibuster,” Mr. McConnell said in April. “Not one.” But there are compelling reasons to consider the idea.
It is true that there is a workaround, a procedure known as “budget reconciliation,” which many Republicans believe will enable them to achieve their policy objectives with 51 votes. But reconciliation is a cumbersome and highly technical process—the Congressional Research Service’s summary runs to 11 dense pages—that is available only in connection with Congress’s annual budget resolution. In some years, because of disagreements, there isn’t a budget resolution. That happened as recently as 2015.
Even more limiting, only proposals that affect federal spending, revenue or deficits qualify for reconciliation. The need to comply with these technical rules is the reason Republicans divided their health reform into three separate bills, only one of which recently passed the House. An earlier version of the bill left untouched various ObamaCare insurance regulations, which were considered ineligible for reconciliation.
The so-called MacArthur amendment, which would allow states to apply for regulatory waivers, may thread that needle, but it’s not clear. Whether it qualifies for reconciliation depends on the ruling of the Senate parliamentarian. In any event, these issues made the bill hard to understand and explain, adding to its political difficulties.
There are other hang-ups. To pass through reconciliation, a bill cannot increase the federal deficit outside the budget window, usually 10 years. This is quite limiting on tax reform, which otherwise easily fits the criteria. It’s why the Bush tax cuts of 2001 came with an expiration date, which might have limited their effect in stimulating business investment and jobs. And since the job-killing Dodd-Frank Act does not have budget implications, it may not be possible to meet the GOP’s promise of reduced regulation.
If Republicans uphold the legislative filibuster, they may not be able to do everything voters sent them to Washington to do—health care, regulatory overhaul and tax reform, along with dozens of other initiatives to get the economy moving—through this arcane reconciliation process. Democrats show no indication of cooperating on anything until after the 2018 election, if then. They made that clear in two unprecedented actions that showed Senate Democrats are controlled by their angry progressive base.
The first was their willingness to filibuster Judge Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court, which forced Republicans to abandon the 60-vote rule for high-court picks. A partisan filibuster of a Supreme Court choice was unprecedented, even in cases when the nominee faced significant opposition. Justice Clarence Thomas was confirmed with 52 votes. His opponents saw no point in demanding 60, though they could have. But with Judge Gorsuch the Democratic base cared more about making a gesture of opposition than about preserving the filibuster rule, and Senate Democrats were willing to give them what they wanted.
The second example was the Democratic boycott of Senate committee votes on Mr. Trump’s cabinet nominees. It was another unprecedented move, a shocking example of how a determined and contemptuous political party could unravel the American system of government. If the Republicans had not unexpectedly kept control of the Senate in the 2016 election, Mr. Trump would not have a functioning cabinet today.
As a conservative, I have always supported the idea that minority views deserve an opportunity for expression. I admired Mr. McConnell and his Republican colleagues for avoiding the “nuclear option”—the elimination of the filibuster—when they considered it for judicial nominees in the past. I also shared their unease with having to eliminate the 60-vote rule to confirm Justice Gorsuch, even though Democrats had already done the same in 2013 for all other nominations.
But we have to look at what these remarkable events mean for the future. Can there be any doubt that Democrats will eliminate the filibuster on legislation when they next control the Senate and the White House? Last October Hillary Clinton’s running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine, pre-emptively vowed to kill the 60-vote rule this year for Supreme Court nominees.
Republicans must be clear-eyed about the risk they are taking now. If the filibuster stands, and reconciliation proves unworkable, the GOP may not be able to deliver on its promise of economic growth and jobs. Democrats may be rewarded, not punished, for their intransigence. The frustrated 2016 electorate that put Mr. Trump in office and enabled the Republicans to retain their Senate majority may not understand that the GOP failed because it didn’t have 60 votes in the Senate.
Under these circumstances, it is only responsible for Senate Republicans to consider whether in the service of an ideal—a nonmajoritarian Senate that respects the rights of minorities—they are putting in jeopardy not only the country’s welfare but also their House and Senate majorities.
If so, their places will soon be taken by Democrats who—as they have repeatedly shown—have no such scruples.
Mr. Wallison is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He was White House counsel in the Reagan administration.
Appeared in the June 2, 2017, print edition.
filibuster is not a suicide pact
