More than two years ago, after Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices overturned Roe v. Wade, Vice President Kamala Harris supported restoring the rights the jurists had taken away. “If the filibuster is going to get in the way,” she declared in June 2022, “the Senate needs to make an exception to get this done.”
The Democrat’s position hasn’t changed. In fact, the Democrat reiterated her position during an interview this week with Wisconsin Public Radio. “I think we need to abolish the filibuster for Roe and get to the point where it takes 51 votes to actually put back into law the protection of reproductive freedom and the ability of every person and every woman to make decisions about their own bodies without their government telling them what to do,” Harris said.
Sen. Joe Manchin, who has said he was considering a possible endorsement of his former party’s presidential ticket, expressed fresh outrage over the position Harris announced more than two years ago. The New York Times reported:
Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, an independent who considered running for president this year, said Tuesday he would not endorse Vice President Kamala Harris after she reiterated her support for abolishing the Senate filibuster to pass abortion rights legislation. “Shame on her,” Mr. Manchin, who is not seeking re-election, told CNN. “She knows the filibuster is the Holy Grail of democracy.”
In practice, Manchin’s withdrawal of Harris’ potential support is unlikely to have much impact on the race: The Democratic ticket had no intention of contesting the independent senator’s home state of West Virginia, and it’s not as if the senator, who is retiring this year, has much influence over a large constituency.
But it’s worth examining the merits — or lack thereof — of Manchin’s comments.
Part of the problem with the senator’s position is that he seems to sincerely believe in a historical account that simply does not exist in reality.
A few years ago, for example, Manchin told Fox News that the filibuster “has been the tradition of the Senate … for 232 years.” A week earlier, after rejecting a Democratic effort to expand voting rights, the West Virginia native told reporters that he was concerned about the underlying issue but wanted to work even harder to protect “the Senate as it has functioned for 232 years.”
While I acknowledge that debates about procedure in the Senate can be complex, and that fair-minded observers may have competing opinions about tactics and strategies, there are elements of the debate that fall outside the realm of subjectivity. There are certain truths of American history that simply exist. Opinions about them may differ, but they do not change what is demonstrably true.
And what is demonstrably true is that the filibuster did not exist when the Senate was created in 1789. When senators considered bills, they debated them and then voted on them. If a majority of members supported the measure, it passed. The institution functioned this way for generations.
Adam Jentleson, a former top adviser to the late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, has marked several quotes from the nation’s Founding Fathers, noting that the framers of the Constitution considered the idea of legislative supermajorities before ultimately rejecting them. This quote from James Madison—widely recognized as “the father of the Constitution”—is of particular note:
“In all cases where justice or the public interest might require that new laws be passed, or that active measures be pursued, the fundamental principle of free government would be reversed. It would no longer be the majority that would govern: the power would be transferred to the minority.”
Alexander Hamilton agreed.
Hamilton refuted the idea that supermajority thresholds encourage compromise, writing, “what at first sight appears to be a remedy, is in reality a poison.” It would be wrong “to subject the sentiments of the greater to that of the less,” for if “an obstinate minority can control the opinion of a majority,” the result would be “tedious delays; perpetual negotiations and intrigues; contemptible compromises of the public interest,” Hamilton wrote.
If Manchin wants to argue that the nation’s founders were wrong, fine. Go ahead. If the West Virginian and those who agree with him truly believe that the Senate’s traditional model of lawmaking was wrong, that it is better to require supermajorities, and that restoring majority rule to the institution would be a mistake, then they are welcome to make that argument.
What Manchin should not do, however, is claim that his position is rooted in the institutional history of the Senate. It is not.
Filibuster reform advocates are not looking for change the Senate, no matter how hard they try restore the Senate as it used to function.
As for the idea that the filibuster is necessary to protect democracy, I don’t understand how the West Virginian came to such a conclusion. As it stands now, with the routine use of filibuster abuse, Americans can give the House, the Senate, and the White House to one party, only to find that party unable to pass popular legislation — supported by most voters — because of a procedural hurdle that didn’t exist before.
Manchin is apparently convinced that this procedural blockade helps preserve democracy. He has this backwards.
Donald Trump, for his part, celebrated the independent senator’s statement. “Congrats to Senator Joe Manchin for not endorsing Radical Kamala Harris because of her DEATH WISH for the Filibuster and the Rule of Law,” the former president wrote online.
Trump failed to mention that he has repeatedly called for the Senate filibuster rule to be abolished, which makes his letter about Manchin all the more ridiculous.
This post is an update to our related previous reporting.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
