The Filibuster Rules Are Not Sacred – Just Ask Joe Manchin.

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The Filibuster Rules Are Not Sacred – Just Ask Joe Manchin.

Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) brought up the For the People Act in an attempt to begin debate on a crucial piece of legislation that will protect voting rights, get big money out of politics and end partisan gerrymandering.

Unfortunately, Senate Republicans blocked even debating this legislation by filibustering the motion to proceed to consider the legislation. There simply aren’t the ten Republican Senators needed to end a filibuster of the legislation and free millions of Americans from living under the yoke of Jim Crow 2.0 laws being enacted by Republican-controlled legislatures around the country. In fact, there is no evidence of even one Republican Senator willing to do this.

The good news is that there’s a way to fix this that has been used over and over again: Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) can support an exception to the filibuster — something that’s been done more than a hundred times in the last 52 years.

“Exceptions to the filibuster rules over the years have been more the rule than the exception,” Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer said. “They have been engineered over the years by Senators ranging from Senator Joe Manchin’s mentor, Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-WV) in the 1970s to Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the king of obstructionist filibusters, in 2017,” Wertheimer said.

In light of proven Republican obstruction, supporting an exception to the filibuster rules is the way that Senator Manchin can live up to his promise to protect voting rights against voter suppression when he committed that “inaction is not an option.”

1. There have been 161 exceptions to the Senate filibuster rules’ supermajority requirement between 1969 and 2014.

2. Senator Manchin has a history of supporting and making use of changes to the filibuster rules.

  • In 2011, he co-sponsored S. Res. 10 to eliminate the filibuster on motions to begin debate on legislation. It failed, but if it had passed, the vote to begin debate on the For the People Act would have only required 50 Senate votes (plus the vote of Vice President Kamala Harris) to pass.
  • In 2011, Manchin co-sponsored S. Res. 21 (which also failed) to revise the filibuster rules to require Senators to actually take the floor and filibuster by making remarks. 
  • Manchin took advantage of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell’s change in the filibuster rules in 2017 by voting to confirm Supreme Court nominees Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. While both were confirmed, neither Gorsuch nor Kavanaugh received the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster under the normal rules. Kavanaugh was confirmed with only 50 votes.
  • Manchin voted for the American Rescue Plan which was passed via the budget reconciliation process, a massive exception to the filibuster used repeatedly by Congress and largely crafted by his predecessor, Senator Robert C. Byrd.
  1. Senator Robert C. Byrd — the man whose legacy Manchin has pledged to defend — repeatedly worked to revise the filibuster rules and supported exceptions to the rules.
  • Byrd played a key role in successfully changing the filibuster rules to reduce the number of votes needed to invoke cloture and end a filibuster from 67 to 60. 
  • Byrd led the effort to successfully change the filibuster rules by stopping post-cloture filibusters, which took place on bills after cloture had been invoked to end a filibuster.
  • Byrd tried unsuccessfully to change the filibuster rules from requiring 60 votes to three-fifths of those present and voting to place limits on the filibuster.
  • Byrd played a key role in the 1974 creation of the budget reconciliation process, a massive, ongoing exception to the filibuster rules which Manchin has made use of in voting for reconciliation bills.
  • Byrd supported exceptions to the filibuster rules in voting for the Trade Act and the Defense Base Closure and Realignment process which allowed Senate passage of future bills by majority vote without being subject to the filibuster rules.

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