Almost all of the Democrat senators who spoke today for changing Senate rules regarding filibuster, or advocating to abolish it altogether, said the exact opposite. They were minority parties and they did this more than once.
In particular, Senator Chuck Schumer, at that time not the Minority leader, appealed to Republicans on May 18, 2005 for the preservation of the filibuster.
“Right now, we are on the precipice of a constitutional crisis. We’re about to enter the abyss. I want to talk for a few minutes why we are on that precipice and why we are looking into that abyss,” he said.
“Constitutional scholars will tell us that the reason we have these rules in the Senate — unlimited debate, two-thirds to change the rules, the idea that 60 have to close off debate — is embodied in the spirit and rule of the Constitution,” Schumer stated. “That is what the Constitution is all about, and we all know it.”
He went on to say that “It is the Senate where the Founding Fathers established a repository of checks and balances. The Senate isn’t like the House of Representatives, where either the Speaker or Majority Leader can grab his hands and do what they want. On important issues, the Founding Fathers wanted—and they were correct in my judgment—that the slimmest majority should not always govern. … The Senate is not a majoritarian body.”
Schumer would continue to make similar arguments over the years. But it was those words that came back for him when Senator Tom Cotton took the Senate’s floor today to read the speech. Before noting that it was Schumer who said them before, Cotton chuckled. When Cotton was done, he smirked as he pointed out “how times have changed.”
“Now it’s Senator Schumer’s fingers that are hovering over the nuclear button, ready to destroy the filibuster for partisan advantage,” Cotton pointed out, and then suggesting later that “Before it’s too late, let us reflect on the wise and eloquent words of Senator Schumer, words that are as true today as they were when he spoke them. Even if Senator Schumer is singing a different tune today.”
Watch:
🚨 BREAKING: Chuck Schumer* speaks on the Senate floor in defense of the filibuster.
*Senator Cotton’s speech consisted entirely of Senator Schumer’s past statements. pic.twitter.com/zGfbpr7G5t
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) January 12, 2022
The dunking on “leaders” like Schumer, who admitted the quiet part out loud this week about the real reason they’re pushing for filibuster changes, his second in command Dick Durbin, and others for their convenient change of heart on the filibuster never gets old. That said, it’s more than a little infuriating when Democrats including President Joe Biden suggest that the reason for their 180 is because Republicans have been “abusing it.”
It’s utter horsecrap, especially when you consider the fact that it’s Democrats who utilized the filibuster over and over and over again (some 327 times in 2020 alone) during the Trump years, the same tactic some of them now laughably decry as “racist.” It frustrated Trump so much to the point that he wanted McConnell to change the rules but McConnell smartly said no because he knew it would one day be an important tool in the arsenal of Republicans in the event they were in the minority, and the rest, as they say, is history.
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