The Senate Filibuster: Weapon of Obstruction or Shield Against Polarization?
April 20, 2021
The U.S. system of government is commonly known as one of checks and balances. But a careful review of legislative efforts over the past century might need to revise that description to checks and balances and filibusters.
In this episode of The Purple Principle, we look at that awkwardly named but often-debated tactic unique to the U.S. Senate, the filibuster. This rule currently allows any Senator to silently delay a vote on legislation until a supermajority of 60 Senators says otherwise. Thus, in our highly partisan age, with fewer Senators willing to compromise or cross the aisle, the filibuster makes legislation exceedingly more difficult.
Our guests on Season 2, Episode 4 are two of the most informed writers on this topic: Adam Jentleston, former Deputy Chief of Staff to Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid and author of the recent book, Kill Switch (LiveRight Press, 2021); and Richard Arenberg, former Senior Staffer (to Democratic Senators Levin, Tsongas, and Mitchell) and author of the 2012 book, Defending the Filibuster (Indiana U. Press).
In our Purple Principle interview, Jentleson describes the filibuster as the tool which grinds government to a halt by presenting an impossibly high 60-vote threshold for major legislation. He cites the failure to pass a bipartisan bill on background checks after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre as one of many cases in point. And he makes a persuasive historical case that the filibuster long delayed action on both slavery and then civil rights legislation that a majority of Senators and citizens long favored.
Richard Arenburg agrees that polarization is afflicting the current U.S. Senate. But he argues that repealing the filibuster will only exacerbate, not ameliorate, that disease. He also suggests that progressives pushing for filibuster reform today do not fully appreciate what will happen when “the keys to the legislative bulldozer are stolen” and Democrats are no longer in the majority.
Instead, Arenbeg prefers a return to the original talking filibuster, which energizes the media and places political pressure on those holding the floor “Jimmy Stewart” fashion. This episode also features audio references to the classic 1939 film, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, in which Stewart, as Smith, engages in a monumental talking-style filibuster.
Both Jentleson and Arenberg present arguments of merit. Tune in to learn how we arrived at this moment where so much hinges on the filibuster. And make up your own independent mind whether the filibuster must go in favor of majority-backed legislation; must stay in favor of minority rights; or needs incremental reform to create a new and better balance.
Original Music by Ryan Adair Rooney.
Show Notes
Molly Moorhead (4/30/13). “A summary of the Manchin-Toomey gun proposal.” Politifact.
Richard Arenberg: Watson Institute
Tucker Higgins (4/8/21). “Senate: Democrat Joe Manchin opposes weakening the filibuster.” CNBC
Sen. Ted Cruz's filibuster against Obamacare (9/25/13). The Washington Post.
W. Gardner Selby (10/27/17). “Ted Cruz has flip-flopped on filibuster rule.” The Statesman.
Shira Toeplitz (12/10/10). “Bernie Sanders's last stand.” Politico.
Philip Ewing (3/6/13). “Rand Paul pulls plug on nearly 13-hour filibuster.” Politico.
Sarah Binder (4/22/10). "The History of the Filibuster." The Brookings Institute.
Nixon's Record on Civil Rights. Richard Nixon Foundation.
The “Gang of 14". The Bipartisan Policy Center.
Transcript
Adam Jentleson
The Senate was considering a bill to expand or impose universal background checks on gun purchases in America. This was in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre. It was a bipartisan bill. It was sponsored by Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Senator Pat Toomey, a Republican of Pennsylvania. It had near universal support in terms of public opinion.
Robert Pease (host)
That’s Adam Jentleson, author of the recent book Kill Switch. He’s advocating for repeal of the Senate filibuster. That’s the procedural tool by which any U.S. Senator can delay voting on a bill. But in doing so they also increase the number of votes needed for passage from 51 to a much more difficult to reach 60-vote level.
Adam Jentleson
This was a very centrist, moderate policy, and many would argue something that didn't even go far enough to address the massacre of twenty first graders with an assault rifle in their classroom. And it failed in the Senate on a filibuster, but not the kind of filibuster that people think of when they think of the filibuster. There was no “Jimmy Stewart” moment. There was no great speech on the Senate floor. The bill’s opponents simply were able to use the modern version of the filibuster to silently raise the threshold for passing this bill.
Robert Pease (host)
Today on the Purple Principle, “The Senate Filibuster: Weapon of Obstruction or Shield Against Polarization?” We have two equally well informed guests on this episode with very different takes on this issue. I’m Robert Pease.
Emily Crocetti (host)
And I’m Emily Crocetti. And when Adam Jentleson refers to the Jimmy Stewart moment he’s talking about the 1939 movie, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”
Robert Pease (host)
In this classic film by Frank Capra, a naive but determined freshman Senator Smith, played by Jimmy Stewart, engages in a good old-fashioned talking filibuster.
Emily Crocetti (host)
And in typical Hollywood style, he’s single-handedly taking on the corrupt leadership of the U.S. Senate.
Robert Pease (host)
And speak he does. In fact, he’s still speaking, while nearing exhaustion, 25 hours later.
Robert Pease (host)
But this being la-la land, Mr. Smith turns the tide even while passed out, when the corrupt Senate leader confesses his crime.
Emily Crocetti (host)
And hooray for Hollywood endings! But in the reality of our nation’s capital, Senate filibusters rarely turn the tide or even change a single vote. They most commonly obstruct legislation. Still, our other featured guest today is opposed to repealing the filibuster.
Robert Pease (host)
He’s Richard Arenberg, a 30-year veteran of the Senate as a senior staffer to Senators George Mitchell, Paul Tsongas, and Carl Levin. Richard Arenberg co-authored a 2012 book entitled Defending the Filibuster, and calls for a return to the Jimmy Stewart styled talking filibuster, while warning against the dangers of complete repeal.
Richard Arenberg
My view of it is that it's a very shortsighted position to take, to eliminate the filibuster, to get the things done that you want done on your agenda. Because if there's one thing we know about the United States Senate, it won't be in the control of one party or the other for all that long. And that the day of reckoning will come.
Emily Crocetti (host)
This filibuster debate is more than hot air about hot air. It’s a debate about the demise of the center in American politics and the inability to achieve bipartisan compromise.
Robert Pease (host)
Join us today as we learn not just about the filibuster but the changing culture of the U.S. Senate. We should explain that both of our guests today, Adam Jentleson and Richard Arenberg are Democrats, because that’s the more interesting side of the current debate.
Emily Crocetti (host)
It is not surprising that the minority party, which is just barely the Republicans in today’s 50-50 Senate, want to retain the strength of the filibuster against majority-backed legislation.
Robert Pease (host)
But we will check the bipartisan credentials of our two Democratic guests today by asking them to show a bit of purple, meaning a bit of respect, for some legislator from across the aisle.
Emily Crocetti (host)
First, though, let’s hear Adam Jentleson on this. He’s the former Deputy Chief of Staff to Majority Leader Harry Reid. We asked him to explain to our independent-minded listeners why he’s in favor of repealing the almost 200-year old filibuster, the Senate’s long standing protection against majority domination.
Adam Jentleson
I think that anybody who favors a functioning federal government should be in favor of filibuster reform. And I'm obviously on the left side of the spectrum, I don't make any attempt to hide that, but I think that what we're talking about here is a tactic that defeats not far-left policies, but middle of the road policies. It is a tactic that simply grinds the gears of our government to a halt and makes it completely unable to pass even policies that have the support of 90% of the country.
Emily Crocetti (host)
And a big part of our show, kind of our mantra, is that polarization underlies all the problems of our politics. So how would removing the filibuster then affect polarization specifically?
Adam Jentleson
The reason that getting rid of the filibuster will, I think help us take baby steps as a nation to get out of this polarization, is that it's very easy to see President Biden picking up small numbers of Republicans on some of the major priorities that he wants to pass, such as the infrastructure bill that he's going to bring up. It's very hard to see him picking up 10 Republicans and getting to this arbitrary 60 vote threshold.
Emily Crocetti (host)
And as a committed Democrat, which you've mentioned, do you ever fear that without the filibuster, policies of a Republican government might be easier to pass?
Adam Jentleson
I don't fear it. I mean, I would not like to see those things passed, but I think from a philosophical perspective, our system should allow whoever's in power to pass the things that they ran on, if they can get a majority support for them. But I would say that the filibuster kind of provides this fig leaf to the Republican party in a lot of ways where they advocate strongly for policies that are pretty unpopular with the general public but are very popular with their base.
Emily Crocetti (host)
And you mentioned a bit about how filibusters were used to obstruct policies of the Obama administration. Just for balance, can you think of any examples of how Democrats used the filibuster to try to obstruct Trump administration goals?
Adam Jentleson
Certainly when I was in the Senate, this was before Trump came into power. So, for 2015, 2016, we were in the minority and we certainly filibustered a number of things that McConnell wanted to pass. They would have been vetoed by President Obama anyway, but we certainly deployed the tactic. And then under Trump, Democrats did use the filibuster periodically. There were some immigration deals that probably would have passed if Democrats had not been able to filibuster them, money for Trump's border wall, and things like that. There was a 20 week abortion ban bill that came up for a vote in 2017 that passed the House and did get 51 votes in the Senate. But structurally, it is a tactic that advantages conservatives more than liberals. A study published in 2018 found that the filibuster had been used twice as often by Republicans to block Democratic bills than by Democrats to block Republican bills.
Emily Crocetti (host)
We ask every guest to show a bit of purple, and since you've already said you're a committed Democrat, could you tell us about one major Republican figure that you admire?
Adam Jentleson
I have a lot of admiration for Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. I think she's an incredibly powerful, independent thinker. I think in a Senate where the filibuster was reformed, she’s someone who could wield a lot more power, because she'd be one of the kingmakers, for helping bills get across that majority threshold instead of sort of just being, you know, one face in the crowd on your way to this impossible threshold of 60.
Emily Crocetti (host)
So can you tell us about your time as Senate deputy chief of staff and about any times where you were trying to, or were able to, work across the aisle?
Adam Jentleson
Yeah, absolutely. I come back to the background checks bill because that was certainly a bipartisan bill. It's unfortunate that it got blocked, but I still see that bill itself as an achievement, that was 2013. Later that year we passed a bipartisan immigration reform bill through the Senate, and so that was a major bipartisan compromise that I was proud to be a part of, and unfortunately, it died in the House of Representatives. And that was true for a lot of the legislation that we passed during that time. I was also there for the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell in 2010, and that was a bill that was put together by Susan Collins of Maine, a Republican, and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who at the time was an independent. But what was unfortunate is that a lot of that stuff just stopped happening after 2013 and 2014 and things started grinding to a halt.
Robert Pease (host)
There is certainly a lot of grinding noises in Congress but has it come to a halt? The Senate did pass the Covid relief bill through a budget maneuver called reconciliation which works around the filibuster. And similar tactics are currently being considered for a big infrastructure bill.
Emily Crocetti (host)
But centrist Democratic Senator Joe Manchin has recently come out against reforming the filibuster and against using budget reconciliation as a way around it. He’s looking for more bipartisan solutions.
Robert Pease (host)
Yet only a short time ago he seemed in favor of some minor reforms. Senator Manchin, however, is not the first Senator to flip flop on the question of the filibuster.
Emily Crocetti (host)
An 8 hour filibuster style speech by Ted Cruz in 2012 was filled with many surprises, including a bedtime story for his daughters.
Robert Pease (host)
Then just two short years later, Cruz changes his mind.
Robert Pease (host)
Oh the places partisan politicians will go. That’s an amateur recording of Ted Cruz at a 2015 Texas Tea Party event. Hard to hear clearly, but he’s saying he would end the 60-vote filibuster right then before the Democrats can do it first.
Emily Crocetti (host)
And in that same Dr. Seuss, Red Fish, Blue Fish spirit, Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer advocated for protecting the filibuster in 2017 when the Democrats were in the minority.
Robert Pease (host)
But in 2021 Majority Leader Schumer has seemingly come out for filibuster reform.
Emily Crocetti (host)
Notice a pattern here? Senators from both parties are in favor of reform when in the majority, but against repeal when in the minority. Which may explain why we’ve been dealing with the filibuster issue off and on for not just the past few decades but nearly two hundred years.
Robert Pease (host)
Our next guest, Richard Arenberg, would argue that’s kind of how the founders intended things. Maybe not the filibuster per se, which came into being decades after the first Congress, but the principle of minority rights and the goal of consensus.
Emily Crocetti (host)
It’s there in the fact that even the smallest states do have two Senators. And it’s there again in the ⅔ majority needed to override the presidential veto.
Robert Pease (host)
Let’s hear from one of the most informed voices on the history of the Senate, Richard Arenberg, long time Senate staffer, co-author of Defending the Filibuster, and visiting professor at Brown University.
Emily Crocetti (host)
We start by asking him if he felt hyperpartisanship creeping into the U.S. Senate during his three decades as a Senate staffer.
Richard Arenberg
Oh, yes, no question. I mean, from the time when I first got to Capitol Hill in the late 1970s until I retired from the Senate staff in the beginning of 2009, there was definitely a change virtually year over year. You know, a couple of decades ago, if you looked at that milling around on the floor, it would have been totally mixed in terms of party label. It's so polarized today that you could draw a line down the middle of your screen, and all of the Republicans will be to your left. Ironically, all of the Democrats will be to your right. And it's something that concerns me very deeply. Nonetheless, it's still not as marked as it is of the House. So what I'm really getting at is if you think that excessive partisan polarization is the disease, eliminating the filibuster is going to exacerbate, not solve, that problem.
Robert Pease (host)
And you mentioned in your book, something interesting that I had not realized, that prior to that time, it wasn't necessarily the case that most Senators came up through the House, but then the Gingrich Senators, who came up from the House to the Senate, and we just did an episode about Gingrich and his role. So tell us about that group and how they changed the way things worked.
Richard Arenberg
Well, I think they were a part of the change. I mean, I think we've seen the development of a greater and greater partisan polarization, but I think that's contributed to by the election of many more House members to the Senate, because they've cut their teeth in a majoritarian body. And because it's a much more partisan and polarized environment in the House.
Robert Pease (host)
So let's talk now about your 2012 book, which you co-authored, Defending the Filibuster. You wrote at that time, the filibuster has been abused, but reform efforts can be dangerous and a balance needs to be maintained between consensus and protecting the minority. Is that you're still your view today about a decade later?
Richard Arenberg
Yes, it is. Of course the abuse, if anything, has worsened. But nonetheless, I still believe that the filibuster plays a very important role in making the Senate the body that it is and that's a positive role, but because of the abuse of that tool, there are certain reforms that I support.
Robert Pease (host)
Well, let's talk then about your recent Wall Street Journal piece with former Senator Carl Levin. If we're understanding that correctly, it seems to be supportive of perhaps a return to the talking filibuster, where people have to really go on record and show why they're opposed to something. Is that your position now?
Richard Arenberg
Basically, yes. I think that the talking filibuster is often characterized as a reform step that might be taken. The leadership under the existing Senate roles can cause that to happen. And as we argued in that Wall Street Journal piece, I think it should happen in the current circumstance. And one of the reasons that I'm for that is because I think that when the Senate is engaged in that kind of battle, that energizes the media. And so if you have a circumstance, as I think progressives currently believe they have, where they have agenda items which are broadly popular on a bipartisan basis in the electorate, creating the media attention and so forth ought to put great pressure on those who are simply obstructing a popular proposal.
Robert Pease (host)
Well, you mentioned that Progressives at this moment seem very much in favor of repealing or revoking the filibuster. And we had another interview with former deputy chief of staff to Harry Reid, Adam Jentleson, who's written this book, Kill Switch, which lays out a very persuasive historical case.
Richard Arenberg
It's a good book.
Robert Pease (host)
But you also have a phrase in your book about the dangers of stealing the keys to the bulldozer, I think you put it, so what would you say to Progressives about how much damage the bulldozer can do when keys change hands?
Richard Arenberg
I think my view of it is that it's a very shortsighted position to take, to eliminate the filibuster, to get the things done that you want done on your agenda. One thing that people don't think about when they think about the elimination of the filibuster is that it will put the majority party in complete control of the federal budget.
Robert Pease (host)
Well, it seems that there is an assumption behind the case for maintaining the filibuster, that there will be senators who will cross the aisles and vote with the other side. And that's a very scary proposition these days, as soon as you do that, you paint a primary election target on your back.
Richard Arenberg
I definitely think there's a problem there. There are a whole lot of procedures that have been overused, abused, and stretched out of shape. We see that happening with reconciliation, for example, in the budget process. When I first got to the Senate, senators understood the need for restraint. The filibuster was rarely used because they understood that if it were overused, it could be eliminated. The fact that you were willing to filibuster something was a demonstration that it was profoundly important, either because it was such a big issue, or because it was so unique to your home state. And we've seen those kinds of filibusters over the years as well, where it was one or two senators, Jimmy Stewart fashion, holding the floor.
Emily Crocetti (host)
Despite the fact that Jimmy Stewart filibusters are no longer necessary and any senator can silently hold up a bill, we have seen some talking filibusters in recent decades.
Robert Pease (host)
Bernie Sanders spoke at great length against the extension of Bush-era tax cuts while the economy was in deep recession in 2010.
Emily Crocetti (host)
And Senator Rand Paul conducted a 13 hour filibuster of John Brennan’s nomination to CIA Director in 2013.
Robert Pease (host)
Historically though, the filibuster was not primarily used by just one or two senators looking to make a media splash. It was more a tool of obstruction used by a bloc of senators, most commonly Southern senators, on the issue of slavery, and then civil rights.
Emily Crocetti (host)
And this arose from a historical accident going back to the time of a Senator named Alexander Hamilton and a Vice President named Aaron Burr.
Robert Pease (host)
Should we make that joke now someone should write a play about those two?
Emily Crocetti (host)
That’s really begging for editing. So let’s move directly onto Adam Jentleson on the accidental birth of the Senate filibuster over two centuries ago.
Robert Pease (host)
Seriously. I’m hearing a musical. Do you hear that?
Adam Jentleson
I sometimes call it the most consequential copy-edit in American history. Aaron Burr in 1806 was presiding over actually the third impeachment trial in American history, and this was after he'd shot Hamilton. So sort of a weird period in history. And everybody knew that when he left the Senate, he would probably not be coming back, because he had this indictment looming. And then he makes a series of recommendations for how the Senate, this young institution, can clean up its rules and make itself more well-managed. And because obstruction was relatively unknown in this early Senate, one of the rules they got rid of was this rule to end debate by a majority vote. And it wasn't until John Calhoun arrived in the Senate in the 1830s that he realized that the lack of any rule that would allow the Senate to end debate meant that he could talk for as long as he wanted.
Robert Pease (host)
And Calhoun had an issue that he was trying to prevent legislation around, so tell us about his background and how successful he was in preventing action on slavery.
Adam Jentleson
He was a real chameleon, politically, he actually started his career as a strong Federalist and advocate of a strong national government. Of course, we know him as the father of nullification and sort of the spiritual grandfather of the Confederacy, and this was a period where you had many issues that were not ostensibly about slavery, but were really about slavery, because they were fundamentally about the balance of power between the North and the South. And so one of the first filibusters that Calhoun wages is against an 1841 bill to establish a Second Bank of the United States. There were isolated incidents of obstruction before this time, but this was Calhoun sort of bringing into existence what we would consider as a talking filibuster, the Jimmy Stewart style, standing on the floor, giving this extended defense and doing it in the name of minority rights. But of course the minority that he was talking about was not a vulnerable population in need of protection. It was the planter class of the South.
Robert Pease (host)
And there's another important figure there that perhaps not a lot of Americans know about, and that is Richard, or Dick Russell.
Adam Jentleson
This is in the Jim Crow era. Richard Russell comes to the Senate in the 1930s, and he quickly establishes himself as the de facto leader of the Senate. He controlled the Southern bloc, which was the most powerful bloc in the Senate of about 20 senators. He knew the Senate rules like nobody else. And he dedicated himself to innovating and wielding the filibuster exclusively against civil rights bills. And this is when the filibuster went from the talking filibuster that we know, started its transformation from the talking filibuster to the ability to impose a threshold of a super majority on bills. And that was the work of Richard Russell and the Southern bloc. And they did it explicitly in the name of white supremacy.
Robert Pease (host)
The filibuster is finally broken in 1964 after I believe its 80-something years or so of inaction. And there's an interesting unlikely alliance there. So tell us a little bit about the filibuster, how it was finally broken.
Adam Jentleson
So this is a fascinating episode. I'm actually going to back it up to 1957, because another chameleon in this act was Richard Nixon. I think it's lost to history that the Republican party of the 1950s was actually very aggressively pursuing civil rights. Richard Nixon, who is the Vice President at the time, is one of Eisenhower's point men on this outreach on civil rights. And he joins up with leading Senate liberals in order to pass Eisenhower's strong civil rights bill. They are blocked in this effort by Lyndon Johnson, who at the time was a close ally of the white supremacist Southern bloc. Obviously in 1960, Kennedy and Johnson defeat Richard Nixon, Nixon disappears from the scene humiliated and with nothing to show for his work on civil rights. And then he comes back to the scene in 1968 as Mr. White Backlash with his Southern strategy. In the meantime, Johnson becomes president, obviously after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and then Johnson proceeded to turn on Richard Russell, who was his mentor, to break Russell's two month long filibuster against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. And during that two months, Johnson had the full cooperation, not just of the Democratic Senate leader Mike Mansfield, but also the Republican Senate leader Everett Dirksen. And I think you look at politics today and it's pretty hard to imagine President Biden ever having the cooperation, not just from Chuck Schumer, but also Mitch McConnell to break a filibuster. So it was a monumental effort.
Robert Pease (host)
Should it take monumental efforts to pass legislation supported by the vast majority of Americans? That appears to be the current situation with regard to immigration, environment, gun safety and many other issues.
Emily Crocetti (host)
But the veteran Senate Staffer Richard Arenberg also delves into much of the same history in his book, yet still comes out warning against removing the filibuster completely. Or, in his words, losing the keys to the bulldozer.
Robert Pease (host)
And that’s because, in his view, the Senate is the last and perhaps only hope for any bipartisanship in our political culture and process.
Emily Crocetti (host)
So we asked him to show a bit of purple, the color of compromise, and tell us about some of the Republicans he had worked with during his three decades as senior Democratic staffer.
Richard Arenberg
Well, there are a lot of them, but you know, one of the easiest ones to pick and bring to mind is John McCain, who I had a fair amount of interaction over the years with, and always found him somebody that was very principled. But, you know, when I first got to the Senate, somebody like that I also respected was Barry Goldwater. I'd always thought of him as slightly crazed, but you know, certainly the most conservative member of the Senate at the time that I got there. And he frequently crossed the aisle with Democrats. To point to an example on the other side, Ted Kennedy, who made a whole career of working out a lot of bipartisan solutions. What we really want is for the parties to be willing to come to the table. And in 2005, that even happened on the filibuster, by the way: we had the Gang of 14, seven Democrats and seven Republicans, and they came together to save the filibuster in 2005.
Robert Pease (host)
But there was at least some bipartisanship in reviving talks on the COVID relief package, I believe involving Senators Manchin, Collins, and Murkowski.
Richard Arenberg
They've been calling themselves the G20, I think, they're a gang of 20 and the math kind of works. There's some hope in that. I'm a bit of a Pollyanna. And I think just getting people to act civilly towards each other, to sit down at the table and negotiate solutions, that can go a long way.
Emily Crocetti (host)
So the question of where you stand on filibuster repeal or reform really hinges on whether you think real bipartisanship is still possible in the U.S. Senate.
Robert Pease (host)
It’s certainly become more difficult over the past few decades, as you, Emily, and reporter Michael Valeri docented back in our Season One episode with Unite America Founder, Charles Wheelan. First the gradual demise of the Northeast moderate Senators who were not so fondly labeled RINOS. As in Republicans In Name Only.
Emily Crocetti (host)
How many moderate New England Republicans held Senate seats when Charles Wheelan says the RINO hunt began in the late 1980s?
Michael Valeri (reporter)
It looks like about five, including Lowell Weicker of Watergate fame in Connecticut, who lost reelection that year.
Emily Crocetti (host)
And Jim Jeffords from Vermont who wins election, but becomes an independent in 2001.
Michael Valeri (reporter)
So by 2000, we were down to three. Judd Greg of New Hampshire also retires in 2010.
Emily Crocetti (host)
As does Olympia Snowe of Maine in 2012, citing hyper-partisanship in the Senate as the reason.
Michael Valeri (reporter)
Today, then just one RINO left: Susan Collins from Maine. So, nearing extinction.
Robert Pease (host)
And in that same episode you also reported on the demise of the centrist Democratic senators from the south, the DINOS.
Emily Crocetti (host)
We looked at six northeastern states on our RINO hunt. Now let's compare that to six southeastern states.
Michael Valeri (reporter)
Okay, twelve Senate seats from those six states. It looks like seven are held by centrist Democrats in 1990, but by 2010, only two. So what happened?
Emily Crocetti (host)
It’s complicated – lots of things. The south shifts a little bit to the right each election. And when popular DINOS like Sam Nunn or Fritz Hollings retire, their seats swing, like really swing, from conservative Democrat.
Michael Valeri (reporter)
To conservative Republican, opening that gap in the middle.
Emily Crocetti (host)
And the RINO/DINO extinction is destroying the center.
Michael Valeri (reporter)
Like a completely different Senate.
Emily Crocetti (host)
In just three decades.
Robert Pease (host)
And that demise of RINOs and DINOs, or the moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats over the past three decades really underlies why Adam Jentleson has a much more pessimistic view on the chances for bipartisanship in today’s Senate.
Emily Crocetti (host)
So we asked him how repealing the filibuster would affect hyperpartisanship and polarization. And whether it might trigger a cycle of passing and repealing of the same legislation as the parties move in and out of the majority.
Adam Jentleson
I just would note, we are the only developed democracy that, that has a supermajority quorum requirement for all legislation. Every other democracy does not have this. I also think that history shows that that's unlikely to happen. One example I point to is Medicare. We look at that as a great bipartisan accomplishment, but it was actually fought tooth and nail at the time until it could secure a majority. Once it was able to secure a majority vote, it never faced a filibuster, and it was never forced to clear a super majority. Once policies are in place and people decide they like them, they're very hard to undo, even if your entire campaign about undoing this policy.
Robert Pease (host)
So every once in a while, we do see some hints of bipartisanship. And I thought one of them was when Susan Collins somewhat unexpectedly won reelection, Joe Manchin was one of the first to congratulate her and say that he's looking forward to working with her on reviving the COVID relief negotiations. So the question is, would eliminating the filibuster just further minimize whatever vestige of bipartisanship we have left?
Adam Jentleson
I don't think so. I think that stagnation kills bipartisanship. I genuinely believe that getting the gears of government turning again is what's going to re-establish those bi-partisan relationships. The key point to me is that right now the party that's out of power has a heavy incentive to block the party that's in power from doing anything, especially in a narrowly divided Senate. They look at the next election and say, we only need a couple seats to get back in power. So let's block everything the other side is going to do.
Emily Crocetti (host)
And so many important bills have been blocked in recent time in the U.S. Senate – on immigration, on gun violence, the environment and other chronic problems.
Robert Pease (host)
But make up your own independent mind on this tricky issue, the filibuster – whether to reform it or repeal or leave it as is and hope for some crossing of the aisles in our closely divided Senate.
Emily Crocetti (host)
Will the bipartisan group of 20 Senators mentioned by Richard Arenberg transcend the partisan divide?
Robert Pease (host)
Or will the Biden Administration and Senate Democrats work around the Senate filibuster to pass legislation through reconciliation? This was recently given the greenlight by the non-partisan Senate Parliamentarian, essentially the Senate Referee.
Emily Crocetti (host)
We’ll keep you posted on those developments in future episodes and through our newsletter, The Purple Principle in Print, available at our website, purpleprinciple.com.
Robert Pease (host)
But next time we’ll look at Washington gridlock from a slightly different viewpoint: the idea that our democracy has become a classic duopoly with high barriers to competition and low responsiveness to its consumers, regular citizens like you and I.
Emily Crocetti (host)
Our guest will be Katherine Gehl, founder of the non-partisan Institute for Political Reform and co-author, with renowned strategist Michael Porter, of the book The Politics Industry.
Katherine Gehl
Oh my goodness, that is how it is in the politics industry. There's high barriers to entry. Oh, the customers have very little power, Oh, look at how much power the suppliers have. And it was only later when I wanted to bring other business people into this effort on political innovation that I determined it would be helpful to write it up, to show this logic of the politics industry, because it not only explains what's gone wrong. It's a really good basis for understanding what we can most powerfully do to alter the dynamic.
Robert Pease (host)
Join us then, share us on social media, review us on Apple Podcasts, and contact us through our website audio recorder with any feedback or ideas you have for the show. This has been Emily Crocetti and Robert Pease for the Purple Principle team: Alison Byrne, producer; Kevin A. Kline, senior audio engineer; Emily Holloway, research and outreach; Dom Scarlett, research associate. Original music composed by Ryan Adair Rooney. The Purple Principle is a Fluent Knowledge production.
