The Pros & Cons Of Ending The Filibuster

Trump wants to end the filibuster, but what would that mean? Senior Editor at The Dispatch, John McCormack, explains the pros and cons.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's go to the hotline and bring in senior editor
at The Dispatch, John McCormick, is back with us. You
can find his work at The Dispatch dot com and
you can follow him on x for more at McCormick John. John,
thanks so much for joining me, and I wanted to
have you on because I thought your piece was really
interesting on this debate over the filibuster, something the President

(00:20):
has been pushing Republicans in the Senate to get rid of.
You had a really interesting debate with someone else about this.
You took the side of keeping the filibuster. First of all,
give us an overview what exactly the filibuster does, and
then your reasoning for thinking it should remain in place.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Sure, Well, the filibuster is it's the vote. There's basically
a sixty vote hurdle. So there's one hundred senators and
you need sixty to start or end debate. So you
can debate as long as you want unless you have
sixty senators who are willing to bring it up to
a vote. So basically, right now, accept in limited circumstances
that sixty vote threshold exists for all pieces of legislation.

(01:03):
There are some exceptions on some tax policy issues, some
budget issues called reconciliation. But anyway, I think basically that
you know, the big benefit of the filibuster is that
it prevents sweeping partisan change when you have narrow majorities.
So if the country's divided fifty two forty eights, you know,

(01:23):
unless you have sixty senators in one party, you're not
going to get really anything big. You know, new federal laws,
new federal mandates, new federal titlands.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
You're not going to get that unless you.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Have buy in from the minority party. I think that's
generally been a good thing. I think in general that
you know, change should not be sweeping and fast, you know,
in a country that's as divided as ours, and that
in a polarized time, to get rid of it would
be would be a mistake.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Well, if you go back to how the founders viewed this,
I think they would agree with you. They didn't want
to see quick, fast moving, big sweeping changes in this country.
There was a reason they kind of set things up
the way they did for a more slower, deliberative process.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
Yeah, you know, I mean the sien it's always been
referred to as you know, it's a sort of you
know what, the saucer that cools the tea, you know,
the houses where real sort of you know, the the
voice of the people democracy happens, and that the Senate
is a sort of a check I'm making sure things
don't go too fast, too far. My former colleague guy
who I debated, His name is Andrew Egger, a friend

(02:28):
of mine. You know, he makes this argument that he
thinks that because it's been so difficult over the decades,
the whole buster's mad. It's so difficult for change that
it has created sort of frustration, and it's given cover
or for the president to take sort of executive.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
Overreach executive actions.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
You know, you can go through a litany of things
that Joe Biden did or Trump is doing right now,
which I agree are very bad. But I just think
that even if you could go back in time and
get rid of the philibuster twenty years ago, I don't
think that would meaningfully impact the way the president is
doing an executive overreach today. You know, first of all,
there really hasn't been many years of the filibuster being

(03:08):
the thing that stops legislation from getting through. You know,
it's basically the first couple of years of the new presidency,
you got one party control, and you know, they squander
that very quickly, and you know, the House flips. So really,
the source of gridlock has not been the filibuster most
of the time over the past couple decades.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
It's been the fact that we have divided government.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
And then when in divided government and ideologically they divided times,
you wouldn't see, you know, sweeping change on you know,
the most contentious issues.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
We're joined now by John McCormick, senior editor at The Dispatch.
You can check out his piece on the filibuster and
a whole lot more at the Dispatch dot com. If
you go back and look at the last couple of
elections twenty sixteen, you've got Republicans they win the White
House and Congress. You've got twenty twenty Democrats whin the
White House. In Congress twenty twenty four Republicans retake control.

(03:58):
If we had a situation where the ailabuster was gone
and each party could come in under those circumstances and
enact these huge, sweeping agendas, just imagine the whiplash that
we would see across the country. And I think throughout
the economy.

Speaker 3 (04:15):
All the country of the country. Yeah, I think it's
you know, it's bad for our politics. It's bad for
the economy.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
I think that you know, the businesses, uh, you know,
they like to plan, you know, being unable to plan
about what's the you know what what are things going
to look like here is that's what kind of new
mandates are going to face.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
That's a real problem. And I think it's also bad
for the politics.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
You know that people should expect laws or have some
stability at the federal level too. And you know, if
we can't have this, we're a big, big, fractious, uh,
divided country.

Speaker 3 (04:44):
That's how you have federalism.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
It's not it's not as though the federal government is
the only government in this country. If if the federal
government doesn't have an issue or doesn't have a consensus,
these issues can be about to look up to the states.
So I think it's much better for the states to uh,
you know, handle all these divisive issues when there isn't
that sixty votes in the Senate.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
How much do you think what we saw with Democrats
the decision to get rid of part of the judicial filibuster,
which then led to the complete removal of the filibuster
for judicial appointees, and that allowed Republicans to build this
conservative majority on the Supreme Court in recent years. How

(05:23):
much do you think something like that, how one party
getting rid of part of the filibuster in order to
benefit their side, but then seeing it blow back in
their face in an even bigger way once they were
out of power. How much do you think that is
playing into Republicans in the Senate right now, calculating that
it's not such a wise decision to get rid of it.

Speaker 4 (05:44):
Yeah, I mean, I think the Republicans have always been
more favorable towards the filibuster, you know, really during it
was certainly I think Obama's term that a lot of
progressive intellectual types policy wants I really started hating on
the filibuster, and Republicans have always sort of and I
think there's.

Speaker 3 (06:01):
A reason for that, right. I think the reason is.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
That progressives just think, in the long run, if you
make it easier to create new federal laws, new federal entitlements,
well it's hard. Once you create an entitlement, it's hard
to take it away. Right, Once you give people something,
it's hard to take it away. So I think as
a party, a bigger government they think will making it
easier to make bigger government is going to help us.
Now they kind of say both parties are more in
the bigger government, more willing to use the power of

(06:26):
the federal government to pursue.

Speaker 3 (06:27):
Their ideological ends.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
I'm not sure that it's so smart for Democrats and
progress to be pushing that at this moment.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
It's an interesting debate and you can check it out
again at the Dispatch dot Com. That's where you'll find
all of John McCormick's work and a whole lot more. Again,
The Dispatch dot Com. Senior editor at The Dispatch, John
McCormick with us. John really appreciate the time and insight.
Thanks so much.

Speaker 3 (06:49):
Thanks ran The Ryan Gorman Show five to nine every
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