The Democrats’ Calculated Moral Panic over the Filibuster

By Isaac Schorr

Friday, February 26, 2021

 

Let the word go forth from this time and place: The filibuster — that Jim Crow relic — is to blame for the progressive defeat in the “Fight for $15.”

 

On Thursday evening, Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled that Democrats could not raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour as part of their $1.9 trillion spending jubilee masquerading as a COVID-relief measure, which they are trying to pass through the budget reconciliation process. Reconciliation allows the Senate majority to sidestep the filibuster and pass bills that affect spending, revenue, or the federal debt ceiling. There are limits on how it can be used, though. One is that at maximum, three bills can be passed a year using the mechanism. Another is the Byrd Rule, which states that certain kinds of provisions are “extraneous” and therefore cannot be passed under reconciliation. These include those that:

 

1.      Do not produce a change in outlays or revenues

 

2.      Produce changes in outlays or revenue which are merely incidental to the non-budgetary components of the provision

 

3.      Are outside the jurisdiction of the committee that submitted the title or provision for inclusion in the reconciliation measure

 

4.      Increase outlays or decrease revenue if the provision’s title, as a whole, fails to achieve the Senate reporting committee’s reconciliation instructions

 

5.      Increase net outlays or decrease revenue during a fiscal year after the years covered by the reconciliation bill unless the provision’s title, as a whole, remains budget neutral

 

6.      Contain recommendations regarding the OASDI (social security) trust funds

 

It is the Byrd Rule that has compelled MacDonough to rule the minimum-wage hike out of order. Remember, she’s no GOP hack; MacDonough was appointed to her position back in 2012 by Harry Reid.

 

But MacDonough hasn’t been the focus of Democratic criticism, even if she has been come under some fire for her decision. No, the talking points have gone out, and they are aimed squarely at the filibuster. Hawaii senator Brian Schatz tweeted that:

 

The filibuster was never in the constitution, originated mostly by accident, and has historically been used to block civil rights. No legislatures on earth have a supermajority requirement because that’s stupid and paralyzing. It’s time to trash the Jim Crow filibuster.

 

Newly minted California senator Alex Padilla weighed in with more pith, stating simply “End the filibuster. Raise the minimum wage.”

 

Massachusetts’ delegation to the upper chamber chimed in as well. Elizabeth Warren suggested that “It’s long past time to get rid of the filibuster. We must remove Mitch McConnell’s veto power over broadly popular policies the American people want to see passed,” while Ed Markey recommitted himself to “abolish[ing] the filibuster.” And that’s just a small sampling of the emerging party line. The problem with this formulation is that it’s not really the filibuster that’s holding back Senate Democrats from raising the minimum wage to the arbitrary and ill-advised $15 mark — a goal inspired by the aforementioned “Fight for $15” slogan.

 

That distinction belongs to Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, both of whom oppose such a drastic increase and would have stood in its way even if the filibuster were done away with and reconciliation were rendered unnecessary. Moreover, Schatz, Warren, Markey, and the rest of the Democrats were not just quieter about the apparently racist legislative tool when they were in the minority, they were complicit in its use. Just last September, they used it to kill a more discerning COVID-relief bill. The calculated moral panic over the filibuster has nothing to do with the relief package being pushed or the call to remedy racial injustice in America, and has everything to do with the Democrats’ desire to slowly lay the groundwork for pushing through even more controversial legislation if they expand their majority in 2022.

 

The Democrats are outright lying about an important counter-majoritarian institution that they used without remorse when it suited them by tying it to America’s racial history. Worse yet, they’re doing so not on principle, but in the pursuit of power.