CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Passage of President Biden’s Covid Relief Plan also established the urgent need to fix the filibuster and that DNC-GOP hybrid Senator Joe Manchin may be the real Senate Majority leader until the filibuster is reformed or Democrats win more Senate seats.
Congress used Budget Resolution to pass the $1.9 trillion Covid Relief package along party lines, that many not be able to be used to pass other bills like HR-1, which Republicans will be able to successfully filibuster under current Senate rules
Short of eliminating the filibuster completely, which President Biden and Senator Joe Manchin oppose doing, Democrats want to reform/rewrite filibuster rules, which has been done before, or restore the original ones. In Sunday interviews on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and “Fox News Sunday”, Manchin said he was open to making use of the filibuster more ‘painful’ for those invoking it.
“If you want to make it a little bit more painful, make him stand there and talk. I’m willing to look at anyway we can, but I’m not willing to take away involvement of the minority,” Manchin said on “Meet the Press.”
He echoed that comment on “Fox News Sunday”
“The filibuster should be painful, it really should be painful and we’ve made it more comfortable over the years. Maybe it has to be more painful.”
Manchin’s comments followed the filibuster stunt by Sen Ron Johnson (R-Wisc) in which the 600 + pages of Biden’s Covid Relief plan were read aloud on the Senate floor, taking over 10 hours to do. But it wasn’t Johnson reading, it was a series of Senate clerks forced to do it and Johnson didn’t even remain present for the entire reading.
Under the original filibuster rules, it would have had to been Sen Johnson doing the reading and he wouldn’t be allowed to leave the Senate floor if he wanted to keep the filibuster alive. Under the old rules, it’s unlikely Johnson would have pulled the stunt.
Senate rule XXII says that 3/5ths of the Senate (60 members) are needed to pass a law and to invoke “Cloture” ending a filibuster. That is a French word for closure. Cloture in the Senate rules puts a time limit of 30 hours for debate before a vote. Now Senators also need not be present on the floor for the entire filibuster or for Cloture. In the past, Senators needed to be actually seated -present.
Norm Ornstein, resident scholar for the American Enterprise for Public Policy Research, wrote in The Atlantic on how the filibuster could be easily fixed without being eliminated.
“The answer is to return the filibuster to its original intention - something to be used rarely, when a minority (not necessarily a partisan one, by the way) feels so strongly about an issue of great national significance that it will make enormous sacrifices to delay a bill. There is a simple way to do this - and in the meantime keep Rule XXII and mollify Manchin et al. while also providing an opening for Biden and his Democrats to get big things done. That is to flip the number: Instead of 60 votes required to end debate, the procedure should require 40 votes to continue it. If anytime a minority cannot muster 40 votes, debate ends, cloture is invoked, and the bill can be passed by the votes of a simple majority.
It will not allow Democrats to pass everything they want. But it will stop the filibuster from standing in the way of necessary, broadly popular initiatives.”
For hours, Manchin had stalled passage of Biden’s Covid Relief package going into the weekend, over unemployment benefits provisions.
Manchin had the extended $300 weekly unemployment benefit end a month earlier, Sept 6, then originally written. He also had the first $10,200 in benefits being nontaxable limited to those making under $150,000
Previously, Manchin led the push to have the $15hr minimum wage provision dropped. Manchin later said he might support an $11 hr minimum wage in a separate bill. Democrats made a big mistake in not properly labeling it as a “Five Year Fifteen Dollar Phase In” which is what it was. The full $15 an hour minimum wage actually wouldn’t go into effect for another five years.
While the Relief package was being introduced to Congress and passed, Manchin helped kill Biden’s nomination of Neera Tanden as OMB Director, voting against her. Tanden had made the mistake of retweeting a story criticizing the high salary of Manchin’s daughter, Heather Bresch, when she was the CEO of Mylan pharmaceutical.
With the Senate split 50/50, Biden and Sen Charles Schumer have little options but to bow to West Virginia Senator Manchin’s wishes for the next two years. Trump won that state. All Manchin has to do is switch parties and Mitch McConnell becomes Senate Majority Leader again.