Speaker Johnson Kills Senate Filibuster?

It’s frequently observed around Washington that Capitol Hill is the closest thing available to adults to “permanent” college. Within its insular campus, everybody knows everybody, they work hard and play hard, and the latter includes perpetual last-minute-cramming for that end-of-term final or all-nighters to make the term paper deadline. Only for Congress these deadlines are whatever the legislative or policy priority of the moment happens to be.

This is why you never get a deal until said deadline arrives (e.g., budget-process timelines, or the end of the fiscal year, or some other legal- or process-imposed date). Politicians posture and thereby procrastinate until a painful prospect gets their attention.

The pain in this case was the prospect of the Senate losing its Easter recess. Back to the college analogy, Congress also operates not unlike an academic calendar – it takes “breaks” throughout the year – the aforementioned Easter recess, 4th of July recess, August recess, a fall break around Veterans Day, and a Christmas/New Year’s recess (or adjournment if at the end of the two-year congressional term).

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Now to some degree, members of Congress are proverbially damned if they do or don’t, which is tritely, but more or less accurately, summed up in a couple of other contradictory shop-worn saws: “at least the country is safe when Congress is gone” and “Congress only works three days a week.”

So with all this said, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, on Thursday night, chose to make the Easter recess an off-ramp for his caucus. Amid the DHS shutdown, the intraparty feuding over the SAVE America Act, and the incessant Democrat and media defeatism over Iran, he chose to punt the whole mess to the House.

But Speaker Mike Johnson (LA-02) is having none of it. On Friday, he announced that he's working to round up the votes to pass a 60-day DHS funding extension, including all of Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which the Senate version passed late Thursday night does not, and that would again send the legislation back to the Senate.

Thune is claiming victory Friday as the Senate bill makes no so-called reforms to ICE or CBP - demands by the Democrats through the course of the shutdown.

But Johnson could score his own victory as well – whether or not he successfully secures the votes for his 60-day extension.

What Johnson has done has reinforced President Trump’s long-time mantra (going back to his first term and re-iterated again this week): the filibuster needs to go.

Along with many others, I’ve written about the SAVE America Act and the filibuster’s implications for it. The rules don’t change per piece of (non-budget) legislation, and everyone following that debate is acutely aware that Senate legislation effectively requires 60 votes to pass.

Johnson, by rejecting the Senate bill, is effectively saying to Thune, and the whole Senate: find 60 votes, or change your rules.

As I said, whether or not Johnson’s new proposal passes or not is irrelevant - to do anything, Thune has to fix his Senate problem.

“The Republicans are not going to be any part of any effort to reopen our borders or to stop immigration enforcement,” Johnson said. “We are going to deport dangerous criminal illegal aliens because it is a basic function of the government.”

But to do any of these “basic functions” in the Senate right now takes these 60 votes to end debate (or “invoke cloture” in Senate parlance), which is purely a product of Senate rules – rules that are hamstringing it on ALL legislation, not just DHS funding and the SAVE America Act. The Senate is requiring a supermajority to pass supermajority-supported legislation!

Thune’s off-ramp has led him right back into the filibuster brick wall. He got his recess, but when he gets back to town, he’s likely to be greeted by President Trump in full New York-developer mode, presenting him with a sledgehammer and hard hat, maybe even shouting some words from another great Republican: “tear down this wall!”

After getting him and his colleagues their two weeks off, Thune’s problems will still be waiting for him when he returns. Johnson has made sure of it. And by that point, most Americans may very well consider it high time the job gets done – and some Senate “filibuster” a pathetically weak excuse – that even after getting their vacation, they still can’t do their work.

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