Is It Time? Scott Bessent's Bold New Call to End the Filibuster

Is it time to end the Senate's long-standing rule, known as the filibuster? For years, centuries in fact, it has stood as what many describe as a bastion of republicanism, preventing the Senate from being taken over by short-term political passions. Both parties have used it to block legislation that otherwise would have been driven through by a simple majority.

Many Democrats, almost certainly a majority of that party, have sworn to eliminate the filibuster the moment they regain the Senate, which, sooner or later, they will. The last time they were in charge, they were only blocked from doing so by two moderate Democrat Senators: West Virginia's Joe Manchin and Arizona's Kyrsten Sinema. They have both since left the Senate.

President Trump, most notably after Democrats used the filibuster rule to keep the federal government locked down for over a month, has become a strong proponent of eliminating this rule. On Sunday, in a Washington Post opinion piece, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent makes a strong argument for doing away with this ancient Senate rule.

The American people are just now emerging from the longest and most devastating government shutdown in U.S. history. And while the blame lies squarely with Senate Democrats, we cannot ignore the weapon they used to hold the country hostage: the legislative filibuster. In January, when spending considerations again come due, if Democrats once again choose to shut down the government, then Republicans should immediately end the filibuster.
By wielding the filibuster, which requires a 60-vote Senate supermajority to pass legislation, Democrats inflicted tremendous harm on the nation, including: $11 billion in permanent economic damage; an estimated 1.5 percentage points in lost GDP growth in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025; 9,500 canceled flights; and the paychecks of 1.4 million federal workers held for ransom by the left’s demands.

This is all accurate enough. But what about the cooling effect? What about the protection of the minority? The United States, we should remember, is not a democracy, but a constitutional republic. The Senate, where every state from Florida to Alaska, from New York to Texas, from Rhode Island to Wyoming, has an equal voice, is one of the (small r) republican institutions. But doing away with the filibuster moves us closer to direct democracy, which the founders were dead-set against.

Trump at Senate GOP Breakfast Calls Once Again to Nuke the Filibuster and Push His Agenda Through

Secretary Bessent, however, rightly points out that the filibuster is not in the Constitution; it is, rather, something of an accident of history.

The filibuster is not in the Constitution. The Framers envisioned debate, but they expected majority rule. The modern filibuster traces back to 1806, when the Senate, on the advice of then-former vice president Aaron Burr, deleted the “previous question” motion from its rulebook. That deletion wasn’t a philosophical embrace of unlimited debate; it was a housekeeping measure that inadvertently removed the chamber’s mechanism for cutting off debate by majority vote. Only later did senators discover they could exploit the gap to delay or block action.

It's something of a head-scratcher. We should not capriciously do away with a point of order that has been in place for over two hundred years.

Secretary Bessent's best argument, however, is one he is not alone in making. That is the fact that the Democrats have made no bones about getting rid of the filibuster, along with stacking the Supreme Court, mandating vote-by-mail, making the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico states, and a bunch of other dumb ideas into the bargain. They will do this the moment they are back in control of the Senate. And, sooner or later, they will be back in control.

Eliminating the filibuster will have bad consequences down the road. Of that there can be little doubt. Sooner or later, the Democrats will be back in control of the federal government, just as the GOP is now. It may be in 2029. It may be four years, eight years, or twenty years after that, but they will be back in control. At that time, the GOP will be helpless to effect legislative crackpottery, with the filibuster gone.

But when the Democrats are back in control, and sooner or later, they will be, they will eliminate the filibuster. That's a certainty. How do we know? Because they keep telling us.

Maybe it's time. Maybe the GOP should do this while they can still reap the advantage of it.

Here's the most troubling part of all this: We may regret this move in the long term. But maybe there is no more long-term to consider. Maybe all we can do is what we can do today. And nuking the filibuster will allow that.

Editor’s Note: The Democrat Party has never been less popular as voters reject its globalist agenda.

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