A Letter to Senators Manchin & Sinema
Three months ago I wrote an article entitled “Hanging in the Balance” in which I described the Republican Party’s efforts to skew the nation’s electoral system in its favor and how the Senate’s filibuster rule is standing in the way of Democratic efforts to block that assault on the nation’s democratic system of government. Two key players in this drama are Senators Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema to whom I have written the following letter.
Dear Senators Manchin & Sinema,
In recent days each of you has reiterated your opposition to relaxing the Senate’s filibuster rule. You offer slightly differing rationales, but both are grounded in the proposition that the filibuster rule encourages debate and prevents the views of the Senate’s minority members from being ignored. A close review of the rule’s history, however, reveals that when it was adopted over 100 years after the U.S. Senate was first convened, the intent was not to encourage debate, but rather to provide a means of terminating endless debates. Thus, it was adopted as a way of enabling legislation to proceed even in the face of opposition. Admittedly, a high threshold for cloture of debate was embodied in the rule, making it a safeguard only against legislative paralysis created by a relatively small contingent of the Senate’s members.
Senator Sinema, you have expressed your preference for changing the behavior of those who would abuse the rule, rather than simply further eroding the rule which has already been amended at least three times to address abuses of its intended purpose. Senator Manchin, your opposition to amending the filibuster rule is not new as you opposed the changes to the rule approved in both 2013 and 2017. Indeed, you were the only U.S. Senator to vote against both of these changes to the rule. In 2017 you explained your vote in terms of your being unwilling to abdicate your right to represent your constituents, a position which I have some difficulty understanding as your voice on behalf of your constituents can never be heard if a piece of legislation is never allowed to be considered. From your more recent statements you simply appear to believe that any changes to voting procedures should be effected with bipartisan support, a belief that has only been voiced by you and Senator Sinema among the Senate’s one hundred members.
While I commend both of you for your idealism as to how a democracy should function, however, as I explain more fully below, that idealism will not only prevent our democracy from functioning, it could very well lead to its demise. That’s because there is absolutely no reason to believe that the Republican Party, or even a small percentage of Republican Senators, will suspend their current obstructionist tactics. Moreover, given the voting procedural changes now being unilaterally enacted in every state controlled by Republicans, democracy in this country as it has been practiced for over 200 years may cease to exist.
Let me first address Senator Sinema’s suggestion that it’s preferable to change bad behavior than to amend the rule. It sadly reminds me of Senator Collins’ explanation for why she voted to acquit President Trump in his first impeachment proceeding. She contended that after having been impeached, the President would be sufficiently chastened and would cease his abuse of his presidential powers. As we have learned, President Trump derived a strikingly different lesson from that proceeding as he went on to summarily terminate the services of Alexander Vindman and others who had testified against him as well as to remove the serving Inspector Generals of no less than four government agencies. Rather than being chastened, he was emboldened by his ability to once again escape punishment for his bad behavior. The moral is simple: You cannot put an end to bad behavior by allowing those who practice it to profit from it.
In the current situation, a substantial majority of Americans are in favor of legislation to repair and rebuild the nation’s infrastructure as well as legislation to assure that every American’s right to vote is not impeded and that all votes are given equal weight. Equally importantly, Americans don’t want their votes to be negated by state legislators or voting officials, much in the manner that President Trump tried to bring about following the 2020 election. Yet, Senate Minority Leader McConnell has announced that his party intends to block the passage of the Democratic-sponsored bills seeking to achieve these goals by invoking the filibuster rule to prevent them from even being considered. Thus, your opposition to amending the filibuster rule will only serve to reward the bad behavior of Senate Republicans and encourage them to continue to block the Biden administration’s legislative agenda.
Senator Manchin, I understand that you are not ready to believe that Senator McConnell speaks for his entire caucus and maintain that there are at least ten Republican Senators who will step forward and support effective legislation to achieve these important goals. You must admit however, that the Republicans’ successful filibuster of the House bill to create a commission to study the January 6th Capitol insurrection does not provide any basis for optimism, especially when you consider that it too was favorably viewed a substantial majority of Americans. My suspicion is that over the next couple of weeks, we will see additional filibusters by Senate Republicans of popular Democratic legislative proposals.
The problem, of course, runs much deeper than simply a few sporadic cases of bad faith oppositions to Democratic legislative initiatives. Republican efforts to block President Biden’s agenda are an important element in a long-term plan to permanently control the U.S. government. That plan is built around a symbiotic relationship between Republican politicians and business corporations and wealthy individuals. Republican legislators seek to cut taxes and business regulations so as to channel most of the growth in the nation’s wealth into the hands of their wealthy partners who reciprocate by contributing generously to their political campaigns.
The courts, and especially the Supreme Court, play a key role in this plan by finding ways to strike down legislation and regulations that work against the party’s goals of steering wealth to its donors and endearing itself to its popular base. Of critical importance to this plan were the Supreme Court’s decisions in Citizens United case striking limits on campaign financing and the Shelby County case which stifled the civil rights of millions of Americans by opening the door to state-imposed restrictions on voting. This explains why Mitch McConnell refused to consider the Supreme Court nomination of Merrick Garland and raced to confirm the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett as well as the nominations of over 225 other Republican nominees to the federal judiciary.
Of course, winning elections requires far more than the votes of the party’s principal donors. Beginning with Richard Nixon in 1960 the Republican Party built its popular base by cobbling together a coalition of business owners who are lured by the party’s tax and regulatory policies, libertarians who are attracted by its policies minimizing the role of the government, evangelicals who are attracted by its policies against abortion and LGTBQ rights and white supremacists who are attracted by Republican efforts to suppress blacks and other minority groups.
Because the Republicans’ agenda of cutting the nation’s social safety net and channeling its wealth to their principal donors works against the interests of the vast majority of their registered voters, a key element in their strategic plan is to foil the efforts of Democrats to improve the lives of all Americans. In fact, the less Democrats are able to accomplish in improving the well-being of the nation’s citizens, the more disaffected their voting base becomes and the more their messages of hate and fear resonate with their supporters. This is exactly what Mitch McConnell had in mind when he tried to make President Obama a one-term president by opposing his efforts to restart the nation’s economy in the wake of the Great Recession. Now he is trying to do the same thing by opposing President Biden’s efforts to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure, address the issue of wealth inequality and improve social justice. His worst nightmare is that Democrats will actually succeed in these endeavors. Therefore, Republican legislative obstructionism has nothing to do with whether Senate Republicans (or even the majority of their voters) like or dislike the actions they are obstructing, it has to do with implementing the party’s strategic plan.
I’m sure you have noticed that very few Republican legislators deviate from the actions dictated by their leaders. This too is no accident. With political contributions the primary determinant of elections and with the Party’s principal donors contributing to funds controlled by the Party’s leaders, few elected Republican legislators have sufficient name recognition and resources to enable them to ignore their Party’s dictates. This is particularly true because the Party has demonstrated no hesitancy in disciplining and even opposing the re-election of those legislators who do not adhere to the party’s directives. Thus, finding ten Republican Senators who will not support a filibuster initiated by their party’s leaders is largely an exercise in futility. It is this cash-based mechanism for enforcing party discipline that has rendered the 60-vote threshold embodied in the filibuster rule an anachronism.
In large measure, the Republican Party has become a victim of his own success. It has driven wealth inequality to such extremes and diminished the role of government to such a degree that the party’s principal blocs of voters have become completely disenchanted. As a result, in 2016 they essentially deserted both political parties and voted for a conman who professed to be a successful businessman and claimed that he alone could reverse their plight. Moreover, by openly espousing the messages of hate and fear that Republican politicians had been employing covertly for at least six decades Trump was able to completely hijack the hearts and minds of Republican voters, thereby making Republican politicians his captives. That’s why over 175 Republican legislators continue to support Trump’s lie that he won the 2020 election by a landslide.
The Republican Party now finds itself in an unenviable position. Its popular base has been diminishing for several decades as a result of demographic changes and policies that have limited popular appeal. Even so, the party has managed to stay competitive as a result of an electoral system that favors the less populous states, gerrymandered election districts, a significant advantage in political contributions and restrictions on voting that disproportionately affect the minority groups demonized by Republican politicians. Although Republican Party officials welcomed Trump’s victory in the 2016 election, his presidency has made a tenuous situation much worse. That’s because he alienated many mainstream Republican supporters and energized Democrats who had sat on the sidelines during the 2016 election. This led to a 7 million vote deficit in the 2020 presidential election and to the Republicans’ loss of control in the Senate.
Rather than seeking to expand their political base by adopting policies with a wider public appeal, Republicans have now embarked on a campaign to not only ramp up restrictions on voting by traditionally Democratic supporters, but also to take election decisions out of the hands of election officials when the results of the voting are unfavorable. This campaign is being implemented right now with hundreds of bills being submitted in state legislatures around the country and enacted by strictly partisan votes in states in which the legislature and state houses are controlled by the Republican Party. Unless this campaign is countered by federal legislation, the result will be highly detrimental to the nation you serve and to its democratic traditions.
Through gerrymandering and voting restrictions Republicans will be able to regain control of the House with as many as 40% fewer votes than their Democratic opponents. With voting restrictions and the outcome of elections being determined by state legislatures, they will be able to regain control of the Senate; and with voting restrictions, the biases built into the Electoral College and control of the Congress they will be able to win national elections even when they lose those elections by over 7 million votes. Moreover, with their newfound political power they will skew the electoral process even further.
The RNC’s decision to embark on this campaign aimed at changing the rules for conducting political elections leaves no room for even hoping that Republicans will change their current hyper-partisan behavior. Moreover, if the campaign is successful it will change democracy in America to the extent that it won’t even be recognizable as such. It will place out of reach the very system that you wish to re-create in which men and women come together in good faith to decide what actions are in the best interests of the nation.
I understand that you might find this prospect more alarmist than alarming. It is even difficult for me to grasp that elected legislators who consider themselves patriots would turn their backs on two hundred plus years of history and take actions that would jeopardize America’s democratic traditions. Yet, the party of Jefferson has always believed that the government should be run by the nation’s elite and it was that tradition that led to our Civil War. As Donald Trump’s presidency has revealed, not only do those feelings still run high, they are harbored by a majority of the voters who elected the current members of the Republican Senate caucus.
The only viable way to prevent this from happening requires the adoption of the “For the People” Act, which in turn will require a suspension of the filibuster rule. Your unwillingness to take that step will not achieve the result that you desire. Quite to the contrary, it will reward bad behavior and give further encouragement to Republicans to put an end to political discourse as envisioned by our nation’s founders. I THEREFORE RESPECTFULLY REQUEST THAT YOU RECONSIDER YOUR CURRENT POSITIONS AND MOVE FORWARD WITH THE SUSPENSION OF THE FILIBUSTER RULE AND THE ADOPTION OF “THE FOR THE PEOPLE” ACT. The stakes are simply too high for this threat to be disregarded, and if you do not act now, history may well come to remember you as the senators who could have prevented the destruction of American democracy.
Sincerely,
Dan L. Goldwasser