Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema Ride Off Into the Sunset, Dragging the Filibuster Behind Them

They're still harping on this, huh?

Being noble public figures, you’d think that Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema might move beyond petty grievances and micro-policy disagreements while exiting the political scene. Perhaps give a grand finale-esque triumphant call to bring people together and unite for the sake of moving beyond the acrimonious phase of politics we currently live in?

You’d think wrong.

After hearing practically zilch from them during election season, what was it that brought them out from behind their silk curtains?

Donald Trump’s or JD Vance’s vicious xenophobic rants against legal Haitian immigrant workers in Springfield, OH? Republicans’ last-minute efforts to significantly change election rules across the country? Trump’s hateful and inciteful rhetoric?

Nope. It was a proposal by Kamala Harris to modify to the filibuster.

Harris publicly proposed carving out an exception to the filibuster rules for potential abortion legislation. And suddenly the slumbering legislators woke up and reminded everyone why they despised them.

Let’s humor Manchin and Sinema and give them another 5-10 minutes of attention here, since that seems to be what they crave the most. They are leaving the public scene, after all. Why not use the opportunity to humiliate them even more?

Puzzlingly, Manchin and Sinema were stalwart hold outs on any modifications to the Senate’s filibuster rules. Nothing could appease them on this. According to them, the filibuster had to remain the effortless check on any and all legislative action that a minority didn’t like. This relic from the early 19th century, that emerged to protect slaveholding states, has somehow lingered for almost 200 years. It has evolved over time to become easier and easier with every alteration.

In the current era, if a minority party doesn’t want the majority party to do something, they just signal the intention to filibuster, and, voila! Legislation is dead. Therefore, say the proponents, it promotes discussion and negotiation, and only allows the consensus legislation to pass.

This may have been true at one time, but as twenty-first century obstructionist politics has ascended, the filibuster had been used and abused in the pursuit of absolute gridlock. As the filibuster has become easier to enact, it has become much easier to block literally anything from happening. Mitch McConnell famously used the filibuster, or the threat of the filibuster, to stop most of Obama’s agenda in its tracks. Anything from hot-button legislation to routine judge confirmation was fair game.

This started a new trend, largely out of necessity: adjusting filibuster rules for specific types of legislation. This at least allowed for some governing business to occur. It started with loosening the filibuster hold on non-Supreme Court federal judge confirmation, which was soon applied to Supreme Court justice nomination. There are also exceptions involving the budget, congressional review, impeachment trial approval and Electoral Count Act certification disputes (such as the ones that occurred in Congress after the 2020 election).

When the Senate surprisingly shifted back into Democratic hands as a result of the 2022 election, Democrats were eager to harness this victorious energy to enact their agenda. But the ability to do this relied somewhat on further adjustments to the filibuster.

There were proposals to remove the filibuster rules for gun legislation, abortion legislation, and voting legislation. When these met with Manchin’s and Sinema’s disapproval, there were then proposals to bring back old filibuster features so that Senators had to at least put some effort into utilizing the filibuster. Simple modifications were proposed such as making a filibusterer actually “filibuster”, or speak until they are unable to speak anymore to delay Senate business to intolerable levels; or make the minority party actually physically vote for the filibuster so that they have to achieve the 41 votes necessary to enact it (as opposed to putting the onus on the majority party to achieve the 60 necessary votes).

Still, Manchin and Sinema were not swayed. Incredibly, they believed—or said they believed—that the filibuster was needed to foster cooperation and bipartisanship. Perhaps they were stoned in the 2000s and 2010s, when the abuse of the filibuster was gaining steam, but there’s been less cooperation and bipartisanship than ever. Call me crazy, but perhaps related to this is the plummeting of public approval of the progressively more dysfunctional Senate.

This resulted in rather pathetic behavior by Democratic leaders, who then had to cater to Sinema and Manchin on any proposed legislation. They were, and still are, the most powerful people in the Senate because of their filibuster stances, just as they like it.

The interesting thing is that their gambits to be the uber-warriors for the filibuster have blown up in their faces. Neither of them has gained any political advantage with this aggressively moderate stance.

Manchin has seen the writing on the wall in his home state of West Virginia and has decided not to run for another term in this year’s election. His battles with the more liberal party leadership apparently have earned him little cred with WV Republicans.

And Sinema learned the hard way that nobody wanted her in power, going through two election attempts, one as a Democrat and one as an Independent, only to see her poll very poorly no matter what label she when with.

It’s been obvious to everyone paying attention, except these two individuals, that the politics of our day is a cutthroat affair. Talking with the other side is fine, but there has to be good faith involved, which has been utterly lacking mostly on the Republican side. Their obliviousness to this political reality is apparent and confounding.

Manchin’s response to Harris’ proposal is just over-the-top ridiculousness:

“Shame on her. She knows the filibuster is the Holy Grail of democracy. It’s the only thing that keeps us talking and working together. If she gets rid of that, then this would be the House on steroids.”

The “Holy Grail of democracy”? Wow. Most people might say that the Holy Grail of democracy is voting or equal rights, etc. But no, according to Manchin, the Holy Grail is a legislative technique that was concocted well after the Constitution was written that was designed to prolong the institution of slavery. It’s an extreme take that isn’t even winning over Republicans in his highly conservative home state.

Sinema’s response was comparably golden, as stated on Xitter:

“To state the supremely obvious, eliminating the filibuster to codify Roe v Wade also enables a future Congress to ban all abortion nationwide. What an absolutely terrible, shortsighted idea.”

Her opinion at least has some practical value. Although, what’s also “supremely obvious” is that Republicans can and will make exceptions to the filibuster to enact their own agenda when the opportunity presents itself. It’s not like they feel compelled by current rules and traditions. In fact, one of the big reasons why abortion is now even an issue is because of Republican’s previously unthinkable tinkering with Constitutionally mandated advise and consent rules for judicial nominations. Is fighting back by amending the filibuster rules really any more divisive than that?

I understand that in some ways Democrats should appreciate the fact that Manchin and Sinema exist at all. They are political unicorns, both Democrats elected in historically red states. Democrats have had their votes on many aspects of their agenda, although the agenda had to be watered down to accommodate them.

But it’s highly curious that they are publicly attacking Harris in this manner on their way out the door at a time when the country faces the threat of a potential Trump presidency. And on a subject that the public doesn’t care nearly as much about as they do. And on a legislative technique that hasn’t fostered any of the results they claim to cherish.

Manchin hasn’t even officially endorsed Harris for President. At this point….why? There is nothing to be gained by being a hold out on a presidential endorsement. Quite the contrary, the fact that he is resigning means he should be able to do a full-throated endorsement for Harris and not pay a penalty. Is he just very principled? I’m skeptical. I wonder if there’s some political aspirations left in him.

As for Sinema, I smell a book deal. “The New Maverick” it could be called, shamelessly harkening the nickname of her home state’s political icon John McCain. In this book she can explain how she longed to be the champion of the filibuster, just like the Democrats from the 1840’s.

As Manchin and Sinema ride off into the sunset together, dragging the filibuster behind them with ropes strung to its legs, I hope they enjoy the view and understand they will be left out of the country’s renaissance that will follow a Harris victory.

The filibuster is on the decline, and they apparently want to be the ones nursing and caring for it as it becomes more and more irrelevant to American society. What a misguided cause to latch onto.