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AIs government shutdown Entering its 22nd day, some Republicans in both houses are introducing an idea His party once entertained: Getting rid of the legislative filibuster to drain the swamp.
In recent years, democrat Changing the filibuster has been floated. Former senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema blocked the efforts Create a framework for codifying a new version of the Voting Rights ActThey hope to do this again With abortion rights as the Supreme Court plans to overturn roe vs wade In dobbs vs jackson Decision, only to fail.
But now, some hard-right Republicans are pushing the idea.
“My view is that I don’t want to see children starve in my state, which is literally happening now because of some process in the Senate,” Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) told Independent,
Hawley came to the Senate during Donald Trump’s first presidency, when then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell torpedoed the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees.

But McConnell did so only after his predecessor, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, during Barack Obama’s presidency, invoked the “nuclear option” on the filibuster, the 60-vote threshold needed to pass almost anything in the Senate, after Republicans repeatedly blocked Obama’s nominees.
This move had wide-ranging consequences: while Republican obstructionism had reached its peak during the Obama presidency, it meant that presidents no longer had to reach consensus choices. One could argue that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s control of the Department of Health and Human Services, Kash Patel’s reign at the FBI, Pete Hegseth’s leadership at the Pentagon and, of course, DobbsBack to Reed’s choice.
But for young rebels like Hawley, who came of age in the Trump era, it’s just one last vestige of the old guard that should be thrown in the trash.
“If this goes on for too long, it’s something to think about,” said Senator Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio). Independent“One thing you could do is get it down to 55, and the rules would be you can’t raise spending or taxes. So put some guardrails around it, but I don’t think we’re there to have that conversation.”

Moreno, a freshman who won last year and is a committed ally of the president, said it depends on whether Democrats vote Thursday to keep paying federal workers.
He is not alone. Unsurprisingly, Republicans in the House of Representatives tabled the idea. Representative Chip Roy (R-Texas) told reporters Said Monday that Republicans should get rid of the filibuster for continuing resolutions. Of course, there is some irony in Roy making this proposal, given that he was Senator Ted Cruz’s chief of staff when Cruz shut down the government in 2013 to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
But just as the Democrats’ nuclear option had long-lasting effects that ultimately empowered Trump, a carve out for continuing resolutions would derail the appropriations process.
This would mean the majority party would pass a continuing resolution instead of working in a bipartisan manner on the 12 spending bills needed to fund the government for the entire fiscal year. And given that Democrats are more comfortable with higher spending levels, if they take back the Senate, they will have every reason to keep the topline at the same amount, eliminating any chance Republicans like Roy might have for fiscal restraint.

Maybe that’s why Roy’s former boss, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) rejected Roy’s comments.
“Is Chip in the Senate?” he asked Independent,
Cornyn said, “The House is not the Senate, and the Senate is not the House, and it needs some place where there can be adequate debate and deliberation, and that will be the United States Senate.” “And the truth is that it is bad for the country, because we cannot change policies every two years when a new majority wins the election. So it may be expedient, but it is a bad idea.”
Other Republicans, such as Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.), warned of a slippery slope.
“You do it the first time, you do it the second time, you do it the third time,” he told Independent“You start declaring which is important. The legislative filibuster exists to force people to be able to sit down and talk.”
McConnell understood this deeply, which is why he attempted to preserve the filibuster after removing it for Supreme Court nominees, despite Trump wanting Republicans to remove it after failing to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
But McConnell gave up his position in the Senate GOP last year. Although his successor and disciple, John Thune, supports it, he may have a hard time standing in the breach. And all it takes is Trump’s call in a late-night Truth Social post.
The filibuster is already in its final stages after Reid overcame it for the nomination. It suffered another blow when both parties resorted to passing policy priorities through budget reconciliation, even though neither used it to reduce the deficit.
For the longest time, Republicans hoped Democrats would overrule it so they could play the blame game. But a government shutdown could be the final knife in the gut to that process to prevent the Senate from turning into the meat grinder that is the House.