I’m a progressive Democrat and I hope Republicans end the filibuster

Republicans in Washington are understandably giddy these days over the imminent prospect of single-party control. As a progressive Democrat, it reminds me of the heady days of early 2009, when Democrats enjoyed an even more dominant grip on the levers of power. 

Or so we thought. As we now know, that stranglehold was largely illusory, undermined by a stubborn minority in the U.S. Senate. Unless we reform the rules of Congress to make it more responsive to popular will, presidents will continue to have their agendas blocked and voters will grow even more disillusioned with their government.  

{mosads}Recent history proves that when an opposition party decides, for purely political reasons, to stop negotiating – as Sen. Mitch McConnell and his Republican colleagues did in 2009 – the government grinds to a halt.

Never mind that President Barack Obama had beaten John McCain by seven percentage points, nearly ten million votes, and, by some standards, an electoral college landslide. Or that Democrats had beaten Republicans by over ten points in House races nationwide and had picked up eight seats in the Senate, building a 17-seat advantage in that chamber. If ever there was a mandate to enact one party’s agenda, 2009 was it.

But as we know, much of the Obama agenda withered on the vine, thanks in large part to a deluge of Republican-led filibusters in the Senate. Once an extreme and rarely used delaying tactic, the filibuster allows 41 Senators – who today could represent as little as 11% of the population – to block legislation and nominations. 

McConnell’s Republicans wielded their filibuster swords regularly, killing key Obama priorities like closing corporate tax loopholes, fighting climate change, and helping workers bargain for higher wages. Even the economic stimulus package, Obamacare, and the Dodd-Frank financial reform, Obama’s three most signature legislative accomplishments, were severely watered down in order to reach the super-majority threshold of 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.

It would be the ultimate irony, now that a Republican is in the White House, for McConnell to do away with the filibuster, as some in his party are pushing. But I for one would welcome the change, despite the short-term consequences for the progressive agenda.

Don’t voters deserve to see the politicians they elect be able to enact their agenda? Wouldn’t our democracy be more accountable if citizens were able to feel the true impact of their elected officials’ policies? Instead, the two parties are forced to play a never-ending blame game when key promises of their campaigns are inevitably blocked by the other side. 

Perhaps the filibuster made sense in an era of comity and light workloads to inspire robust deliberation. But today, when the minority party is encouraged – and, in fact, rewarded – for reflexively opposing everything the other side does, the filibuster has no place. Republicans in particular have moved so far to the right in recent years, that solving any of the nation’s biggest and most urgent problems – like climate change and income inequality – will be impossible with the filibuster intact. 

In exchange for eliminating the filibuster during a moment of unified Republican rule, Democrats should insist on two other long-overdue reforms that would make Congress more responsive to the people: an end to gerrymandering and representation for Washington, D.C. 

Hillary Clinton’s margin of victory in the presidential popular vote was larger than that enjoyed by Republicans in the House of Representatives. But in that chamber, a one-percent victory (when all the votes from the 435 House races are added up) equates to a 47-seat majority for the GOP. This is a result of the urban concentration of Democratic voters and gerrymandering, the partisan line-drawing of districts by states. The federal government should end this distorting practice by requiring state legislatures to cede their redistricting power to independent commissions. 

I’m told nobody wants to hear a white, DC “insider” complain about disenfranchisement, but all Americans should find it unacceptable that nearly 700,000 of their fellow, taxpaying citizens are denied voting representation in Congress just because they reside in the nation’s capital. DC deserves statehood, which would finally bring it a vote in the House and two votes in the Senate. Even if all three were Democrats, Republicans would still have majorities in the upcoming 115th Congress, making this an ideal time for such a grand bargain.

I don’t agree with Trump voters on much. But if I am reading the recent quasi-anthropological studies of the mysterious Trump coalition correctly, I think we agree on one critical point: government institutions and the elites that run them have grown dangerously unmoored from the rest of the country. Eliminating the filibuster, ending gerrymandering, and giving DC the vote would make government more responsive, effective, and accountable. In the short-term, it would give Trump an unprecedented opportunity to enact his agenda – a truly scary thought – but in the long-term, it would produce a better functioning government and help restore Americans’ faith in their democratic institutions.

David S. Mitchell is a resident of Washington, D.C., and a former Senate staffer.

The views expressed by authors are their own and not the views of The Hill.