Democrats Can Blame Themselves if Trump Wins His War on the Filibuster

[EasyAce]

For partisans of limited government, this would be terrible news
By Shikha Dalmia
http://reason.com/blog/2018/04/04/democrats-can-blame-themselves-if-trump

Since assuming office, President Donald Trump has responded to nearly every Congressional obstacle in his path by calling for the "nuclear option." And by this he doesn't mean nuking Iran or North Korea—although John Bolton might have that in the cards as well—but getting rid of the Senate filibuster so that he can ramrod his agenda through Congress.

But Trump is not unique in wanting the filibuster gone. Regardless of whether the evil party or the stupid party is in power, the majority party rails against this tactic only to change its tune when it's out. So if Trump gets his way now, it's because Democrats did yeoman's work ploughing the intellectual ground for him during the Obama years.

The twitter-happy Trump initially called for the nuclear option last year to overcome Democratic "obstructionism" and confirm Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. And Republicans, who control the Senate with a narrow majority, happily obliged.

This sounds awful except that Democrats got this wrecking ball rolling when they muscled through a rule change in 2013, ending the 60-vote threshold for the confirmation of lower level judges and cabinet appointees during Obama's term because Republicans, they claimed, were illicitly holding up appointments to extract favors (which, truth be told, they were) . . .

. . . I have previously argued that there is nothing sacred about the filibuster, or any procedural rule for that matter. Such rules are not ends in themselves. [Ezra] Klein's claim that the filibuster is "unconstitutional" might be laughable, but getting rid of it as Trump wants now wouldn't be unconstitutional.

However, it most definitely would contradict the spirit of the Constitution, the chief purpose of which is to check the tyranny of the majority . . .