The Filibuster Is Still Doomed
The question is who will benefit most when it finally falls.
To hear Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema tell it, they hoped to defend voting rights. They also hoped, even more fervently, to defend the Senate filibuster.
In the end, they did neither.
It’s true that by joining their Republican colleagues this week to reject a rules change and block a pair of voting-rights bills, the two Democrats ensured that the filibuster remains . But Manchin and Sinema’s goal was not merely to block a piece of legislation or preserve a procedural rule in the short term. As, “We must never, ever, ever, ever tear down the only wall, the necessary fence, that this nation has against the excesses of the executive branch and the resultant haste and tyranny of the majority.”
