WASHINGTON — It was a brief moment of levity and personal connection during a long night of votes ahead of a major bipartisan accomplishment this month in the U.S. Senate.
Senators, both Democrats and Republicans, bumped elbows and cracked jokes about the legislative slog while crammed in a hideaway in the Capitol, Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., recalled in a recent interview. And, to the delight of reporters, some senators ventured out to the Senate Carry-Out, a mainstay of grab-and-go food in the basement.
The senators were taking a breather before eventually passing, by a 69 to 30 vote, a $1 trillion infrastructure deal that garnered support from all voting Democrats and 19 Republicans. President Joe Biden, who launched his infrastructure agenda in Pittsburgh in March, remarked the vote “proved that democracy can still work.”
But the Senate’s passage of that bill, now under consideration in the U.S. House, is likely a high-water mark for bipartisan cooperation in the upper chamber of Congress for the foreseeable future.
Partisan and divisive bills on immigration, gun policy, voting rights, and labor reform are piling up in the Senate, where uniform GOP opposition has created gridlock on many top Democratic priorities.
Legislation requires at least 60 votes to advance in the Senate, and the Democratic caucus holds a narrow majority with only 50 lawmakers. (Vice President Kamala Harris, in her role as president of the Senate, can break ties.)
That vote threshold is due to the Senate filibuster rule, which allows lawmakers to delay or block legislation unless 60 lawmakers agree to put an end to it.
Mr. Casey, who recalled the friendly behind-the-scenes chatter as his sipped coffee in Pittsburgh earlier this month, said he is pressing for Democrats to change Senate rules to advance bills unilaterally, if necessary.
“The rule has to change,” Mr. Casey said. “I think a lot of Americans don’t really understand that we need 60 votes for substantial progress that affects their lives.”
Mr. Casey envisions a process that would go like this: “If you want to oppose this policy, you’re going to have all the time in the world. Here, take 400 hours and hold the floor, but after you’ve had your say — not just for days, but for weeks, potentially — then we’re voting, and it’s going to be put up or shut up to get to 51 votes.”
“I don’t see what’s so problematic about that,” Mr. Casey added. “They’ve had their say, they took a lot of time, they had all the opportunity they wanted, the country heard them — but now it’s time to vote.”
Such a process would mimic the upcoming push by Democrats to pass a $3.5 trillion bill that would spend heavily on health care, education and climate change. That process, established last week, would allow Democrats to advance the bill without any GOP support.
But those changes are adamantly opposed by Republicans and even some Democrats. A handful of moderates — Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., among them — have defended the filibuster as a key to providing the minority party certain rights. Mr. Biden himself has refused to endorse the elimination of the filibuster.
“If they think they want to just jam things down people’s throats — no. There’s a process,” Mr. Manchin said during a virtual forum in February hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center. “I’m not going down that path and destroy this place.”
Senate purists like Mr. Manchin want to preserve what they believe is the legacy of the esteemed institution that promotes itself as the “world's greatest deliberative body.” The Senate was designed, in part, to counter the partisan whims of the House through less frequent election cycles and rules that promote reasoned debate.
Yet understanding the true nature of the Senate today requires “cutting though a fog of nostalgic mythology,” wrote Kathy Kiely, a professor at the Missouri School of Journalism and a former member of the congressional Standing Committee of Correspondents, in an op-ed in The Washington Post last year.
Ms. Kiely, debunking five Senate myths — including the “world's greatest deliberative body” motto — argued the Senate has succumbed to some of the same social media-driven partisan passions frequently on display on the other side of the U.S. Capitol.
At its worst moments, the Senate shows a lack of attention from lawmakers (like the fidgeting and empty desks observed during the Senate impeachment trials) and more political firebrands lobbing more insults at each other.
Mr. Casey, asked whether rolling back the filibuster rule would make the Senate more like the House, said, “I think we’re already there.”
He acknowledged candor has diminished in the Senate in recent decades. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, more lawmakers actually moved to Washington full-time and became friendly neighbors.
A long string of ideological fights began as early as the 1990s, in Mr. Casey’s estimation, and have gotten worse in recent years.
As a result, Senate leaders in both parties have gradually lowered the threshold for passing measures.
In 2013, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., removed the 60-vote threshold on the Obama administration’s executive branch nominees and judicial appointments that Republicans were blocking.
Four years later, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., extended that rule to U.S. Supreme Court nominees. Democrats, who were in the minority during the Trump administration, are still fuming over the confirmation of three Trump-nominated Supreme Court justices — all three approved with fewer than 60 votes.
“Let me get this straight,” Mr. Casey said in the interview this month. “They get confirmed, cumulatively impacting legal precedent for 100 years or 200 years — they can get 51 votes — but a background check bill supported by 90 percent of Americans has to get 60? Does that make sense?”
Mr. Casey conceded some fellow Democrats currently do not support the changes he’s seeking. A majority vote could make procedural changes to the filibuster. “I don’t think we’re at 50 yet,” Mr. Casey said.
Daniel Moore: dmoore@post-gazette.com, Twitter @PGdanielmoore
First Published: August 29, 2021, 4:51 a.m.
