Barack Obama: Get rid of âroutine useâ of legislative filibuster
President Barack Obama wants to eliminate âroutine useâ of the legislative filibuster. Just donât tell that to Senate Democrats. Even as his partyâs senators are preparing to mount their fourth filibuster in about a week on the GOPâs Homeland Security bill if Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) forces another vote, Obama suggested in an interview with Vox that disarming that legislative weapon is âprobably the one thing that we could change without a constitutional amendment that would make a differenceâ in how Capitol Hill operates. Story Continued Below The way the filibuster is used âalmost ensures greater gridlock and less clarity in terms of the positions of the parties. Thereâs nothing in the Constitution that requires it,â Obama said in the interview published Monday, in response to a question about how to govern during increasing polarization. âThe filibuster in this modern age probably just torques it too far in the direction of a majority party not being able to govern effectively and move forward its platform,â he added. The White House declined further comment Monday. Democrats have vowed to be far more selective with the legislative filibuster than Republicans were during their eight years in the minority, pointing to the agreements theyâve made this year on amendment votes and swift consideration of a pair of noncontroversial bills. Any senator can hold up the Senate and require 60 votes for legislation to advance, a practice that became increasingly popular among Republicans during Obamaâs presidency. But the 46 members of the Senate Democratic Caucus are wielding the filibuster too, slowing progress on the Keystone XL pipeline in January and vowing this month to reject any Homeland Security bill that contains riders attacking Obamaâs immigration policies. They say they will debate immigration, but only separately from the funding bill. âWe donât see ourselves as filibustering,â said Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.). âWeâre not just stopping things to stop it. We feel that weâre actually being constructive.â In the interview with Vox, Obama reminisced about the first two years of his presidency when Democrats held the House and for a time had 60 votes in the Senate â which for a few months gave the filibuster far less impact than itâs had since then. âMy first two years in office when I had a Democratic majority and Democratic House and Democratic Senate, we were as productive as any time since Lyndon Johnson,â Obama said. âAnd when the majority went away, stuff got blocked.â The Senateâs former Democratic majority abolished the filibuster for almost all nominations in 2013, and some Republicans are now proposing to gut it for nominations to the Supreme Court â but there is no serious effort in either party to eliminate the filibuster on legislation.