Joe Manchin's filibuster demands might end up making Republican obstruction even worse

[marmar]

(Salon) Senate Democrats are pushing to reform the filibuster in response to years of partisan gridlock — but Republicans don't seem overly concerned about the prospect after centrist Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., ruled out key changes that could help advance President Joe Biden's agenda.

Biden for the first time this week supported bringing back a "talking filibuster," which would require senators to continuously speak on the Senate floor to block a vote on a bill. Under current rules, Democrats face a seemingly insurmountable 60-vote threshold in their efforts to pass voting protections and other measures they've long campaigned on.

"I don't think that you have to eliminate the filibuster, you have to do it what it used to be when I first got to the Senate back in the old days. You had to stand up and command the floor, you had to keep talking," Biden told ABC News, adding that Senate obstruction is getting to the point where "democracy is having a hard time functioning."

....(snip)....

There are a number of ways a "talking filibuster" could work in practice and it's unclear which path Senate Democrats will choose. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., who has led the fight to reform the filibuster for over a decade, introduced legislation in 2011 that would require senators to actually hold the floor by talking, as in Frank Capra's famous film "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," rather than simply threatening to do so. More recently, he has proposed requiring 41 opposing senators to remain on the floor to sustain a filibuster rather than putting the onus on the majority party to break the filibuster. Others have proposed lowering the threshold to break a filibuster, the same way the Senate lowered it from 67 to the current 60.

But Manchin shot down any lower thresholds or 41-senator requirements on Wednesday, telling CNN that he still supports requiring 60 votes to end debate. ............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2021/03/20/joe-manchins-filibuster-demands-might-end-up-making-republican-obstruction-even-worse/