President Joe Biden strongly implied he isn’t going to wait around for Republicans to work with him to get his agenda through Congress and that he believes the Senate’s filibuster rule is a relic of the Jim Crow era — but he’s not going nuclear with the rule just yet.
During his first press conference as president, Biden was asked repeatedly how he will get around Republican obstruction in the Senate in order to fulfill major campaign promises on immigration reform, gun control and climate legislation. He said it will be up to Republicans to work with him.
“My Republican colleagues are going to have to determine whether or not we want to work together, or decide the way in which they want to proceed is to just divide the country,” he said. “I’m just going to move forward and take these things as they come.”
The filibuster requires 60 votes to pass most measures in the Senate, and with only a 50-seat majority, Democrats have to win over 10 Republican votes to pass any major policy — a major hinderance to much of Biden’s agenda.
Biden talked around ending the filibuster rule, instead saying he would support making the filibuster more painful by requiring lawmakers to physically stand on the Senate floor and talk.
“It used to be that you had to stand there and talk and talk and talk until you collapsed and guess what? People got tired of talking and tired of collapsing,” Biden said. “I strongly support moving in that direction.”
But he added, “If we have to, if there’s complete lockdown and chaos as a result of the filibuster, then we’ll have to go beyond what I am talking about.”
Biden acknowledged that the filibuster rule in the Senate is “being abused in a gigantic way.” And when asked if the rule had a racist history he said directly, “Yes.”
The filibuster was historically used to obstruct civil rights legislation in the Senate, including a failed attempt at blocking the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Former President Barack Obama last year said it should be eliminated, calling it a “Jim Crow relic.”
But Biden still stopped short of calling for its abolition on Thursday.
Senate Democrats have some workarounds, but they’re limited. They passed their nearly $2 trillion COVID-19 relief package earlier this month through a budgetary maneuver that only requires a simple majority. But budget bills cannot be used to pass policies that are not fundamentally fiscal, like comprehensive immigration reform.
Biden was careful to not address these limitations to his agenda. Democrats are showing they’re increasingly open to changing the Senate’s rules, but there aren’t yet enough votes among Democrats to get rid of the filibuster. Among those opposed is Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V), who has also expressed support for the “talking filibuster” Biden endorsed.
Republican senators are already bristling at Biden’s comments. Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) criticized Biden for threatening to “blow up” the Senate.
“Senator Biden was a relentless defender of the filibuster — but now that President Biden looks in the mirror and sees FDR, he’s keeping the door open for a complete 180 to blow up the institution he spent four decades defending,” Sasse said in a statement. “He was right when he summed it up this way numerous times: ‘The Senate ought not act rashly by changing its rules to satisfy a strong-willed majority.’”
Biden ran on being a bipartisan dealmaker who would be able to sway Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, but Republicans have been steadfast in their opposition to Biden’s agenda.
In January, the GOP came to Biden with a counterproposal to his COVID-19 relief bill that was one-third the size of what the White House initially proposed.
Biden said simply, thanks, but no thanks. In the end, not a single Republican voted for the bill in, despite its overwhelming popularity among the American public.