LETTER: Republicans don’t care about the rules
What is so infuriating in this debate about the filibuster is that the other side (the Republicans) could not care less about “the rules.”
Do you remember what the majority leader of the Senate, Republican Mitch McConnell, did to President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee in 2016 ? The Constitution says that the Senate had an obligation to consider Mr. Obama’s nominee. It’s called “advise and consent.” But Mr. McConnell didn’t like the idea of a right-wing Supreme Court Justice (Antonin Scalia) being replaced by a moderate (Merrick Garland). So he ignored “the rules.” He ignored the Constitution and made up his own rule to deny Mr. Garland a hearing — and that’s how Donald Trump filled a Supreme Court seat that Mr. Obama should have been able to fill.
There is another rule. It’s called the Senate filibuster. Republicans are very happy to follow this rule because it is enabling them, as a minority party, to block everything that the Democratic majority wants to accomplish. The filibuster is an invention of the Senate. It’s not in the Constitution. It’s anti-democratic. It gives the minority too much power. We need to get rid of the filibuster so government can function again.
