OPINION:
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer gave his Republican colleagues a choice Monday. Either drop their opposition to the so-called voting rights legislation that needs 60 votes to pass by January 17 or he’ll take the steps necessary to kill the filibuster forever.
The GOP should call his bluff. The legislation Mr. Schumer is trying to force through the Senate would make America’s elections less secure. It would federalize state and local elections and make it harder to enact safeguards against voter fraud. In the opinion of many who oppose it, it would give the Democrats a distinct, systemic advantage in future elections.
It’s an overreach to be sure, but one the New York Democrat and his colleagues need to get if they’re going to remain competitive in states that haven’t gone permanently blue. No one has come up with a good reason why voters should not have to prove they are who they say they are when it comes time to vote. It doesn’t make sense that someone is required to a photo ID before entering the U.S. Capitol to meet with Mr. Schumer but not before they vote for him.
If Mr. Schumer gets his way, it will open the floodgates to a slew of bad legislation and destroy one of the few protections left keeping the interests of smaller states from being overrun by the concerns and desires of the big ones.
All the talk now about the filibuster focuses on how it creates the need for 60 senators voting in the affirmative to get a piece of legislation through. But it’s also a tool that lets a single senator stop the progress of a bill. Consider it a procedural manifestation of the founders’ essential compromise that led to the states being considered equals, regardless of size or population, in the upper congressional chamber.
Regrettably, Southern Democrats in the 20th century used it effectively to block Black Americans from laying claim to its portion of the American dream. But its misuse by racist Democratic demagogues to stop people of their skin color from exercising their economic and political rights doesn’t make it inherently bad.
Mr. Schumer should be allowed to try and kill the filibuster if he wants. But he’ll have to convince smaller state senators like Jon Tester of Montana, New Hampshire’s Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, and others to go along. Make no mistake: This will be a vote that traps small state Democrats in between the interests of their constituents back home and the progressives who lead the national Democratic Party want. Who knows what they’ll do when the time comes?
Even if Mr. Schumer gets his way though, there’s still a silver lining. In the next Congress, Mitch McConnell and the new Republican majority can push everything through the Senate the Democrats have blocked using the filibuster, starting with the repeal of Obamacare. Then they can repeal the bills Mr. Schumer plans on passing between now and the next election. And then, when they’re done, they can put the filibuster back in place to make sure nothing like this ever happens again.
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