Manchin, Sinema helps Republicans Preserve Filibuster

By Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host

The filibuster is not in the U.S. Constitution.  Article I of the founding document states that each House of Congress has the authority to make its own rules, and the filibuster rule is something that was created by the U.S. Senate, so keeping it or getting rid of it is their business.  All it takes is a vote.

A filibuster is the ability to keep a bill or other instrument from going to the floor for a vote by keeping it in the debate phase of the process.  Cloture must be reached, meaning 60 votes, to allow a bill to get out of debate and be voted upon.  The rule is usually used by minority parties to ensure the death of a bill on the floor without it ever getting a chance to get out of the debate phase.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), well knowing that Senators Manchin and Sinema were opposed to killing the filibuster rule, decided to try to bring the issue to a vote, anyway.  The Democrats want to get rid of the filibuster so that it becomes easier for them to get the bills that are passing the House of Representatives with ease to be also approved by the Senate.  The filibuster has been standing in the way.  

The vote to kill the filibuster failed.

Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) stood their ground, standing with the Republicans in the vote, denying Schumer his desire to kill the filibuster rule.  Manchin and Sinema had already indicated that is how they planned to vote, yet Schumer's arrogance had him breaking a basic rule of legislation...don't bring something to a vote unless you are pretty sure you are going to win it.

U.S. Senate rejected changing the filibuster rule, 52-48.

That means the 60-vote threshold for cloture remains intact.

The Democrats wanted to kill the rule so that they could possibly get their latest attack against our republic, essentially a federalization of elections (unconstitutional, especially when it comes to presidential elections) with H.R. 5746, which, by the way, was originally a NASA bill of which they stripped the language from, and then secretly crammed the language they wanted in, including the language of the Democracy Restoration Act, which died in committee last year.

Note: Our problem is democracy.  We need to go back to being a republic.

Schumer and Biden swore the vote against the filibuster was an attack against our "democracy", when in truth it was a save against the rise of tyranny, and the end of the republic.

Biden and Schumer vowed they would continue to push their tyranny to "protect the fundamental right to vote" (Bushrod Washington, nephew of George Washington, and a Supreme Court Justice, wrote that voting is a privilege.  I add that it is a privilege of citizenship) with their racist anti-voter ID moves which are based on their racist ideas that blacks are unable to obtain ID, are too stupid to use the internet, and can't find their way to a DMV.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary