“The filibuster has three paths forward—and all of them end, one way or another, in its demise.”
So says a former speechwriter for Obama, David Litt, in an article written for The Atlantic (read it here). Here’s what he thinks they are:
(1) The Democrats eventually win a Senate majority that doesn’t depend on Manchin or Sinema, their two holdouts. The other 48 Democratic senators voted to change the rules, and “unless Republicans can maintain power indefinitely, the days of the Senate’s 60-vote threshold are numbered.”
(2) Republicans could win control of Congress and the White House, and then scrap it themselves. (Does anyone seriously believe they won’t? On the GOP side of the aisle, the filibuster is as sacrosanct as the McConnell rule that Supreme Court justices won’t be confirmed in a presidential election year — in other words, utterly expendable at his party’s convenience. A higher legislative priority for them: Nationwide anti-voting laws, and/or empowering state legislatures to muck with electors.)
(3) It’s already effectively dead, because conservative judges will enact the GOP’s priorities with court rulings, obviating the need to pass legislation in Congress.
“The filibuster is doomed,” Litt says, and “The shame, and quite possibly the tragedy, is that Manchin and Sinema doomed voting rights along with it.”