The filibuster has been a thorn in Democrats’ side. Now it’s their last hope

For years, key members of the Democratic Party have been pushing for filibuster reform. According to one 2021 tally, 46 Democratic senators expressed an openness to transforming the filibuster, which prevents legislative action without a supermajority of 60 votes. And in 2022, Democratic Senators Jeff Merkley and Elizabeth Warren pushed for changes to the filibuster to pass key pieces of their agenda, such as voting rights legislation. But those efforts fell flat, largely because of opposition from Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who argued that eliminating or substantively tweaking the filibuster would create a more partisan Senate.

That adds an ironic twist to last week’s results at the polls: Following an election that saw Republicans take back the White House, the Senate, and in all likelihood the House of Representatives, the filibuster may be Democrats’ best hope for preventing the mass adoption of right-wing policies.

Given the somber election news, Democrats have mostly shut down the filibuster debate. Of the 12 senators reached for this piece—including Merkley, the most vocal on reforms—none responded to Fast Company‘s request for comment. Fix Our Senate, 2022’s loud anti-filibuster lobbyist group, has since shut down its website and been wiped from the founder’s LinkedIn. Lobbyist group Common Cause, previously campaigned to “fix the filibuster,” wrote via email that it was still monitoring the election results, and would “finalize our federal strategy for the incoming administration” in the coming weeks.

A brief history of the filibuster debate

The filibuster is not a constitutionally codified practice; in fact, it was born of an absence. While the House of Representatives has standing rules for how long a member can speak, the Senate was left unregulated. That gap was exploited during World War I, when 16 senators blocked President Woodrow Wilson’s protections against German U-Boats, fearing that it would bring the U.S. into the war. Back then, the filibuster involved lengthy speeches and declarations, as dramatized in the 1939 film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Now, even the threat of a filibuster is often enough to kill a bill.

The Senate responded by setting cloture rules in 1917, which would shut down delays in debate and voting. At the time, they set the watermark at two-thirds of the vote, which was later changed to three-fifths in 1975. That also happens to be the last decade one-party cloture was possible: No single party has held the necessary 60 Senate seats since 1979.

Back then, a bipartisan vote for cloture may have been more achievable, but it’s increasingly rare in present politics. Steven Smith, professor of political science at Arizona State University, points to the mass legislative blockages of the Republican minority under Senator Mitch McConnell. “[Democrats] have had to get a sizable number of Republicans to move forward, and that’s often been impossible,” Smith says. “We’ve been living in an era of intense partisanship, small majority parties, and truckloads of obstructionism.” As a result, bills surrounding gun-violence protections, treatment of undocumented minors, and workers’ rights have all been shot down via filibuster.

There are notable exceptions. In 2005, the Senate moved to bypass the filibuster for most judicial nominations; 12 years later, that precedent was extended to Supreme Court nominations. Most government spending bills are now passed through budget reconciliation, a Senate workaround that supersedes the filibuster. Smith argues that reconciliation may offer a strong enough pathway to legislative change that the filibuster can remain a low priority: “The public doesn’t care about procedural matters.”

Filibuster flip-flopping

In 2022, Democrats led by Senator Merkley rallied around filibuster reform in order to more easily pass voting rights legislation. Senators Manchin and Sinema blocked the move, but both announced they’d leave office in 2025, which opened the door for more speculation over the filibuster’s uncertain future. (Sinema herself warned the filibuster wouldn’t survive without her.)

But now, the Democrats have lost the Senate. What was once a block to their legislative priorities, the filibuster now represents something of a saving grace for the left-wingers. University of Chicago political science professor Ruth Bloch Rubin says that, while some senators will continue supporting filibuster reform out of ideological commitment, most will switch their position.

“Most people are pragmatic politicians and recognize that there’s a lot of policies that Democrats want to protect [for which] a filibuster will be necessary,” she says. “It’s just a valuable weapon in their arsenal, and to get rid of it [now] would be a disservice to the folks who put them in office.”

While Donald Trump may have pushed for filibuster reform to pass his right-wing policy initiatives, Republicans have generally remained hesitant. Per their theory of small government, the ability to block Democratic excess is more important than their own ability to pass bills.

“[Republicans] see it as a protection against further expansion of the role of government,” says Arizona State University’s Smith. “This is certainly what McConnell has preached to them: In the long view, better to have a high threshold for getting things passed in the Senate.”

Sure enough, Senator McConnell announced last week that “the filibuster will stand” under the new Republican majority.

Will we ever see filibuster reform?

If outright abolition is all but impossible, that’s not to say reform is dead in the water. Rubin references the move toward a “talking filibuster,” which would force senators to physically engage in the obstruction and not merely threaten it.

“We’re actually going to make people read the phonebook, or Green Eggs and Ham, or whatever it is, and put in the work,” Rubin says. “Maybe just the fact that that takes time, is unpopular, and takes energy and resources will be enough to make people think twice.”

Reformers like Senator Merkley have also argued for a filibuster-free motion to proceed, which would protect the move to open debate from blocks. But Smith remains skeptical: “Then the filibuster simply goes to the bill itself, and nothing has changed.”

The filibuster isn’t the root of all policy woes. Rubin points out that large swaths of bills are stopped not by minority obstructions, but by disagreements within the majority party. To smooth out the legislative process, the Senate would also need to consider changes to debate tactics like carve-outs, where senators can withhold their vote unless a bill has specific clauses benefiting their position.

The Democrats and the filibuster have endured a curious enemies-to-lovers arc. If they want to keep core government programs intact, they’d better get ready to use it.