The “Holy Grail of democracy”
By 
CNN:
The West Virginia independent, one of the staunchest defenders of the potent delay tactic in the Senate, told CNN on Tuesday that he wouldn’t back her candidacy now — despite signaling earlier this month he was getting ready to do so.
“Shame on her,” Manchin, who is retiring at year’s end, said in the Capitol. “She knows the filibuster is the Holy Grail of democracy. It’s the only thing that keeps us talking and working together. If she gets rid of that, then this would be the House on steroids.”
Congressional leaders announced an agreement Sunday on a short-term spending bill that will fund federal agencies for about three months, averting a possible partial government shutdown when the new budget year begins Oct. 1 and pushing final decisions until after the November election.
Temporary spending bills generally fund agencies at current levels, but an additional $231 million was included to bolster the Secret Service after the two assassination attempts against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, and additional money was added to aid with the presidential transition, among other things.
The House and the Senate suffer from the same basic problem: the existence of an extra-constitutional veto point that thwarts democracy and empowers right-wing extremists. In the Senate, that’s the filibuster. In the House, it’s the persistence of the Hastert Rule — and the (related) willingness of said right-wing extremists to tank their own Speakers, which prevents the formation of a bipartisan working majority.
It is obliviously true that elimination of the filibuster would allow the majority to pass legislation without support from the other party. But it would also change the incentive structure for Senators by allowing for many more possible wining coalitions. We even have evidence that its absence may encourage cross-party legislation: we can look at the dynamics of the Senate before the filibuster mutated into a supermajority requirement for passing legislation outside of the reconciliation process.
Those decades were also, of course, marked by lower levels of partisan polarization. In social-science speak, the comparison likely suffers from an endogeneity problem. But even if we assume that increasing use of the filibuster was more of an effect of polarization than a contributing cause, this doesn’t help Manchin’s case. Since at least the “Gingrich Revolution” of the 1990s, the House has been a leading indicator of the direction of the Senate. It’s only a matter of time before retirements and election outcomes elevate more performance-art crypto-fascists — including ones currently serving in the House — to the Senate. We’re already on trend for “the House on steroids.”
