Posted on 11/06/2025 5:04:29 AM PST by RandFan
Senate Republican support for eliminating the filibuster is picking up momentum after President Trump invited members of the Senate GOP conference to the White House for a breakfast meeting Wednesday to demand they reform the Senate’s rules in order to reopen the government.
Changing the Senate’s rules with a simple majority vote to eliminate the 60-vote threshold for advancing most legislation would be very controversial — so controversial that it’s called the “nuclear option” — but a growing number of Senate Republicans are calling for a review of the matter.
As of now, there aren’t 50 Republican senators who would vote to change the rules to reopen the government and speed the rest of Trump’s agenda through Congress, but Trump’s pressure campaign is having an effect.
Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), who was elected to the Senate last year and previously served four terms in the majority-run House, said he agrees with Trump.
“I do agree with him. I understand why he’s frustrated. The government shutdown is the Democrats’ fault, it’s unacceptable,” he said. “We have a short period window of time to do the things that we promised our voters that we would do. The filibuster is standing in the way of balanced budgets and cutting spending, on top of other things like passing vote ID laws.”
Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) told The Hill after meeting with Trump that he doesn’t want to terminate the filibuster but asserted “desperate times call for desperate measures.”
“This is not something I want to do but the Democrats are almost pushing us to do it. Obviously, the president calling this meeting [show] how large of a priority it is to him, as well.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Another Freeper said to me the other day if doing away with the filibuster LIMIT to Appropriation bills so they can keep the money flowing (for now) but any other legislation, no.
Would that be a good idea?
I was against it because we know the Dems will yield it against us, but after hearing Trump talk about it, sure why not. The problem is we have crazy Rand, the 2 Karens, Mitch and the Utah b#### to keep Trump from accomplishing anything even if the filibuster is gone.
But it might be the last shot at saving this country. Gotta have vote reform and an end to these insane, completely unconstitutional mass mail in ballots that give the Dems millions of extra ‘votes’.
What happened in NY is coming to an area near you unless something is done. Thank LBJ and Ted Kennedy, even though they promised their 1965 open border act would NOT change the demographics of this country. Now we have to pay the price for their globalist communism.
Republicans will chicken out. As the holiday travel season picks up with missed flights the rats will gamble on the GOP taking the blame. Trump called for it but he can’t lose. Americans listen to him.
If they do it mind as well add 3 seats to the Supreme Court
Can they eliminate it and then vote it back before the midterms?
Can it be limited to specific bills/actions?
Any Senate watchers/experts please weigh in...
The rules are very arcane we’d need an expert to post
🤔
Google sez:
Yes, the filibuster could be eliminated specifically for CRs (Continuing Resolutions) without being eliminated for all legislation, as the Senate has made similar exceptions before for certain types of legislation . However, eliminating it for just CRs would require a specific change in Senate rules or precedents, which is a political decision that would need to be agreed upon by a simple majority vote, according to Indivisible and Brookings
Only the unelected, unaccountable, mysterious “Parliamentarian” can tell us what the Senate can and can not do.
Bingo
You’ve got it.... Thank you.
So it’s unprecedented but can be done then if the will is there.
remember folks, it’s in that part of the Constitution that talks about the “Parliamentarian”..... ask her what to do
If they do it, they better go balls to the wall on everything but that’s not how repubs work. They’ll get rid of it and then not do enough and then when dems get in there, they WILL go balls to the wall.
That’s a good point but if ALL these GOP senators unify (for once) then they can do it tied to a specific action of passing the CR
But rule it out for other legislation.
This “chips away” at it but it might be a solution
That lady can be overruled by a majority
It needs them all to agree this, well, 51 anyway (nearly all).
Could be this that does it. We’ll see.
No it is not.
Dems foolishly decided to drop the judge approvals to 51.. and other things ...
GOP should keep forcing the democrats to vote on individual bills piecemeal if need be and let them keep voting it down.
If the GOP was smart, they would get on the ground, and get directly involved with food banks and churches and other private socialization programs.
Every single GOP congressman should be at one every single day handing out food, the RNC and the various Right Wing PAC should be making big donations etc to fund these various groups.
And with every single interview just drive home how the Dems have kept this going.
Millions upon millions of people who have lived for whatever reason on government dependence, are learning that the government giveth the government can take it away... and that’s not a good place for the Democrats long term. If even a small percentage of those people learn this lesson, this will change drastically the dynamic.
if those same people see GOP on the ground actually doing the legwork helping them get by, while Democrats keep voting to keep it shut down, that’s going to have an impact as well.
Killing the fillabuster is short sighted and stupid move IMHO.
It is a forced choice and one which we really have no option but to do.
The fact is democrats and liberals have broken every convention and will continue to do so, up to and including falsely imprisoning their opponents and assassinating them.
We have no choice left now but to fight the war they have thrusted upon us. We have to fight with equal intensity.
No. It’s a bad idea. The Democrats tried to do it, hard, but Sinema and Manchin prevented it. They will try again if they take the majority.
But there are at least two other options. First, filibuster has already been removed for most judicial nominations. They could just add *very carefully defined* clean CRs to the list of things that do not require cloture (60 votes). Republicans have and will always give Dems CRs when Dems are in the majority, so we lose nothing and gain everything.
Second, when in session, the Senate is either debating a bill or calling the question. Cloture is a courtesy. If Thune calls the question (schedules a vote) then a Democrat can stand up and talk to delay the vote. This is a traditional filibuster. In this case, Republicans have to stay in the chamber to keep the session running and the Dems can delay the vote as long as that person talks. But when that person is finally exhausted the vote can happen and only requires 50 + 1 votes, regardless of cloture.
That’s a hard option. But it’s time they earned their money and our respect.
Both of these options are far short of ‘going nuclear’.
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