Republicans may capitalize first on Democrats’ plan to weaken the filibuster. That’s OK with Jeff Merkley.
Sen. Jeff Merkley responds to questions from reporters during a press conference regarding the Democratic party's shift to focus on voting rights at the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 18. | AP
The filibuster bothers him so much that he still loses sleep over it. He woke up at 3 a.m. on the day last week that Democrats narrowly failed to install a talking filibuster for elections legislation, going over whether there was some way to sway Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to weaken the 60-vote threshold. Calling it “Operation: Last Hope,” he privately lobbied Manchin on the floor just before the vote.
It’s rare that a devastating loss on the Senate floor is a zenith. But for Merkley, the 48-52 failure on a drizzly Wednesday night amounts to a high point in his 13-year career. There’s no one else in the Capitol as focused on changing the way the Senate operates than Merkley, nor more directly tied to a series of rules changes the chamber has undergone over the past decade.
Yet as Merkley sees it, McConnell is unlikely to bend the rules further because his current situation — empowerment to block much of Democrats’ agenda with 41 votes but confirm Supreme Court justices with a simple majority — is essentially “heads I win, tails you lose” for Republicans.
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