Filibuster is a ridiculous word.
It means “freebooter” or pirate in Dutch. While piracy might not seem like a word that has much to do with lawmaking, filibuster says otherwise.
In English, it refers to a special kind of stand taken by one senator in the face of overwhelming opposition.
And how you feel about a filibuster has everything to do with who is doing it and why — which is why this legislative monkey wrench is never likely to go away, no matter how much either side might dislike it at any given time.
When your party is in the majority, the filibuster is an obstruction. It is a bomb that is lobbed into a debate to blow up a vote.
When your party is in the minority, any senator who wields it can seem like a solitary hero standing up for what is right. He is Jimmy Stewart facing down the old men who have lost sight of why they went to Washington.
But the truth is so much more complicated than that.
While today’s hair-thin Democratic majority is resulting in plenty of calls to eliminate the filibuster, many of the calls seem to be coming more from the pundits than the senators themselves — because having just gotten control back solely on the basis of Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking, the lawmakers are all too aware how fast things can change.
And the Democrats would not want to lose the option of obstruction that was one of the few tools in their toolbox during their time under Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell’s leadership and especially during the Trump presidency.
Republicans have likewise been reluctant to eliminate the filibuster when they were in power.
But now President Biden — who was a senator from 1973 to 2009 and delivered a stirring defense of the measure in 2005 on the Senate floor — called the filibuster a “relic of the Jim Crow era” in his press conference Thursday. This has led to renewed questions about the about-face, something he has faced before.
It is as complicated as the filibuster itself because everything is about perspective.
The difference between the president’s position today and 16 years ago is that the center ground of the Senate — the place where deals could be made and compromises reached — has continued to be carved away over that time, leading to a body where the numbers are carved in stone and just as immovable.
And that is what needs to change more than the filibuster.
Is the voice of the minority important to hear, especially on critical issues they are guaranteed to lose? Yes. But it needs to be heard because there might be someone on the other side who could agree and change a vote.
To have that Jimmy Stewart moment, the stand that is taken has to have the potential to make a difference, not just a scene.
