Commentary

What!  Republicans are going weak-keened?!

I darned near lost it while reading the banner headline across the top of six columns in the Wall Street Journal Tuesday morning while enjoying my coffee. It read, “Manchin Warns GOP: Don’t End Filibuster,” the longstanding rule that requires a 60-vote supermajority to bring most bills to the floor.

Now retired, Joe Manchin, the former Democrat senator-turned Independent, opened noting the solemn vow he made in January 2021 to never vote to end it, and here he is calling on his former Republican colleagues to end such talk.

He was referring to the suggestion of resolving the failure to confirm the continuing resolution and end the shutdown. My thoughts immediately went to my blog of September 28, 2021, “Arizona’s Senator Sinema ‘Won’t be Pushed Around,’” in which I applauded her stance on the filibuster.

“It always gives me pleasure when the Democrats turn on their own when they don’t follow the party line put forth by Sen. Chuck Schumer or Rep. Nancy Pelosi.” she said.

“If anyone expected me to reverse my position because my party now controls the Senate,” she said, “they should know that my approach to legislating in Congress is the same whether in the minority or majority.”

Of course, the Arizona Republic’s leftist columnist E. J. Montini accused her of wasting “a chance to save democracy.”

“It’s tempting to prefer elimination of the filibuster to compromise her farewell address last December,” Sinema warned in her farewell address last December.  “It certainly feels faster, easier and more satisfying, at least in the short time that is.  But there are dangers to choosing short-term victories over the hard work of building consensus.”

Reading Nathan Worcester’s column in The Epoch News later in the morning, his headline “Republican Talk of Changing Filibuster to End Shutdown Ebbs,” calmed my fears somewhat. 

Oh, Maine’s wishy-washy Susan Colins said that although she was” a strong supporter of the filibuster,” she would “look at any plan that anyone puts out to open government.”

Another “iffy” Republican, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, clearly said, “I’m not changing the filibuster.”

Kansas Republican Roger Marshall said that he “does not see any momentum behand talk of a chang in the filibuster.”

May God continue to bless the United States of America.

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