#filibuster

Republicans believe Democrats aren’t courageous enough to reclaim democracy. We must prove them wrong.

Senate Republicans passed a supplemental appropriation for ICE and Border Patrol on Thursday. In doing so, they refused to tack on the voter suppression SAVE Act that Trump has been demanding since the first day he took office. Trump knows he faces a blue wave in November and is doing everything he can to tamp down voter turnout—including demanding onerous voter ID restrictions that will make it difficult for millions of Americans to exercise the foundational right of the Constitution.

The Senate Republicans’ refusal to pass the SAVE Act is freighted with meaning that is not immediately apparent from the simple facts surrounding the passage of the reconciliation bill and the decision to exclude the SAVE Act from it.

Here’s the bottom line:

Republicans did not include the SAVE Act because it was subject to the filibuster (60 votes to end debate and bring the bill to the floor for a vote).

Despite Trump’s urging, Senate Republicans refused to abolish (or carve out an exception to) the filibuster.

Republicans refused to abolish the filibuster because:

(1) They know that the ongoing, unfair minority rule enjoyed by the Republican Party depends on the continued existence of the filibuster in the Senate; and (2) They believe Democrats don’t have the courage to abolish the filibuster when Democrats next take control of the Senate.

In short, Republicans said, “It’s okay for us to keep the filibuster because Democrats are too disorganized / weak / frightened / fractured to eliminate it when they control the Senate.”

We must prove them wrong.

When Democrats regain control of the Senate, they must pass the John Lewis Freedom to Vote Act and the Redistricting Reform Act. That will require Democrats to abolish the filibuster.

Together, those acts will eliminate gerrymandering—partisan and racial—thereby returning America to a situation in which the party with the most votes wins the largest proportional representation in state legislatures and congressional delegations.

Under that set of rules, Democrats will control Congress indefinitely, and the Republican Party will be relegated to its appropriate status as a minority movement dominated by fringe elements of the American political spectrum.

The filibuster is a rule that was meant to ease the path of legislation to the Senate floor for a final vote. Instead, it has become an obstructionist tool used by Senate Republicans to grant disproportionate power to small states. It is the equivalent of gerrymandering in the Senate.

Under the Senate filibuster, states representing only about 11% of the population can block a final vote on legislation. (There are several important exceptions, including budget reconciliation bills and judicial and executive branch nominations.) See Center on Representative Government, Why Reforming the Filibuster Matters. (“This means that 41 senators can block most legislation, so in theory, the senators coming from the 21 smallest states—who together represent less than 12 percent of the US population—can keep the nation’s agenda from moving forward.”)

Trump desperately wants Senate Republicans to pass the SAVE Act to prevent or diminish the coming blue wave. Senate Republicans calculated that preserving the filibuster, which grants them minority rule in the Senate, was more important to the GOP than saving Trump from a political wipeout in the November midterms.

But Republicans felt safe in declining to override the filibuster now because they do not believe Democrats will override the filibuster to end political and racial gerrymandering by passing the Freedom to Vote and National Redistricting Acts.

We must prove them wrong, not because we must reclaim political control of Congress. We must prove them wrong because ending gerrymandering is one of the crucial steps in reestablishing the democracy created by the Framers of the Constitution. Absent that step, all other reforms are meaningless.

Proportional representation and one-person-one-vote are key to our democracy. Republicans believe that we don’t have the guts to do what it takes to reclaim our democracy.

The test of courage and political will presented by the abolition of the filibuster is also embedded in the reform of the Supreme Court, which requires radical restructuring to return it to its constitutional moorings. If the voices of institutionalism and incrementalism prevail, then passing the Freedom to Vote and National Redistricting acts will be meaningless. We must do both to reclaim democracy—end gerrymandering and reform the Supreme Court. It is that simple and that hard.

The only real question is, “Are we courageous enough to defend our democracy?” On Thursday, Senate Republicans made a bet that the answer to that question is, “No.”

We must prove them wrong.

The future of our democracy depends on it.

Quick updates:

Aspiring Attorney General and modern-day Faustian fool Todd Blanche finally put in writing the DOJ’s commitment not to pursue the $1.8 billion thug fund that Trump proposed. See Huffpo, Trump’s DOJ Finally Confirms In Writing That Slush Fund Is Dead, and Defendant’s Response to App. for Temporary Restraining Order.

Still, Blanche’s nomination to be Attorney General may be in trouble. See CNN Politics, Thune: ‘Hard to say’ whether Blanche can win confirmation as attorney general.

Trump has indicated to aides that the purpose of appointing political hatchet man Bill Pulte as acting Director of National Intelligence is to act as a hatchet man in the intelligence community. See Wall Street Journal, Trump Urges ‘Less Shackled’ Pulte to Fire Intelligence-Community Employees. There are legitimate issues concerning the size and mission of the national intelligence community. Putting an investment fund manager in charge of reckless staff reductions is not the way to proceed with intelligence community reform.

Concluding Thoughts

Despite Republican doubts about Democrats, I think we are courageous enough to eliminate the filibuster, pass legislation to end gerrymandering, and reform the Supreme Court.

The real question is, what do you think?

To be clear, that’s a trick question. It is not even a question. It is a challenge, directed to each of us personally.

Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., seemed to give conflicting answers about what to do about the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster rule during a wide-ranging Senate Democratic primary debate Thursday. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content. “The filibuster must go so that we can codify health care,” Stevens said, while adding: “We should use the…

Their on now! Please if you can, donate and look their substack.

Aloha kākou. Republican Senators’ Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and John Thune (R-SD) are spineless RINO’s. Somehow these two snakes slithered their way into Senate Republican leadership. The Republican party has a serious leadership problem: Republicans In Name Only (RINO). In Article I, Section 3, of the U.S. Constitution defines the composition of the Senate. The Constitution grants the Senate with…

Mike Luckovich

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 30, 2026

Heather Cox Richardson

May 01, 2026

Today G. Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbers noted that Trump has hit a new low in overall job performance and in his handling of the economy, at -22.2 and -40.3, respectively. Those numbers reflect the percentage of people who approve of his handling of an issue minus those who disapprove. Indeed, Morris noted that Trump’s approval rating on the economy is so low it “literally broke the scale of this graph on my data portal.”

On Tuesday, Morris explained in Strength in Numbers that while Republicans have lately been arguing that they simply need to get people to show up to win the midterms, turnout is not their problem. Their real problem is that voters don’t like what Trump is doing.

An obvious symbol of Trump’s presidency is his unilateral decision to tear down the East Wing of the White House and replace it with a giant ballroom. A new Washington Post–ABC News–Ipsos poll released today shows that Americans oppose the ballroom by a margin of about two to one. Fifty-six percent of Americans oppose it, while only 28% support it. Of those who oppose it, 47% oppose it strongly.

Dan Diamond and Scott Clement of the Washington Post note that people don’t like Trump’s proposed triumphal arch, either—52% opposed versus 21% in favor—or the idea of Trump’s signature on paper money. Sixty-eight percent of Americans oppose that plan, while only 12% support it. Even Republicans oppose it 40% to 28%.

And then there is Trump’s war on Iran. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll shows that only 34% of Americans approve of the strikes on Iran, while 61% oppose them. Gas prices continue to rise, with Brent crude futures today briefly topping $114 a barrel—the highest price since June 2022, shortly after Russia launched its attack on Ukraine. Senator Angus King (I-ME) noted on CNN today that these higher prices are currently costing American consumers about $700 million a day.

On his Substack today, economist Paul Krugman noted that the acronym “TACO,” for “Trump Always Chickens Out,” has been replaced by “NACHO”: “Not A Chance Hormuz Opens.” Krugman explains that Iran is unlikely to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of the world’s oil passed before Israel and the U.S. began airstrikes against Iran on February 28, 2026, until “the economic damage from its closure becomes much more severe.”

Trump is maintaining a U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, and Iran says it will not reopen the strait until that blockade on Iranian shipping is lifted. Krugman notes that Trump’s ego will not permit him “to face up to the reality that he, more or less single-handedly, led America to the greatest strategic defeat in its history.”

So he is deluding himself into thinking he can extract concessions from Iran, although he has been unclear about what those might be. For their part, Krugman notes, Iranian officials have no incentive to make a deal, both because the pinch on oil is hurting the U.S. and thus Trump, and because they have no reason to believe Trump would honor any deal they made. He has made a habit of breaking deals.

“The question now,” Krugman wrote, is “how much destruction will the world, and America, have to bear before Trump is willing to accept reality?”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testified yesterday in front of the House Armed Services Committee and today in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee about Trump’s request for a $1.5 trillion defense budget and the Iran war. This was the first time a member of the administration had appeared in a public hearing since the war began, and lawmakers had much to say. Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top-ranking Democrat on the committee, summed up the situation:

“Sixty-one days ago,” he said, “President Trump unilaterally began the war in Iran. He had no coherent strategy. He refused to make a case to the American people or consult Congress. He failed to present any evidence of an immediate threat, and he ignored the advice of military and intelligence experts who warned him of the consequences. Today our nation is in a worse strategic position. The Strait of Hormuz was open. Now it is closed. Thirteen service members have tragically lost their lives, and more than 400 have been wounded. We have lost dozens of aircraft, sustained significant damage to our bases in the area, and expended an alarming amount of our missile inventory. Morale and readiness across the force, especially among overdeployed units and vessels like the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, have suffered. Gasoline and fertilizer prices throughout the world have surged. American families are bearing the cost of a war they wanted nothing to do with and have gained nothing from.”

Tomorrow marks 60 days since Trump informed Congress he had begun military actions against Iran. Under the 1973 War Powers Act, after 60 days the president has to either end those hostilities or get congressional approval. In his testimony today, Hegseth tried to argue that the 60-day clock stops during a ceasefire, only to have Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) note that the law doesn’t say that.

And yet, today Senate Republicans blocked another Democratic measure—the sixth, introduced by Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA)—to require Trump to end his war on Iran. House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told Ryan Nobles, Monica Alba, and Alexandra Marquez of NBC News that Congress doesn’t have to meddle with Trump’s actions in Iran because the U.S. is currently “not at war.”

And then there is the corruption. Last week, news broke that a start-up company backed by President Trump’s son Eric had won a $24 million contract from the Pentagon. Today news broke that the U.S. Air Force has agreed to buy an undisclosed number of drones from a company backed by Trump’s sons.

And then there is the incompetence. Today, after a 76-day shutdown, House Republicans finally passed a Senate measure to fund the Department of Homeland Security while withholding funds from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection, the parent agency for Border Patrol. The Senate passed the bill unanimously on March 27, but because it was what the Democrats wanted, Speaker Johnson refused to take it up until today.

In the face of Trump’s growing unpopularity, the Republicans are changing not their unpopular policies but the rules of elections, clearly hoping to game the system to win elections no matter how unpopular they have become.

Yesterday, with virtually no public input, the Florida Senate approved a gerrymandered map designed to give four more seats in Congress to the Republicans despite the fact that more than ten years ago, voters passed a constitutional amendment that bans partisan gerrymandering.

Also yesterday, the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais threw open the door for Republicans in southern states to redraw their maps to shift between 10 and 15 seats from Democrats to Republicans. In the decision, the six Republican-appointed justices on the court declared that plaintiffs charging that district lines discriminate on the basis of race must prove that the lawmakers who drew those lines were intentionally making decisions based on race rather than partisanship, which the court has declared is beyond reach of the federal courts.

The decision means that states are now free to redraw district lines to undercut the power of minority voters, a demographic that tends to vote for Democrats.

Louisiana’s Republican governor, Jeff Landry, immediately declared a state of emergency, suspending the primary elections in the state in order to gerrymander the state to grab one or two more Republican seats. More than 100,000 absentee ballots had already been sent out—some have already been returned—and voting was due to start within days.

Democrats have already filed a lawsuit against the governor’s attempt to stop an election that’s already underway and to let the election proceed. The lawsuit notes, among other things, that the Constitution gives to state legislatures, not the governor, the responsibility for deciding “[t]he Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives.”

Lawmakers in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama are also considering redistricting in the wake of the Callais decision.

Democrats have responded to the Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act and the Republican-dominated state gerrymanders that are sure to follow. States dominated by Democrats are considering their own gerrymanders to counter the Republicans, as well as new legislation to protect minority voting rights in their states.

“Today’s decision by this illegitimate Supreme Court majority strikes a blow against the Voting Rights Act and is designed to undermine the ability of communities of color all over this country to elect their candidate of choice,” House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) told reporters Wednesday. “But we are not here to step back. We are here to fight back.”

Trump, meanwhile, wants even more. His social media account posted today: “How much abuse can the Republican Senate take from the Radical Left Lunatics in the form of Democrat Senators, before they BLOW UP (TERMINATE!) THE FILIBUSTER, and approve things at a record clip, including The Save America Act, that would be unthinkable without the Filibuster Termination??”

Without the filibuster, he told reporters, “[w]e could pass one bill after the other. We could pass laws and acts and things that we never even dreamt of passing. And you know what else? We wouldn’t lose for 50 years.”

The upcoming elections are definitely on Trump’s mind. He called in to NewsMax today, saying: “It is a problem I’m not on the ballot. And I have to convince—Everyone says if I was on the ballot we’d win in a landslide. I have the best, I have some of the best poll numbers I’ve ever had.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

Brentin Mock at Democracy Docket:

With Republican senators having all but abandoned the anti-voting SAVE America Act, President Donald Trump is appealing directly to his Truth Social followers in perhaps his most extreme terms yet, in hopes of keeping it alive.  “Not passing the SAVE AMERICA ACT will lead to the the (sic) worst results for a political party in the HISTORY of the United States Senate,” posted Trump today. “An Unrecoverable Death Wish! ! ! Likewise, the FILIBUSTER – TERMINATE IT NOW!” The SAVE America Act was Trump’s top legislative priority. He hoped that its measures – proof of citizenship to register, restrictive photo ID requirements to vote, and an elimination of mail-in voting altogether – would help Republicans win the midterms and future elections. 

Trump also hoped it would help cement his plans to federally wrest control of elections away from the constitutionally sanctioned authority of the states. But those hopes were dashed by several uncooperative Republicans who this week were unwilling to force the bill through via reconciliation nor by eliminating the 60-vote threshold needed to pass the Senate. There’s still a small chance it can be revived, but Trump’s increasingly unpopular profile is leading some Republicans to distance themselves from his agenda.  The news site NOTUS quoted several Republican senators (anonymously) expressing their weariness with the SAVE America Act.  One senator reportedly told NOTUS that “people are tiring of it,” while another senator said that it’s “gotten to the point of being beyond annoying.” 

[...] The downside is that while the SAVE America Act is currently no longer in motion, the spirit of the legislation – unproven and baseless allegations of rampant voter fraud – is moving through the public in other forms. A recent Reuters polls found that nearly half of voters believe Trump’s voter fraud lies and that mail-in voting is insecure. Meanwhile, several states have also either passed their own similar versions of the SAVE America Act or have bills pending.