Three weeks into shutdown gridlock, some Senate Republicans are expressing openness to a controversial solution: nuking the filibuster.
“I know that’s being discussed,” Sen. Susan Collins, the chair of the Appropriations Committee, told NOTUS. “I am a strong supporter of the filibuster, but obviously I’ll look at any plan that anyone puts out in order to reopen the government.”
That Collins, while not a fan of the idea, is leaving the door open to eliminating the 60-vote threshold to pass the short-term spending bill is a sign of just how stuck things are — and signifies a break with Republican leadership who have said such a move is “not in the cards.” And she’s not the only Senate Republican who is considering the procedural solution as a way to end the shutdown.
“I don’t support getting rid of the filibuster,” Sen. Rick Scott told NOTUS. “But eventually, if we can’t get anything done, that’s what they’re gonna force.”
Majority Leader John Thune and Majority Whip John Barrasso have firmly opposed invoking the so-called nuclear option. Removing the filibuster has long made Republican senators queasy. While all senators acknowledge it would be easier to pass bills with a 51-vote threshold versus needing 60 votes to move legislation, Republicans are well aware Democrats would use a simple-majority for bills if they retake the majority.
“Bad idea,” Thune told reporters of getting rid of the filibuster as he walked into his office Monday evening.
Yet, the Senate GOP is facing mounting pressure from House Republicans to weigh the nuclear option as a potential off ramp, arguing that desperate times call for desperate measures. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has repeatedly endorsed the idea. Rep. Chip Roy told reporters Monday that Senate Republicans “need to be taking a look at the 60-vote threshold.”
“We really do,” he said.
Speaker Mike Johnson has been more careful, arguing in a press conference earlier this month that he would be “deeply concerned” if Democrats used a diminished 51-vote threshold to turn the U.S. “into a communist country.”
But since the beginning of the shutdown, a few Senate Republicans have entertained the idea of removing the filibuster. Sen. Josh Hawley, for example, told NOTUS at the start of the shutdown that such a rule change could be a “possibility.”
“You know how this is, once you go off the cliff, like, how do you get out of it?” he said of a shutdown.
That question has bedeviled Republicans and Democrats for weeks as the shutdown drags on. Senate Democrats are insisting they need extensions of Affordable Care Act tax subsidies in exchange for the remaining five votes necessary to pass a short-term spending bill to reopen the government through Nov. 21. Republicans have offered Democrats a vote on the extension — but have not guaranteed passage — and have said they are open to negotiations only after the shutdown.
Both sides initially bet that the other would blink, but now lawmakers’ eyes are opening to the reality that funding the government will not be so simple. The filibuster option could be a fast way out.
Plenty of Senate Republicans, however, told NOTUS they are opposed to the idea. In fact, there are enough Republicans who say they don’t support a rules change that they would be able to block it from happening.
“No, hard no. Absolutely not,” Sen. James Lankford told reporters. “Because we should not break cloture rules of the filibuster, period.”
“That’s who we are in the Senate, that’s how we operate,” he continued. “Sometimes grown ups have to sit down and actually talk to each other when they disagree. So, no, the rules on the filibuster absolutely should not change.”
Sen. John Cornyn was just as firm, even dismissing questions about narrowly changing the filibuster rules to remove it..
“It’s a nonstarter,” he told reporters.
Democrats, particularly in the House, are still daring Republicans to end the shutdown via the filibuster, arguing that Republicans are choosing not to fund the government when they technically have an option — albeit an extreme one — to end the shutdown.
“GOP controls government. They control what bills get voted on and the vote thresholds for each bill,” Rep. Ted Lieu, a member of leadership, posted on X earlier this month. “Senate GOP can pass their bad funding bill today if they felt like it.”
Of course, the filibuster fight might be moot if 60 senators can agree to back the Republican-led continuing resolution — which will soon get a 12th vote. One Republican senator told NOTUS that he believes enough Democrats are poised to cave because they showcased their side of the shutdown fight at “No Kings” protests this weekend.
“I don’t think we’re gonna need to get there,” Sen. Bernie Moreno told NOTUS, “because I think the Democrats, now that they’re done with the protests, I think we’ll get five Democrats on board.”