Member-only story

Instead of Abolishing The Filibuster, Why Not Abolish The Senate?

Without the filibuster, the Senate is essentially worthless

Grant Piper
4 min readSep 19, 2022
Photo by MIKE STOLL on Unsplash

There is a lot of talk about abolishing the filibuster ahead of the midterm elections in the United States. The way that the Senate rules currently work, a bill needs 60 votes to proceed to the president’s desk. The only way around the filibuster is to use a convoluted reconciliation process.

The threshold of 60 votes has many people grumbling about the deadlock in a split Senate chamber. The filibuster means that the majority party has to hold a sizeable 60–40 seat lead or (heaven forbid) compromise with the minority party. Neither of these scenarios is very likely in modern American politics. So instead of working on getting more votes or on compromising to reach the threshold, some people want to simply abolish the filibuster and allow Senate votes to pass on a simple majority.

If you abolish the filibuster, you might as well abolish the entire Senate. What is the point of a bicameral system if both chambers work exactly the same? It is redundant. The US might as well just pass everything through the House of Representatives at that point.

What Is The Point Of A Simple Majority Senate?

--

--

Grant Piper
Grant Piper

Written by Grant Piper

Professional writer. Amateur historian. Husband, father, Christian.

Responses (12)