The Morning Dispatch: The Democratic Push to End the Filibuster

Happy Wednesday, and happy St. Patrick’s Day☘️! Nearly 400 of you have already signed up for the inaugural Morning Dispatch March Madness pool. Don’t forget to get those brackets in by Friday morning! (Password: PirateSkiff!)

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• A gunman in Georgia shot and killed eight people at three different massage parlors around Atlanta on Tuesday night, He was captured by police about 150 miles south of the city. Six of the eight victims were Asian, according to law enforcement.

• Month-over-month retail sales fell 3 percent in February, according to a Commerce Department report, large part because of winter storms and supply chain disruptions across the United States. Economists project additional vaccinations, loosening coronavirus restrictions, and American Rescue Plan checks will lead to a rebound in the coming months.

• In an ABC News interview, President Joe Biden said he believes New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo should resign if the investigation into his alleged sexual harassment reveals wrongdoing. “I think [Cuomo] will probably end up being prosecuted, too,” Biden added.

• Emer Cooke, the head of Europe’s medicines regulator, said Tuesday there is currently “no indication” that the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine causes blood clots, despite countries such as Germany, Italy, and France suspending its use. Cooke added that she remains “firmly convinced” that the benefits of receiving the shot outweigh the risks.

• Donald Trump encouraged his supporters to get COVID-19 vaccines in an interview with Fox News last night. “It is a great vaccine. It is a safe vaccine and it is something that works,” he said. “I would recommend it and I would recommend it to a lot of people that don’t want to get it and a lot of those people voted for me, frankly.”

• Axios reported Tuesday that the Customs and Border Protection agency told Congress that four people detained at the U.S.’ southern border since October 1 “match names” on the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Database. As the border crisis continues, President Biden told would-be migrants not to come to the United States. “Don’t leave your town or city or community,” he said.

• The Senate voted 81-17 on Tuesday to confirm Isabel Guzman to head the Small Business Administration, where she will oversee the Paycheck Protection Program.

• The Chicago Bears recommitted themselves to mediocrity on Tuesday, signing former Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton to a one-year, $10 million contract.

• The United States confirmed 54,023 new cases of COVID-19 yesterday per the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 Dashboard. An additional 1,275 deaths were attributed to the virus on Tuesday, bringing the pandemic’s American death toll to 536,871. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 32,515 Americans are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, and 1,655,996 COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered yesterday. 72,135,616 Americans have now received at least one dose.

The State of the Filibuster

Ever since Georgia voters delivered Democrats the slimmest possible Senate majority back in January, lawmakers and pundits on both sides of the aisle have been bracing for an inevitable showdown over the legislative filibuster—the procedural rule that affords a minority of senators the ability to delay or block votes on pieces of legislation. We delved into the historical origins of the filibuster back in September in anticipation of this fight, and it’s finally here.

Democrats were able to kick the intra-party squabble down the road for a few weeks by passing their $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan through the budget reconciliation process, which requires a bill receive just 50 votes (plus Vice President Kamala Harris) as opposed to 60. It cost Democrats a $15 perhour federal minimum wage, but it allowed them to send President Biden a bill roughly $1.3 trillion bigger than it would have been had they needed to secure 10 Republican votes.

But budget reconciliation can be used only to pass bills directly related to spending or revenue, and most of President Biden’s agenda—from H.R. 1, to immigration and police reform, to environmental regulation, to gun control—extends well beyond that. Republicans have yet to actually filibuster any of these proposals, but that’s because Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has yet to bring them to the floor. How Senate Democrats choose to move forward on the filibuster will define the remainder of Biden’s term.

Although a majority of Senate Democrats now support abolishing or weakening the filibuster—a complete flip-flop from what many of them said when they were in the minority—the procedural rule remains safe for now. All 50 would need to be on board to change the Senate rules, and Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema maintain they aren’t budging. Before relenting on a power-sharing agreement with Schumer back in January, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was able to extract verbal commitments from the two moderate Democrats that they “will not vote to end the legislative filibuster.” 

Still, reporters ask Manchin if he’ll back out of this pledge just about every single day. “JESUS CHRIST! What don’t you understand about NEVER?!” he shouted earlier this month. Yesterday, he more calmly reiterated that he’s “in the same place [he’s] always been on the filibuster.”

But progressives are not going to let up—and many are drawing a flicker of hope from comments Manchin made on Fox News last week. “The filibuster should be painful,” he said when Chris Wallace asked him about potential reforms to the rule. “We’ve made it more comfortable over the years. … Maybe you have to stand there. There’s things we can talk about.”

Many on the left interpreted those remarks as a shift on Manchin’s part in favor of a return to what’s known as a “talking filibuster,” which would require senators in the minority party looking to block legislation to remain on the Senate floor and talk for hours on end. Once the minority party ceded the floor—either because of exhaustion or political pressure—the Senate could pass whatever bill is being debated by a simple majority vote.

But Manchin clarified his remarks in an interview with Politico a few days later, making clear that’s not what he had in mind. “There’s no way that I would vote to prevent the minority from having input into the process in the Senate,” he said. “It must be a process to get to that 60-vote threshold.” Requiring filibustering senators to hold the floor would force the minority to be more transparent in their opposition to given pieces of legislation, since currently, a mere promise to filibuster is enough to shut down debate on a piece of legislation. Keeping the 60-vote threshold in place, however, would leave progressives in the same bind they’re currently in.

Politicians, of course, are known to flip-flop. Sen. Harry Reid, for example, was adamantly opposed to abolishing the filibuster before he chose to do so for non-Supreme Court presidential nominees in 2013. And Sen. Dick Durbin in 2018 said abolishing the filibuster would “be the end of the Senate as it was originally devised” before declaring this week that it’s time to do just that. 

Perhaps sensing that public pressure on Manchin and Sinema is about to ratchet up, McConnell took to the floor Tuesday to deliver lengthy remarks about the filibuster, painting an ominous picture of what Republicans would do without it. “Nobody serving in this chamber can even begin to imagine what a completely scorched-earth Senate would look like,” he said. “As soon as Republicans wound up back in the saddle, we wouldn’t just erase every liberal change that hurt the country. We’d strengthen America with all kinds of conservative policies with zero input from the other side. Nationwide right-to-work for working Americans. Defunding Planned Parenthood and sanctuary cities on day one. A whole new era of domestic energy production. Sweeping new protections for conscience and the right to life of the unborn. Concealed-carry reciprocity in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Massive hardening of security on our southern border.”

McConnell and his fellow Republicans moved to abolish the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees back in 2017 to usher Neil Gorsuch onto the court, but he resisted repeated calls from President Trump to do the same for various pieces of legislation that Democrats filibustered. “My colleagues and I have refused to kill the Senate for instant gratification,” he said on Tuesday. “In 2017 and 2018, I was lobbied to do exactly what Democrats want to do now. A sitting president leaned on me to do it. I said no. Because being a U.S. senator comes with higher duties than steamrolling any obstacle to short-term power.”

President Biden’s position on the filibuster has undergone quite the transformation in recent years. In August 2019, he told reporters ending it would be a “very dangerous move.” But after securing the Democratic nomination last year, he began to hedge. “It’s going to depend on how obstreperous [Senate Republicans] become,” he said. “But I think you’re going to just have to take a look at it.” As the American Rescue Plan was barreling through the reconciliation process, the White House reiterated the president’s support for the rule.

But now that Senate Republicans’ obstreperousness threatens to slow his agenda, Biden—who made use of the filibuster as a senator—is changing his tune. “It’s getting to the point where, you know, democracy is having a hard time functioning,” he told ABC News in an interview on Tuesday, throwing his support behind the return to the talking filibuster. “I don’t think that you have to eliminate the filibuster, you have to do it what it used to be when I first got to the Senate back in the old days. … You had to stand up and command the floor, and you had to keep talking.”

Intelligence Community Finds Foreign Election Interference

In a now declassified report on foreign threats to U.S. federal elections in 2020, the National Intelligence Council disclosed evidence of attempted Iranian and Russian interference in November’s presidential election. Neither country attempted to materially alter voter registration or vote totals, but influence campaigns carried out by Tehran, Moscow, and other foreign entities sought to aggravate sociopolitical tensions within the U.S. and sway the way American voters cast their ballots.

The report, which was originally sent to former President Trump on January 7, notably excluded China as among the foreign meddlers. It determined that while Beijing may have been weighing interference, neither election outcome ultimately benefited China enough for it to “risk getting caught.” China opted instead for traditional means of influence—like lobbying and economic leveraging. 

Predictably, Iran led the charge to delegitimize the Trump team and the Republican Party through various cyber tools. In the government-led influence campaign likely approved by Supreme Leader Khamenei, cyber actors made spoof social media accounts and sent fake emails to Democratic voters purporting to be from the Proud Boys in an effort to boost voter turnout for Biden. With an economy crippling under the pressure of Trump’s “maximum pressure” sanctions program, Tehran had a vested interest in bettering the odds of the then-president’s political opponent. 

The report also determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin had purview over election interference attempts made by senior Kremlin officials, online influence actors, and proxies to boost Donald Trump’s reelection prospects and spread unsubstantiated narratives about President Biden and his family. An interconnected web of Ukrainian linked actors—including Ukrainian legislator Andriy Derkach and Russian agent Konstantin Kilmnik—reportedly “sought to use prominent US persons and media conduits to launder their narratives to US officials and audiences,” including individuals who were close to Trump and his officials.

Other foreign actors, including Lebanon-based Hezbollah, Cuba, Venezuela, and profit-motivated cyber criminals also sought to disrupt the election through various small-scale interventions. 

“This report highlights the ongoing and persistent efforts by our adversaries to influence our elections, which all Americans should be informed about,” Sen. Mark Warner said in a statement. “I believe that the intelligence community has gotten much better at detecting these efforts, and we have built better defenses against election interference. But the problem of foreign actors trying to influence the American electorate is not going away and, given the current partisan divides in this country, may find fertile ground in which to grow in the future.”

Is the Culture War Leading Republicans to Rethink Labor Unions?

President Biden made waves earlier this month when he voiced his support for a union drive at an Amazon fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama. “It’s not up to me to decide whether anyone should join a union,” he said. “But let me be even more clear: It’s not up to an employer to decide that either.”

Late last week, another prominent official spoke up in favor of Amazon’s workers: Republican Sen. Marco Rubio. “When the conflict is between working Americans and a company whose leadership has decided to wage culture war against working-class values, the choice is easy,” Rubio wrote in a USA Today op-ed. “I support the workers.”

In a piece for the site, Ryan takes a look at the stakes in the unionization fight, and the rapidly shifting politics surrounding it.

What exactly is happening in Alabama?

The Bessemer fulfillment center employs more than 5,800 people, making this the biggest push for a union Amazon has seen from a group of employees. Voting opened in early February and will close on March 29.

If employees vote in favor of unionizing, they would join the pre-existing Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). That organization has over 100,000 members nationally, including sanitation workers, grocery store workers, and those who work in the poultry industry. Alabama is a “right to work” state, meaning employees of a union shop can’t be compelled to join a union or pay dues. 

The full-time employees of the Bessemer center are offered an hourly wage of $15.30 (well above Alabama’s minimum wage) and full benefits. However, employees have complained of a lack of communication from leadership and other issues. One employee told AL.com that there was insufficient advance warning of mandatory overtime—if a person shows up late to said overtime, that hour or so is docked from paid time off.

How are Biden’s words reverberating?

“Biden was saying ‘it’s the worker’s decision and the employers should stay out of it.’ That’s a powerful idea, and I think it’s a sort of shot across the bow for all these employers.” said Nelson Liechtenstein, U.S. labor research professor at University of California, Santa Barbara. Liechtenstein also emphasized just how influential that video was to the movement as a whole:“I do think every union organizing campaign for the next three years will pull out that Biden two-minute video.” 

While the president never actually said “Amazon” in his video statement, RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum was ecstatic with it. “This is the most pro-union statement from a president in United States history,” he told Politico.

What’s Rubio’s angle?

In a video posted to Twitter, Rubio complained about political decisions Amazon has made. “Here’s the bottom line, it’s very simple for me,” he said. “The largest, richest company in the world and a champion of wokeness that all it does is beat up on conservatives, versus hard working Americans who just want to get paid a little more, and have better work conditions. It’s an easy choice.”

An “overwhelming” majority of Republican lawmakers oppose unionization generally, American Enterprise Institute economist Stan Veuger told The Dispatch. 

Rubio “wants to punish Amazon because they do not support the political causes that he wants them to support,” Veuger continued. “Whenever a company does something that is not in line with whatever religious grievances the GOP officials hold they get mad and so they try to punish them.”

Worth Your Time

• In a Tablet preview of her new book, Kasztner’s Train, Anna Porter briefly chronicles the tragic and controversial life of Rezsco Kasztner. Considered a collaborator by some and a hero by others, Kasztner worked tirelessly during World War II to negotiate the release of thousands of Jews from Nazi-occupied territory. But rather than being welcomed to Israel with open arms, Kasztner found himself at the center of a political tug of war, facing trial for this work before being assassinated by a right-wing radical. “Had Kasztner been a gentile, there would no doubt be statues of him, parks named after him, and movies made about his daring, nerve-wracking dance with the devil,” Porter writes. “The enduring question about his life would be how, and why, he had saved so many Jews while repeatedly risking his own life. Instead, with Kasztner, the question that lingers is, ‘Why didn’t he do more?’”

• Support for third parties is at an all-time high of 62 percent, and only 33 percent of Americans believe that the two major parties “do an adequate job of representing the American people.” Bret Stephens proposes a solution to our representation problem in his most recent column for the New York Times: Create a new party encompassing the vast majority of voters, who favor liberal tenets like freedom of speech, deference to the free market, equality of opportunity, and the presumption of innocence. “The new illiberalism is frightening. It could also be productive,” Stephens writes. “Everyone who has been bitten by it, left or right, is rediscovering how capacious the old liberal faith was, how trivial its internal differences really were, how much they might yet have in common—including common enemies—with people they once regarded as ideological opposites.”

• In an investigation for BuzzFeed News, Joseph Lee compiled interviews and records documenting the Seminole Nation’s discrimination against Freedmen—tribal members of black descent—who have been systematically denied COVID-19 financial relief, health services, and vaccines. “They hate us that bad,” one black citizen of the Seminole Nation told Lee. “We’re stuck in a system that doesn’t care about us.”

Presented Without Comment

Toeing the Company Line

• In her latest Sweep newsletter, Sarah touches on some soon-to-be-up-for-grabs House seats, Ohio’s Senate race, Matthew McConaughey’s potential gubernatorial campaign in Texas, Marco Rubio’s newfound support for unions, and data science expert David Shor’s take on the “foundational cracks in the Democratic Party’s coalition.” Chris Stirewalt also weighs in on the gubernatorial contests in New Jersey and Virginia.

• We’re now more than two months out from the January 6 Capitol insurrection, and the seat of our democracy is still surrounded by National Gguardsmen and secure fencing. In her latest Uphill newsletter, Haley writes about the members of Congress who are now calling for the complex to be opened back up.

• Don’t forget to mark your calendars for Dispatch Live this Thursday, March 18! Tune in at 8:30 p.m. ET tomorrow for an hour of lively discussion on the news of the day and more.

Let Us Know

When it comes to the filibuster, what’s your preference? Gridlock, or ping-ponging between extreme legislative changes every two to four years? Is there a third option?

Reporting by Declan Garvey (@declanpgarvey), Andrew Egger (@EggerDC), Haley Byrd Wilt (@byrdinator), Audrey Fahlberg (@FahlOutBerg), Charlotte Lawson (@charlotteUVA), Ryan Brown (@RyanP_Brown), and Steve Hayes (@stephenfhayes).