What Should We Do About the Filibuster?

We will cover the following core questions:

1. What is the practical consequences of the filibuster?
2. Why are people hesitant?
3. Why would we want to get rid of it?
4. What should we do about it?

Practically, the filibuster is a tool that allows a minority (typically the Confederate states, less than 37% of the population) to prevent any legislation they don't like: Civil Rights, Voting Rights, Health Care, Taxes, etc. Bills go to the Senate to die. The goal has been to disregard federal laws, to do whatever they wish and not be compelled to cooperate. This is the motivation for most state's rights claims: they wish to discriminate and they don't want to provide for public infrastructure and common welfare. They want to be selfish, deny the morality of empathy and try to deny the fundamental rights of all human beings. They want to enable and enact an illiberal democracy where some people are more equal than others. This is why they gerrymander, why they want to take power from the House, which is more representative of the voters and why they want more power in the Senate, which is highly skewed to give them more power per voter.

We are hesitant, because without the filibuster, the Republican's would have to be responsible and not pass outrageous legislation, such as The 'SAVE' act, Nationwide Abortion Ban, Outlawing Gays and Trans Rights, Eliminating Social Security and Medicare, which they would be unable to resist because they can no longer blame the filibuster. That would be dangerous. However, anything they really want to do, they have eliminated the filibuster for (tax scams, judges, presidential appointees, etc.)  The Democrats should take the same tack. Anything they want, they can defilibuster, but deny they are eliminating the filibuster by doing so. Effectively gutting it as the Republicans have, but allowing them to continue to cowardly hide behind it to save their sanity. So I oppose a complete filibuster revocation until they come to their senses.

The history of refusal to enforce civil rights and the attempt to institute illiberal democracy in these United States.

To bring our country into existence, to unionize the states together, the Confederate states refused to join unless slavery (the ultimate illiberal democracy) was enshrined in the constitution for 40 years. These states would only join the Union if no laws were allowed to stop their illiberal democracy. This was the agreement they made to give up absolute state's rights (in the Articles of Confederation) to move to the Federal Constitution. And this motivation hasn't changed since, they have fought, by any means possible, legal or illegal, and continue to fight, to subvert the fundamental promises of the Declaration of Independence. America fundamentally disagrees and we must bring this fight to a permanent close.

America changed the Constitution to prevent illiberal democracy after the civil war: abolishing slavery, forcing states to enforce the bill of rights and outlawing discrimination of who could vote.

• 13th Amendment (1865): Abolished slavery and involuntary servitude nationwide, except as a punishment for a convicted crime (A peculiar American travesty, insisted upon by the Confederacy, so they have some excuse for their behavior.)

• 14th Amendment (1868): Established birthright citizenship, ensuring that all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. are citizens. Crucially, it prohibits states from denying any person "due process of law" or "equal protection of the laws".

• 15th Amendment (1870):  Prohibited the federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on "race, color, or previous condition of servitude".

The 17th, 19th, 24th and 26th amendment continued this thread: Senators are elected by the people, women's suffrage, no poll taxes and the voting age is set to 18. Extending citizenship and its inherent right to vote to all Americans.

The Confederate states have always objected to this deal. They first attempted nullification [1], the idea that state laws superseded federal laws. That was antithetical to the entire point of the Constitution, that states give up certain rights to the federal government (and the Confederacy knew this.) It's been a sticking point ever since. Not only for the Confederacy, for liberal states too. (Marijuana laws, immigration enforcement.) The conservatives have had a problem with federal laws for abortion and other health care and have worked hard to give this power back to the states.

The next tactic to prevent any new laws from being passed, such as the 1837 Civil Rights Act, the 1857  Civil Rights [2], the integration of the armed forces, and the 1950's civil rights law was to blatantly allow filibustering by partisan machinations. The senate debate was unending if the Confederates didn't want a law, and cut off if they did. When the partisanship went they other way, they decided to change the rule.

Aaron Burr (traitor) proposed the changes to allow filibustering by eliminating a simple majority vote to allow the 'previous question' rule, which forced a simple majority vote to stop the debate and delay and force a vote on a bill (the infamous Rule 22.) In my opinion, this was not an accident. It was purposeful to allow minority rule and block the enforcement of the law of the land.

The practical consequences of this rule where not used until many years later when the confederates insisted on blocking civil rights laws. First, the delay was entirely partisan based.  Then, when they couldn't prevent it in the Congress, even with the filibuster, they started the Civil War rather than give up slavery. They insisted on the endless debate in the Senate exactly because it could negate any bill, but used it almost exclusively to stop civil rights laws. The filibuster was put into place, formally, by the excuse that 'debate must be attended to', but in actuality, it is not there to induce persuasion, it is only there to negate legislation, it has nothing to do with debate at all, it's entirely a minority veto.

This tool of minority negation must end. The majority, who support liberal democracy as stated in the Declaration of Independence: All men are created equal; must win the battle or we will be ruled by a minority that claim the rights of royalty to do anything they wish, regardless of voice of the people and their legislation. There is a reason they wish to diminish the power of the House of Representatives: it reflects the votes of the people every two years and is a danger to their agenda. They have the Courts packed, which take lifetimes to unpack if everything continues as today. And they are willing to trade the Presidency and gut agencies' enforcement of the law, instituting a new spoils system (created by the confederate Andrew Jackson in 1828 and outlawed in 1883 by Chester Arthur) if, in return, they can stop legislation and enforcement of Civil Rights by the filibuster in the senate.

There is a reason they hate the agencies that Congress has created. This was the way FDR attempted to stop the executive from ignoring the law: by building agencies that were empowered to enforce the law. To insist on human rights over property rights. This is why they have invented the "major question" doctrine, which just says that the courts can take any power away from the agencies if they decide they don't like the way Congress specified it. From forbidding FDR to appoint new agencies' heads without cause, to allowing Reagan's EPA to reinterpret the law in any way they chose, to allowing Trump to appoint agency's head without cause, to instituting the "major question" requirement, a conservative SCOTUS has relentlessly pushed a partisan agenda for illiberal democracy for over a century. It is time to put a stop to this travesty.

Why were agencies protected from removal of their appointed head and presidential control? In FDR's time, SCOTUS ruled that he could not replace agency heads except for cause as they wished their agency heads would continue and stifle the attempt of the president to institute and enforce the laws pertaining to Social Security, banking and other New Deal ideas. Later, the conservatives were insistent that when under Reagan's appointee the EPA must be respected, even when it defies the actual laws Congress passed. Now that a Republican wishes to ignore them, they have flipped the rules and insisted that the Judiciary has the power to decide all "major questions" and not the agencies themselves. It's got nothing to do with what the Constitution says, it's a raw power move and it's been ongoing since the founding of our country.

The argument that the laws passed by Congress overwhelmingly to enforce the civil rights laws were 'just not needed' so they were declared unconstitutional is the most blatant act of white supremacy since the Dred-Scot decision which declared blacks could never be citizens. (This is the gutting of the Voting Rights Laws by fiat led by our chief justice John Roberts in several decisions.) [3] And even after the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments were passed, to specifically overturn this odious intention, the Confederacy has resisted every way they could, forcing progressives to pass the 24th amendment outlawing poll taxes. Could the intent of the Confederate state's be any clearer?

The filibuster is just one method to prevent liberal democracy and allow illiberal democracy where only a certain set of people actually have civil rights, protection of law and due process. We passed the amendments outlawing illiberal democracy, it's in the Constitution, there is no denying, in good faith, that it is the law of the land. How do we enforce it and how do we change the laws? How do we force unfettered voting and the requirement to treat all men as created equal, without endangering our republic and pushing it to imperial presidencies and authoritarianism? 

The filibuster must be changed, but it should be changed so that the least amount of mischief can be done to our quest for liberal democracy. The Democrats should revoke the filibuster for any signature legislation., allowing the Republicans to hide behind it as much as they want to. So, eliminate it? No. Actively ignore it? Yes.

Thanks for reading,

 -Dr. Mike

4 July 2026

Appendix 1. What other skullduggery to institute racism have the Confederate's installed into our Government? [2]

The confederacy has managed to put in many other procedural blocks in their quest to fight the liberal state and install an illiberal regime. 

1. States are gerrymandered. It takes 87% of the population to create a filibuster proof senate. This must end.

2. A minority of 27% of the voters can veto any legislation.

3. Note that the Republicans have never represented a majority of the population this century, yet have held a majority of the senate the majority of the time.

4. 37% of the voters, based in the Confederacy, can elect a majority in the senate.

5. Democrats have represented a majority of voters without having 50 senators many times. They have had as much as 65% of the country and still not had 50 senators. 

6. The deck is stacked against democracy and it is time to make our politics fair again, as the founding fathers insisted (see the federalist papers...)[4] and the Declaration declared.

The conclusion is that it is imperative that, without amendments to the constitution we must:

1. States must be added to balance the electoral vote for the senate, repairing the damage done by the Confederates in the First Gilded Age where they created such travesties as North and South Dakota and Montana.

2. The electoral college must be eliminated via the pact for states to pledge their votes to the popular vote winner. The attempt to eliminate the electoral college in the 60's by amending the constitutions missed becoming law by a whisker and decades long, committed funding by the billionaires.

3. Proportional representation must be required for state representatives (no gerrymandering allowed.) This is not against the constitution. Allowing a minority to capture and gerrymander a state must be prevented at all costs.

4. The court system must be made more fair and more representative of the people's wishes rather than monied interests. Expanding the court, effective retirement, limited appointments, etc.

All of which could be done under the current rules and procedures. More drastic and more fair changes that should be done include:

5. At large senators should be added to represent Americans regardless of state, with open primaries with proportional representation. We could change the state senators to 8 year terms, keep the at large senators at 6 year terms and increase the representation of the actual voters of the United States of America.

6. All legislation must originate or be approved by Citizens Assemblies, large bodies of randomly chosen citizens who have open debate and secret votes, mirroring the Jury system we have set up in this country.

7. A nationwide plebiscite, or a proposal of the president, can recall elections at any time.

8. All pardons must be consented to by the Senate with the filibuster intact.

9. Increase the number of representatives by a factor of 10. They must not represent more people than they can individually be known by. We should move back to the 50,000 voters limit that was previously used. Not only is it harder to corrupt 5,000 Congressmen, the individual scrutiny allowed by the smaller number of constituents would go far to preventing it.

10. SCOTUS must be reformed to more accurately reflect the wishes of the people, changing at the slowest rate of any branch of government, say 10 - 20 years. They must be reapproved for 'good behavior' by the Senate in every session. Effective 'retirements' can be instituted. More seats can be installed. Regular rotation can be legislated. With the current state of the courts it is unlikely, until we reform the court, to get any relief from this branch of government when it comes to enforcing the constitution and its obvious limitations on executive power.

It is rational to be afraid to change the filibuster or support a Constitutional Convention as they Confederacy is committed to the idea of illiberal democracy and they will do whatever it takes to support it. Whatever it takes. If we insist on following the laws, insisting on a republic and rule of law and not descending into a dictatorship to be shuffled back and forth between elections we must tread carefully, but forcefully, through this hellish swamp they have created.

The current state of our politics is as follows:

A. A minority of the country wants to and is ruling over the country and are striving to install a permanent dictatorship if we allow them to.

B. Their goal is power. Illiberal democracy is their means to power, but the have used civil war, corruption and coercion in the past and will in the future. We must be prepared and not falter from the path of justice.

C. The only solution, the moral solution, the ethical solution, is to do everything in our power to prevent the usurpation of our liberal democracy.

What levers of power are there in existence today that we could use or must defend against?

A. The Imperial Presidency

    - Impoundment, the ability to ignore the budget and take away the power of the purse from congress.

    - The spoils system, the ability to control the agencies to enforce the laws.

    - Nullification, the ability to ignore the law, to refuse to convict under unjust laws.

    - DOJ prosecutions of corruption and insurrection.

    - Force legislatures to stay in session and be subject to votes.

    - Executive orders to direct the agencies.

B. Legislation

    - Agencies must seize their power back from the courts.

    - SCOTUS reform.

    - Voting and Civil rights laws must be passed again.

    - Remove the insurrection act and the ability to declare martial law or emergencies without congressional approval.

    - Reinstate and clarify the Posse Commitatus laws ("No Military shall enter Rome.") TheAlien and Sedition act was overturned through legislation and voting.

    - Add states to stop the gerrymandering of the country for Senators.

    - Seize back the war powers.

    - Insist on supporting the people's will not money: those that can pay, should, fair taxes on the rich and their capital gains (do you not pay property taxes?), universal health care, gun safety, right to be educated, the right to never give up the inalienable rights such as trial by jury and due process of law, enforce the illegality of seizures of property and due process.

    - public financing of elections.

C. Judicial

    - Allow nation-wide bans.

    - No originalism or historical based law, the intent of congress must be applied. Only secular reasoning, not by analogy is allowed.

    - Enforcement arm spread to the state levels reporting to the judiciary.

    - Support of Agencies enforcing the statues as written by the Congress (CPFB as an example.)

    - Reform SCOTUS, install ethical requirements, define good behavior as following the laws as written and prosecute corruption.

D. The People

    - Voting: against corruption, for affordability, infrastructure and abundance, health care and gun safety.

    - Peaceful mass protest, especially when they blatantly break the law or favor some over others for bribes. Mass resistance of rogue agencies that ignore Due Process.

    - Citizen Assemblies to propose and review all legislation.

    - Civil Disobedience when the law is unenforced.

    - Riots if they will not do as they promised.

    - Organize secularly as religions do, as abolitionists did, as suffragettes did. It can be done.

E. Media

    - Expose corruption and blatant pay to play schemes.

    - Represent the people's interest, not money's.

    - Produce real data and report the truth.

The QUESTION is how to remove the filibuster without giving up human rights and giving the faction that puts property rights over human rights any more power.

The rallying cry must be People over Money. Equal protection under the law.

The Confederacy refuses to abide by the 13th and later amendments and perverts the plain text of any others that restrict their power.

How bad is the filibuster?

    A minority of 23% of Americans can stop any legislations.

    States are gerrymandered favoring rural voters. It required 87% of the voters to provide a veto proof majority.

    All of the things that Republicans want have already been defilibustered: taxes, judges appointments. It is time to insist on health care, voting and civil rights to be defilibustered as well.

    One party refuses to compromise and has used the filibuster to oppose civil rights, voting rights, health care, gun safety and myriad other rights routinely enforced in the rest of the world.

    They use their power to support RACISM. Illiberal democracy and a dictatorship is their goal.

    The founding fathers were absolutely opposed to the super majority required by the filibuster

    As few as 35% of the population can get a senate majority. As high as 65% of voters can be locked out of the majority. For a filibuster proof Senate it takes 87% of the population. This is unacceptable is a country where half of the states refuse to enforce the law. [2]

Democracy is most healthy when both parties are subject to the voters and must compete for the majority of voters, not cater to a small minority. [4]

90% of American voters were ignored by the Senate on background checks for gun sales. Hundreds of kids and thousands of people being shot each year does not change their callous votes. [2]

The confederacy will use any means to enforce their will upon the nation. For the sake of the ideals expressed in the Declaration of independence, the voters of the country must do the same. We must live up to our pledge of liberal democracy., where it is one man one vote. They will not stop until they are forced to, by fear or by political power.

The sale of political power for money must end. The corruption of tax breaks for money must end.

Jim Crow, poll taxes, gerrymandering and illiberal democracy MUST end.

From 1789 to 1964 Southern Senators were successful in stopping all enforceable civil rights laws. They are attempting to institute another generation of illiberal democracy. This will end. Whether peaceful or not is up to them. We will be peaceful until attacked.

Thanks for reading,

 -Dr. Mike

18 July 2026

[1] Attempts at nullification came to a head in 1828, when slavery could be outlawed. Madison firmly rejected the idea of nullification, as were Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay who were trying to collect the tariffs that South Carolina owed to the federal government.

[2] Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy, Adam Jentleson, 2021, Liveright; including most of the following discussion and statistics.

[3] Justia, Brennan Center,  Politico

[4] Federalist Papers, no 22 and no. 58