The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE) has ripped the scab off of the festering wound we call the Senate filibuster.  Requiring proof of citizenship to vote is favored by over 80 percent of the electorate — at least of those voters who can legally vote.  Its passage should be a no-brainer.  But apparently the Senate lacks the brains for a no-brainer — or else our dedicated “public servants” have some motive they’re not sharing with us.

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On prime-time television last Thursday night, President Trump announced the declassification of documents related to the 2020 election.  Now we’re getting a glimpse into those burn bags Director Patel discovered, and our suspicions are confirmed: The 2020 election was not as advertised.  No wonder ABC, NBC, and CNN refused to air the president’s address.  They were the chief advertisers of “THE MOST SECURE ELECTION IN HISTORY.”

Was there a Chinese cyber-attack on our election infrastructure?  Yes.  Were there hundreds of thousands of illegal voters on the rolls?  Yup.  Did the Deep State hide the evidence of election-tampering?  You betcha.  Was a president kept in the dark about a foreign attack?  Gulp...yes.  Was the election too compromised to know who actually won?  It seems so.  Was an investigation of the election “back-burnered” by the Biden administration?  You better believe it.

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The evidence President Trump presented highlights the need to take corrective action, and Americans have given his party the legislative majority needed to do it (just barely).  Just one thing stands in the way: the Senate filibuster.

In spite of the obvious need for election improvement, the resistance Democrat party has invoked the filibuster to prevent any election integrity measures from interfering with their midterm “drag a commie across the finish line” plans.  Having experienced the thing that the Dems say never happens — three times — The Donald is demanding that the filibuster be eliminated to save the SAVE Act.

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The excuses for not overhauling the filibuster rule are both insulting and mind-numbingly stupid.

The Democrat party insists that broad swaths of the electorate are too stupid to acquire government ID.  That they can levy that insult, without the insulted taking offense, is a testament to the effectiveness of academic indoctrination.  Expect the chants of “most secure election in history” to increase in the coming weeks — along with the rioting and assassination attempts.

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The current Senate majority party — i.e., the Republican party — seems to be more concerned about the sanctity of the Senate rulebook than the sanctity of our method of self-governance.  Maybe it’s me, but that sounds a bit backwards — in an intellectually rather than directionally challenged sort of way.

The establishment Republicans are worried that nuking the filibuster will look like autocratic overreach and jeopardize their fawning coverage on CNN (snark intended).  They’d prefer to let the Dems nuke the filibuster after they’ve “mail-in balloted” AOC into the Oval Office, so the Grand Old Party can spend the next generation in the political wilderness whining about the unfair socialists who packed the Supreme Court and created seats for four more communist senators.

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But as with all Senate debates, the argument over the filibuster is missing the point.  Forget the politics and ask this simple question: Is the filibuster serving its intended purpose, or has the rule become a hindrance to our self-governance?

First, some background on this annoying Senate rule.

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The Constitution empowers the Senate to create its own rules for how it will do business.  In 1806, the Senate inadvertently created the filibuster when it dropped its “previous question” rule — which had enabled a simple majority to end debate.  The change was intended to eliminate redundancy but instead helped make the Senate the government’s “most deliberative body” by preventing the majority from silencing the minority.  Nobody votes until everyone has had his say.

When endless talking became a tool of obstruction, the Senate tweaked the rule a bit.  In 1917, it implemented the “cloture” rule as a means to end debate.  Cloture allowed two thirds of the Senate to say, “Enough already, let’s vote.”  (Note: Cloture was lowered to 60 votes in 1975.)

That’s how things went for a little over five decades, until the government’s most deliberative body decided that deliberation is for chumps.  In 1972, the Senate changed its rules again to adopt a “two-track” legislative system, and the “silent filibuster” was born.  It’s just like a talking filibuster, but without all the annoying debate.  Now a minority of 41 Senators can simply declare a filibuster and skip the tedious requirement of explaining their concerns.

With that little tweak, the Senate quit being our most deliberative body and became our most obstructive body.  The minority can just declare a filibuster, and unless the majority has a super-majority, it stops the bill in its tracks with no vote, and everybody can make his 6:00 dinner reservation.  No fuss.  No muss.  No movement.

Now the resistance party is free to ignore why it’s in the minority.  It can block the will of the people, with little or no downside, as long as it keeps the SNAP benefits flowing to its tent cities.

So whenever a bill comes up that the commies don’t like, such as the SAVE Act, the minority leader just says the magic word — “filibuster” — and abracadabra: All debate ends, and the Senate moves on to other business, which will also be filibustered.

Hence, the rule intended to ensure full and complete debate now prevents any debate at all.

Should the filibuster be eliminated or revised?  Given that it is currently used to resist our self-governance, I would say so.  It no longer serves its intended purpose of ensuring complete debate.  It has become a bludgeon, wielded by the minority to resist the will of voters.  It’s time for an overhaul.

Majority Leader Thune should whip (and I wouldn’t be opposed to “literally”) his caucus to either eliminate the filibuster, or return it to its 1806 permutation, forcing senators to take to the floor and talk, until they have nothing else to say.  I suspect that our “dedicated public servants” (snark intended) would rather eliminate the rule than put in any OT debating the business of the country.  Heck, they might even have to start reading the bills before they vote on them.  The horror.

Image: PublicDomainPictures via Pixabay, Pixabay License.