Four years ago this month, Senate Democrats came within a few votes of abolishing the filibuster rule, and in doing so lit a fuse that is still slowly smoldering in the U.S. Senate. Now, Republicans are debating whether they – and the country – would be better off waiting for Democrats to finally kill the 200-year-old tradition or dissolving it themselves while they still hold the majority.
Political pundits and historians often cite the filibuster as a major reason why the U.S. Senate is regarded as “the world’s greatest deliberative body.” The filibuster emerged in the early 19th century after the chamber dropped its “previous question” motion in 1806, unintentionally allowing unlimited debate and thus the ability of a determined minority to block legislation.
The filibuster was formalized in 1917 with the adoption of Rule XXII, which created a cloture process to end debate, initially requiring a two-thirds vote and later reduced to three-fifths of the Senate (60 votes) in 1975. Important carve-outs include budget reconciliation bills, judicial and executive branch nominations, and Congressional Review Act resolutions.
But what was once an extraordinary procedural weapon has now become commonplace. Although there have been more than 2,500 votes to end filibusters since 1917, a majority have occurred within the past 12 years, tracking closely with rising partisan polarization in the chamber. It now functions more as a source of gridlock than a protection of minority rights.
The most significant effort to date to kill the filibuster altogether came in January 2022, when Democrats attempted to abolish the rule in order to pass a slate of far-left policies advanced by the Biden administration. That effort resulted in embarrassing failure, as Democrat Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema humiliated Democrats by siding with Republicans to block the measure 52 to 48.
However, the failed vote laid bare Democrat’s willingness to “nuke” the legislative filibuster once they regain the Senate majority – a majority that would not include the since-retired Manchin and Sinema.
In other words, the filibuster may already be beyond saving, and the only question remaining is which party will pull the trigger.
Even now, Democrats are using the rule to run out the clock on the Republicans’ governing majority. Last fall, Democrat Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer used this tactic to shut down the government for 43 days – the longest shutdown in U.S. history. Democrats’ weaponization of the filibuster has also effectively neutered Republican efforts to advance their agenda. At just 40 bills enacted in 2025, the GOP House and Senate delivered the lowest legislative output on record for the first year of a new presidency.
As a result, Some Republican leaders, including President Donald Trump, believe that eliminating the filibuster now is the best path forward.
Late last year, Trump sharpened his warning to Republicans: “The Democrats are far more likely to win the Midterms, and the next Presidential Election, if we don’t do the Termination of the Filibuster (The Nuclear Option!), because it will be impossible for Republicans to get Common Sense Policies done with these Crazed Democrat Lunatics being able to block everything by withholding their votes,” the President wrote in a post on Truth Social.
“FOR THREE YEARS, NOTHING WILL BE PASSED, AND REPUBLICANS WILL BE BLAMED. Elections, including the Midterms, will be rightfully brutal,” he continued. “If we do terminate the Filibuster, we will get EVERYTHING approved, like no Congress in History.”
In short, Trump is arguing, Republicans shouldn’t put themselves in the position of relying on the good graces of Democrats to show restraint the next time they’re in the majority.
As he and some other Republicans see it, there are two possible outcomes when it comes to the filibuster. Option one is for Republicans to abolish it now, pass Trump’s agenda (including robust election security legislation) and perhaps salvage a midterm victory. Option two is that Republicans don’t abolish the filibuster, and then Democrats likely win the midterms and abolish the filibuster anyway.
This would be a worst-case scenario for the GOP. Not only would none of their policies pass, but Democrats would have a clear runway to enact their most radical policies, from banning Voter ID to adding new Democrat states and packing the Supreme Court.
Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters he fully expects Democrats to eliminate the filibuster if they regain the majority, but warned that if Republicans “do their dirty work for them,” the GOP will “own all the crap” that follows. Furthermore, Thune believes that few in his caucus would actually vote to abolish the rule, saying that it has been an “important tool” to check the power of Democrat majorities in the past.
Recognizing the GOP’s impasse, Republican Senator Mike Lee has proposed a compromise that seeks to balance respect for longstanding Senate traditions with the urgency of advancing President Trump’s legislative agenda. Lee argues that Republicans should abandon the two-track system created by the 1975 reform, which allows the Senate to set aside a filibustered bill and move on to other business. Instead, he wants Democrats to be forced to publicly voice their opposition, effectively ending what is commonly called the “silent filibuster.”
The silent filibuster allows a minority of senators to block legislation by merely threatening extended debate without ever taking the floor. Lee calls this tactic a “chronic abuse of the Senate’s 60-vote cloture standard” because it functions as a procedural shortcut that lets a minority coalition of senators quietly kill bills without forcing them to publicly explain their opposition.
“The Senate GOP must immediately start fighting cloture abuse by, among other things, requiring senators to debate,” Lee posted on X. “When they stop speaking, we can call a vote on pending legislation and pass it with a simple majority—no supermajority cloture vote required. It’s time to end the zombie filibuster from hell!”
Trump appeared to endorse the idea when he reposted Lee’s argument on social media, emphasizing Lee’s statement that “this is the only way out of the Senate-imposed zombie apocalypse.”
There is no indication yet whether the GOP will take up Lee’s proposal. In the meantime, continued inaction appears to inch the chamber closer to Trump’s warning of a Democrat majority, and the all-but-certain vote by Democrats to finish what they started in 2022.
W.J. Lee has served in the White House, NASA, on multiple campaigns, and in nearly all levels of government.
