In the last presidential election, the Senate filibuster was a political flash point. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), who barely prevented Democrats from breaking the filibuster during the Biden administration, announced her retirement last week. If not for Sinema’s steadfastness, in particular, the minority party might already be fully boxed out of Senate governance. That would have required changing Senate rules — the “nuclear option” — to overcome a GOP filibuster. The next generation of Republican senators, who never knew a Senate before the filibuster started to erode, might not be as restrained.

Source: Washington Post March 10, 2024 15:43 UTC