Senate Majority Leader John Thune has urged fellow Republicans to avoid discussing potential changes to the filibuster, according to sources familiar with the matter. During a Republican steering lunch Wednesday, several moderate senators said the conference should move away from talk of eliminating the filibuster. Thune indicated he agreed, noting that such a move does not currently have sufficient support within the caucus, sources told the Daily Signal.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly called on Republicans to end the filibuster, which would allow legislation to pass with a simple majority rather than the 60 votes typically required to advance bills in the Senate. His priorities include measures such as the SAVE America Act and funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
Republicans remain divided on the issue, with some senators opposed to eliminating the filibuster and others expressing openness to the idea.
“By ending the filibuster now, Republicans could pass important legislation that the public overwhelmingly supports, but Democrats oppose,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., wrote in The Wall Steet Journal in March.
“My fellow conservatives and I have proudly used the 60-vote threshold to protect the country from all sorts of bad ideas and dangerous policies,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, wrote in a March 11 opinion piece for the New York Post. “But when the reality on the ground changes, leaders must take stock and adapt.”
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said he has “seen enough” and is ready to get rid of the filibuster, which Democrats have successfully employed to essentially grind Trump’s and the GOP’s agenda to a halt.
“I have seen enough, and heard enough excuses. We cannot let Democrats sabotage this country,” Lee wrote on X. “If nuking the filibuster is the only way to deliver on wildly popular legislation like the SAVE America Act, then we need to nuke the filibuster and start passing bills.”
Thune, however, who is supposed to be the chamber’s leader and the leader of the party in the Senate, made excuses.
“Again, reality is, the votes aren’t there, and we can talk about the relative merits of the filibuster, or whether it’s relevant in the modern world,” Thune recently told reporters. “All those things are great conversations, but the practical reality is, the math isn’t there. It doesn’t add up, we don’t have the votes.”
Trump told the Daily Signal late last month that Republicans should do the right thing and nuke it.
“I say, end the filibuster,” Trump told The Daily Signal March 29. “Terminate the filibuster. Just vote, and you’ll get everything you want.”
Four anti-Trump Republicans voted on Thursday against a measure that would include elements of the SAVE America Act in a budget reconcilation bill that funds elements of the Department of Homeland Security for years.
Sens. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., all of them Trump nemeses, joined all Democrats in rejecting a provision offered by Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.).
Their defection occurred during the Senate’s lengthy “vote-a-rama,” where lawmakers could propose votes on a wide range of amendments, regardless of their alignment with the main budget plan. The amendment failed with a vote of 48 to 50, highlighting what several Republicans had cautioned for weeks prior to their attempt to take control of the floor for the debate on the SAVE America Act last month — it lacked sufficient support within the GOP to pass, Fox noted.
It seems that the proposal faced significant challenges, even after Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., initiated an oral filibuster to advance the measure with a simple majority of 50 votes.
Tillis and McConnell are retiring after their current term, which ends in January.