GOPers Blew Up The Filibuster This Week. Prediction: They’ll Do It Again.

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This story is from National Public Radio and it’s so polite and restrained, I wouldn’t blame you if you had no idea what it was saying. Via NPR:

The Senate has overruled the guidance of the parliamentarian, a nonpartisan staffer who interprets the Senate’s rules, and voted 51 to 44 to overturn a waiver allowing California to set its own air pollution standards for cars that are stricter than national regulations. The Senate has only overruled its parliamentarian a handful of times in the 90-year history of the role.

[…] Congress is using a law called the Congressional Review Act, or CRA, as a mechanism to revoke the federal waivers that allowed California to set these rules. The House previously approved three resolutions to revoke the waivers.

But there are significant questions about whether this use of the CRA is legal; the Government Accountability Office and the Senate parliamentarian, who serve as referees within the federal government, both determined that it is not.

The GAO’s opinion is merely advisory. The parliamentarian’s guidance is also non-binding, but the Senate has traditionally followed it. While disregarding this advice is not unprecedented, it’s extremely rare. Historically, leaders of both parties have feared that if they act unilaterally to change the Senate’s norms, the other party will do the same when they’re in power. That’s exactly what happened in 2013 and 2017, when first Democrats and then Republicans deployed the “nuclear option” to eliminate the filibuster for judicial nominees.

The Senate under Republican control does whatever they want, while Democrats whine about “preserving the institution.”

Remember when Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema were the heroes of the Republican party for protecting the wonderful institution of the filibuster, and how it needed to be preserved to protect both parties? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Wednesday night, what Republican actually did was blow up their beloved, sacred filibuster. To prevent California from stopping air pollution and mandating a transition to electric cars.

How do you like that comity now, Chuck? If only you’d eliminated it when you did have the votes, and Democrats got more big things done, voters wouldn’t have swept in Trump on a tidal wave of discontent. Better late than never, I guess.

“Republicans today cross a point of no return for the Senate, expanding what a party can do with a majority threshold,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader.

“Republicans should tread very carefully today,” he said. “What goes around comes around.”

We’ll see soon enough. Because that 60-vote threshold that would ordinarily protect us from that obscene Christmas tree of a reconciliation bill the House just passed? BYE, BYE.

And we’ll have to wait until next year’s midterms to make them pay for years of Democratic timidity over that damned racist and unrepresentative filibuster. Now that they’ve blown it up again, Republicans will do a lot more damage between now and 2026.

I’m glad it happened, but you know, Chuck, timing is everything.