Vice President Kamala Harris's Tiebreaking Vote Revealed Something Critical About the Senate

From Esquire

Watching the proceedings this fine Thursday as the United States Senate prepared to take up the $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill, a fairly important feature of the national legislature's upper chamber was made plain. Republicans declared their lockstep opposition to even opening debate on the highly popular bill, and it looked like the vote would shake out 50-50. In fact, it did. And so Vice President Kamala Harris arrived and broke the tie, advancing the bill to be considered by the Senate. This was possible because, as outlined in Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution of the United States, Harris has a particular role here:

That is to say, the vice president can serve as a tiebreaker.

Founders Fetishism is out of style these days, and there's a lot to dislike about the Senate, but the people who love to cite The Founders usually also seem to like the Senate. And surely the takeaway from this constitutional provision is that the Founders envisioned the Senate as a body that would operate on the principle of simple majority rule. What is the alternative? That they thought a simple majority would be required for some things, but for other things there would be a magic 60-vote threshold they said nothing about? Get real. The filibuster and the constraints it has placed on legislating are completely made-up. There is extensive scholarship on this, but the Harris tiebreak today should really be all you need. Why would they specifically create a pass-by-one-vote scenario if this would, in the logic of the filibuster's defenders, somehow destroy the integrity of the Senate?

On the other side of things, the need to shitcan the filibuster was also once again reinforced today. The basis for this is that the Republicans once again demonstrated they will not behave like adults in any way, and not just because their in-house TV channel is on day three of Seussmageddon. As aforementioned, they refused to even countenance debate on a highly popular bill in the COVID relief package. Senator Ron Johnson has demanded that the entire bill be read aloud for 10 hours before it can be considered, just to be a dick. They are blocking Merrick Garland's ascension to the minor post of Attorney General of the United States, just to be a dick. But Joe Manchin thinks these folks are going to circle up and come up with an immigration reform bill? Kyrsten Sinema thinks the filibuster will continue fostering bipartisan cooperation, just as it has next-to-never over the last decade? Will Marco Rubio take a break from concern-trolling about Neanderthal-Americans to engage in some good-faith election reform?

Again, get real. Get rid of—or at least substantively reform—the filibuster and pass laws with the majority you have. If you start passing stuff, it's far more likely Republicans will come to the table and try to get their ideas into the mix. As it stands, they have no incentive whatsoever to do anything but rageclown.

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