Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who is challenging Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to be the next Senate majority leader, said Friday he wants to abolish the filibuster and ruled out a potential presidential run in 2028.
Van Hollen, speaking to reporters at the What’s Next conference in Denver, argued that legislation should pass the Senate with simple-majority votes and that the filibuster, which requires senators to muster 60 votes to pass most legislation, is “undemocratic.”
“My personal opinion is that we need democracy in the United States Senate and that means allowing ultimately a majority of senators to answer the call of the American people, so that means 51 votes,” Van Hollen said.
“My personal view has been all along that the filibuster is an antidemocratic — small ‘d’ — provision. It’s not in our Constitution. It was put in there by senators to enhance their power over the power of the people,” he added.
A word too many; abolish the Senate. Expand the house and fix districting (non-partisan groups), and fix voting (star or similar).
“Well, I’ll tell ya, in all my years, I never seen, heard nor smelled an issue that was so dangerous it couldn’t be talked about. Hell, yes! I’m for debating anything.”
This is a great move. Make them vote on it instead of using arcane procedure to kill it.
I really wish someone would run for House Majority Leader.
Good news, Van Hollen is running for Senate majority leader.
Call your democratic senator. Urge them to vote for Van Hollen.
This is a must. I like this guy even more, and he definitely needs to win over Schumer.
If we squander this moment and hand it back to Republicans, then we’re fucked anyway. I say we go full-steam ahead and not only show that we’re ready to stop the intentional gridlock in the Senate, and then start ramming legislation through to force Trump to look terrible when he vetoes bills that have 60, 70%+ approval, as Medicare For All does.
Democrats are looking VERY good going into 2028 as it is.
Honestly big of him to put aside presidential ambitions in order to try for this job that everyone hates and nobody wants.
Be the change society needs
Just keep the talking filibuster
To an extent, I agree. The speech needs to be all about what you are filibustering and why. Going up there to read from a dictionary or a bed time story for kids should not be allowed. At that point, it’s all performative.
It’s Congress, it’s all performative.
40 votes to sustain a filibuster. If you can’t scare up 40 supporters or one of them goes to the bathroom in the middle of it then an immediate vote can be called and it’s toast. You’re right though that it should suck to carry on.
What exactly has bladder control have to do with democracy?
And the speech has to be on topic and non-repetitive.
but they all might get caught in traffic
Fuck yeah.
While the filibuster is responsible for blocking a lot of legislation, the Senate being inherently biased toward states representing a conservative minority of the population means that abolishing it is likely to impede Democrats more than help them in the long run.
There’s nothing inherently conservative about small states. Small states include 1-house representative states like Vermont, Delaware, Maine, and 2-representative states like Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Hawaii, all of which voted for Harris over Trump in 2024. The biggest states, California, Illinois, Texas, and Florida, aren’t necessarily progressive, either.
The conservative/progressive divide comes from rural versus urban, not small versus big.
So even though the Senate is undemocratic, it turns out not to be that big a bias in practice. Especially as we’re in the middle of a realignment of parties in the Trump era, where old demographic coalitions aren’t as reliable of predictor of voting patterns.
The conservative/progressive divide comes from rural versus urban, not small versus big.
Rural regions are inherently conservative and have disproportionate representation in the Senate by design. A short-term fix to balance out the blatant partisan advantage would be to admit Puerto Rico and Washington D.C. as states, but residents of less-populated states would still have a representative advantage.
You’re acknowledging that rural areas tend to be conservative but making an unsupported leap in assuming small state = rural. Rhode Island, Delaware, and Hawaii are small states whose populations are predominantly urban. If DC were admitted as a state, it would be the most urban state in the nation, but would also be only the 49th most populous state.
While small, low population, progressive eastern states partly balance out large, low population, conservative western states, there is still a moderate conservative bias in their distribution.
Of the 25 least-populous states, 15 states have had two Republican senators and 9 two Democratic senators for the 2025–26 Congress, with one state being split. Even after the blue wave, the 2027–28 Congress will have 11 dual-Republican states, 10 dual-Democrat states, and 4 evenly-split states from the bottom 25.
You may be right about that, and yes we still need to do the persuasive ground-game of actually converting the people in these states to recognize that it’s the working class vs the Epstein class, but as it currently stands: When a good bill bubbles up from the House or from someone like Sanders in the Senate, right now these conservative Senators can block it lazily and without any public scrutiny upon them.
Removing at least the cloture filibuster means these bills can at least be discussed, good and bad, and in the public light. That makes a world of difference and hands a little bit more power and a little bit more responsiveness back to The People.
Bernie Sanders and Jon Stewart had a good little exchange on the filibuster @ ~ 41:00
My biggest beef with the filibuster is that I think it’s the wrong way of doing things. If you want to protect minority rights, then make laws or constitutional amendments that specifically protect them. The filibuster is just this giant hammer that beats away everything, good or bad.
And, this is just my belief, but it just seems unamerican. The Constitution specifies how to pass laws in the Senate. It needs a majority. The filibuster is a rule that, especially with modern filibusters that are nothing but votes, simply means you need more votes than the US Constitution specifically says. Yes, it’s a rule of procedure rather than the direct vote, but it amounts to the exact same thing.
I feel the same way. Look, at the end of the day – if we get the Electoral College gutted as we very well might now – if the American people vote in the majority to install a Trumpian-like figure, well then reap what you sow.
People are worried about the Senate overly-representing these red states, but we just saw Kansas, Mississippi, Georgia, Texas, North, and South Carolina shift heavily. Maybe – just maybe – how we appeal to these states is about to change.
But in the event we have a majority Republican Senate but a majority-voted Democratic President, at least that President can still veto just the same.
Don’t use the filibuster as a band-aid which has only actually impeded progress more than it has stopped damage in the past 2 decades; instead solve the systemic reasons for what makes people vote against their own interests in the first place.
If Democrats make inroads in those states then it becomes less of an issue being gone.
Also if Democrats actually deliver wins for the people living there while it’s gone, then they might just reelect Democrats the next time around as well.
We’ve already seen how a Republican minority in the Senate (during Biden) can prevent a Democratic majority from delivering on legislative agenda for anything that can be filibustered.
Exactly - all the more reason to ditch the filibuster, pass legislation, make them veto it and take responsibility for a veto. Come 2028, if we have a great option for President then it’ll be a clean sweep trifecta for Democrats.
The Senate is already an unbalanced institution gamed by slave states. I’m on board. The problem is if you do it, you better give people a reason to vote for you.
Yea youre aight bro just dont squander the opportunity on some centrist ass motherfuckers who then it pass right back to a Republican supermajority that enslaves the rest of us pls
The filibuster is the only thing that kept Republicans from doing even more crazy shit then they already did. The senate is undemocratic in that an outsized minority of voters have an outsized impact on the majority. Every state gets two senators despite WY having half a million people and CA having like 40 million. In the senate they are equal.
The filibuster is how the minority-Republican Senate under Biden was able to block everything the majority-Democratic House passed other than budget reconciliation bills. The filibuster also allows performative bills, that the author doesn’t actually want, to be put in.
Oh I agree to that. My issues is that the senate itself is so arcane that there is a low chance that dems will hold it…:which means removing the filibuster benefits republicans more than democrats. WY gets the same two votes as CA despite huge population differences. I don’t know what the solution is but I have a fear of a republican senate majority that no longer has to worry about the filibuster.
Depends who is holding the leadership. Under McConnel as majority leader we saw them abandon any attempt at a legislative agenda item her than tax reform through reconciliation. Not that Democratic filibusters held them at bay, but McConnell just wasn’t allowing any non-reconcilliation bills.
And, in reality it’s just a rule change that is voted on by a majority. If they have the majority and a determination to pass some dumb shit, they can just get rid of the filibuster right then and there.
The filibuster is the primary reason Republicans have any shot at all at national power.
Republicans thrive on voter apathy. They want voters to believe that both sides are the same, and that the government is incapable of doing anything useful.
What happens again and again is, Democrats will do the impossible. They’ll rally public support and anger and win great power on the promise of improving people’s lives. And then they manage to deliver jack shit because of the filibuster. Then they lose the next election because they never got anything done.
Yes, Republicans will be able to do more damage without the filibuster. But here’s the key - the filibuster didn’t prevent them from doing any of the horrific shit they have in the second Trump term. This is because Republicans don’t actually want to pass much legislation. The things they most want, tax and spending cuts, can be passed with a simple majority. They do everything else with the power of the presidency alone. You can gut a government program with a simple majority vote - just defund it. But establishing a new program requires 60 votes. The filibuster is inherently biased towards Republican policy priorities.
I like the accountability angle. While this is powerful, I’m not so sure about the entire premise of your remaining argument.
Specifically, you note Republicans can easily defund programs, while Democrats need 60 votes to establish them. But eliminating or reducing funding is not always the same as repealing a program.
For example, a future Republican majority might want to:
- Repeal environmental regulations
- Eliminate federal labor protections
- Rewrite civil-rights statutes
- Restructure immigration law
- Create national voting restrictions
- Repeal programs which cannot be changed through reconciliation
The filibuster doesn’t just determine which policies can be enacted; it affects how easily every subsequent majority can reverse them.
Bottom line: If Democrats could enact their entire agenda with 51 Senate votes, would they accept Republicans having exactly the same power in two years?
Yes. Because the entire reason we are falling into fascism is that the government can’t get shit done. Gridlock is what’s causing fascism. People feel their regular elected leaders can’t do anything, so they fall for a strong man promising to force change through.
A government that cannot pass necessary policy, one that is trapped forever in gridlock, is one that is inevitably bound for dictatorship.
Let Republican enact their terrible policies. We just saw what happens when Republicans actually manage to enact their agenda - they get massacred in the next election.
And all the stuff you listed could in turn be reversed just as easily with another simple majority vote. The rest of the world gets along just fine without the filibuster. You’re suffering from the delusion of American exceptionalism.
I was with you until the end. I don’t suffer from shit, thanks. Sorry/not sorry you don’t like people pointing out the fallacies in your arguments.
How is what they said wrong? Even if you disagree that you suffer from it, it’s absolutely American exceptionalism to say that only an undemocratic and arcane rule that only the US Senate has is somehow required for democracy.
Never said it was required. You suffer from inability to read. I also already explained how you were wrong, in clear language, at least in one of the many ways.
The filibuster is the only thing that kept Republicans from doing even more crazy shit then they already did.
It’s also the Democrats’ excuse for never doing anything. On the net the filibuster like other causes of institutional gridlock is a tool for maintaining the status quo and that helps corporate stooges and fascists. In addition, since it prevents Congress from doing things it essentially forces it to abdicate power to the executive and judicial branches, directly weakening democracy.
Agreed. Its presence actually further enables the Ratchet Effect and reduces individual accountability from voters. Force them to debate and vote on the bill.
If they remove the filibuster, then we need to uncap the House come 2028 elections. That makes the move not as polarizing since the House becomes much more representative. Additionally, maybe pass measures like Ranked Robin voting at the Federal level so that federal elections use a better version of Ranked Choice voting.
I just can’t picture how to make the senate work when the numbers are so skewed. Don’t have a solution but it’s such a glaring issue.
The Senate remains an issue until we have a constitutional convention - so we need to keep investing and pouring care in to each state in the union hoping we turn hearts.
The Senate should be uncapped as well based on population. The House is more geared towards the country’s short-term interests and the Senate our long-term interests, but it needs to be representative of the population as well.
We are one nation after all!
It is not possible to turn a conservative heart. There is simply no heart there to turn. Conservatives are biologically unable to experience empathy, no matter how much empathy you show them.
I would say it’s more about inspiring hope in the next generations living in conservative states and conservatives areas. Older conservatives might just give up on their elected officials entirely if Democrats do good work, not that they actually believe in Democrats but they see the contrast in their wallet or quality of life.
Making the Senate proportional to the population basically invalidates the reason for its existence when we already have he House of Representatives. I would instead say if we keep the Senate at all, make it so that all legislative bills must originate in the House and the Senate will have 1 month to deliberate before holding a vote to pass it to the President or send it back down to the House, and the House can override with a 2/3 majority. The Senate keeps their role of approving executive and judicial nominees. Maybe transfer federal judicial nomination directly to the judicial branch, though.
I believe the Senate has outgrown its original intended purpose. It served as a balance of power between “territories” that were more independent.
We are more of a nation with a united national identity now than we were at our nation’s founding. We would not have had the union without the current set up because those original territories might not have agreed to unite under a shared flag to oppose British rule, yet alone unite afterwards. I would say even the Civil War is evidence that we were a looser collection of states at the time.
The House of Representatives serve shorter terms, the legislation they pass through may not be geared towards what’s best for the country long term, but what would help them secure reelection in the short term. The Senate having longer terms make sense purely for our long term national outlook. But our current Senate structure fails at fulfilling that goal at a national level, imo. The Senate not being based on population means it does not look out for our long term national interests, but instead the individual Senators long term career prospects in their state. It also gives those states more weight and their lower level population more power relatively.
I think each individual region should be weighted evenly, no state should be winner take all. If you live somewhere with say a population of 100,000. Then you should have a proportional amount of representation to a place with 1,000,000. Forget the borders of the states, I want each block of people in our nation to have proportional representation. No gerrymandering and full proportional representation.
A constitutional convention is not a viable option right now. 250 years ago, you had statesmen who were interested in doing their job representing the people they were beholden to. That is not longer the case. Virtually everyone involved in a modern constitutional convention would be there to line there pockets and billionaires would be lining up to fill those pockets to make sure the new constitution was structured to help them hold onto and increase their wealth.
I think a modern constitutional convention would need good actors to ensure legislation that helps the people to get passed.
I guess it depends on who calls the convention - if it’s the states themselves calling for it then I feel that it could at least be more likely that we implement legislation with more of a local focus. Our current Congress is already heavily aligned with big businesses so getting money out of politics first is a must if we plan to head into a constitutional convention.
I think a modern constitutional convention would need good actors
💯 The Koch brothers capitalized on the Tea Party movement to fund state legislature and governor races with the express goal of calling a Constitutional Convention to reshape the country with their anarcho-capitalist ideals.
In Australia we use proportional representation to elect Senators within each state, and assign each state a number of senators based on their population. The lower house is voted for in seats, like US counties, by preferential voting.
This keeps the Senate as an effective house of review that has a different makeup than the lower house, but does not disenfranchise those in well-populated states.
