No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Schumer on holding Democrats together for filibuster reform

Episode Date: March 21, 2021

Brian discusses how the filibuster works now and what reforming it would look like, along with some major updates on Senators who have suddenly switched their positions on it. He also interviews Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer about the state of reforming the filibuster, whether the whole Democratic caucus is getting on board, confirming liberal judges to the courts, and a certain easter egg in the American Rescue Plan that’s going to impact a lot of people.Written by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CAhttps://www.briantylercohen.com/podcast/ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to talk about exactly how the filibuster works and what reforming it would look like, along with some major updates on senators who suddenly switched their positions on it. I also interview Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer about the state of reforming the filibuster, whether the whole Democratic caucus is getting on board, confirming liberal judges to the courts, and a certain Easter egg in the American Rescue Plan that's going to impact a lot of people. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. Okay, so with the American Rescue Plan, plan done, all eyes are shifting now to Democrats' other legislative priorities. But whereas we were

able to pass the ARP with only a simple majority, since it passed through the process of reconciliation, our other legislative priorities can't take advantage of that, which brings us to the filibuster. And we've had some major moves this week regarding some moderate Democrats who hadn't supported any changes to the filibuster who are now expressing openness to reforming it. So first, of course, was this statement by Joe Manchin. The filibuster should be painful. It really should be painful. and we've made it more comfortable over the years, not intentionally, maybe it just evolved into that. Maybe it has to be more painful.

Maybe you have to stand there. There's things we can talk about. And that was followed by a remarkably similar statement by Joe Biden. But here's the choice. I don't think you have to eliminate the filibuster. You have to do it what it used to be when I first got to the Senate and back in the old days when you used to be around there. And that is that a filibuster, you had to stand up and command the floor.

And you had to keep talking alone. couldn't call for, you know, no one could say, you know, quorum call. Once you stopped talking, you lost that and someone could move in and say, I moved the question of. So you got to work for the filibuster. And then most recently, we had California Senator Diane Feinstein come out with a statement of her own, saying, quote, there are many significant issues that Congress needs to address. Just this week, we saw a union of gun violence, violence against women, and hate crimes in the tragic shootings in Atlanta. I have tried for years to pass legislation in these areas. This month, the House passed bills to improve background checks for gun purchases and reauthorize

the Violence Against Women Act, among other key legislation. Ideally, the Senate can reach bipartisan agreement on those issues, as well as on a voting rights bill. But if that proves impossible and Republicans continue to abuse the filibuster by requiring cloture votes, I'm open to changing the way the Senate filibuster rules are used. President Biden this week suggested returning to a talking filibuster so opponents of a bill must speak on the Senate floor and explain their opposition. That is an idea worth discussing. I don't want to turn away from Senate traditions, but I also don't believe one party should be able to prevent votes on important bills by abusing the filibuster. So that was her quote, and, you know, while it's not worth complaining about the fact that the liberal bastion of California

is represented by someone who deposed reforming the filibuster in the first place, still, this is a huge about-face from Feinstein. Also, like, what's especially important here is that all of this movement's happening before a single bill has even been blocked using the filibuster. Look at how much the Overton window has shifted just at the prospect of it. Republicans blocking legislation. And this is the hard part. This is shifting opinions just in the abstract. Like, I always assume there'd be no movement on the filibuster until Republicans actually blocked something, at which point we'd be able to explicitly tie the filibuster to obstruction.

But the fact that it's happening already, just in the abstract, is a really good sign of what's to come. Like, if we've got this much movement now before a single bill's been blocked, just wait until Republicans block the Universal Background Checks Act, which has the support of 90% of Americans. Just wait until they block the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. We have so much popular legislation coming down the pipe and it's only going to increase the pressure to make sure that the minority party doesn't have carte blanche to obstruct it. So with that said, here's how the process works right now. If a senator wants to object to a certain piece of legislation, all it takes

is for them to register an objection. They don't have to do anything. They just have to signal that they'd block it, to say that they would block it, and that counts as blocking it. No, explaining while you're blocking it, no holding the floor, no, you know, Mr. Smith goes to Washington 25-hour speeches, just your declared objection counts as the filibuster now. Now, the way to overcome that filibuster is by invoking what's called cloture, which is a motion to end the filibuster, and it requires three-fifths of the Senate, or 60 votes. So because a filibuster is as easy as saying you're filibustering, the minority party can therefore always filibuster, meaning that the majority party always has to meet that 60-vote

threshold. So in effect, it's not like this legislation requires 60 votes to pass. The legislation really only requires a simple majority to pass the Senate. What actually requires 60 votes is the cloture vote to overcome the filibuster. But since the filibuster doesn't actually require doing anything, then every objection by Republicans is a full-blown filibuster, which means that you always need 60 votes to overcome it. Now, there are a lot of ways to reform the filibuster. The Senate makes its own rule, so in reality they can change it to whatever they want. They could put the onus on the minority party to have 41 senators present to sustain a filibuster instead of the way it is now, which is that the majority party needs to find 60 votes

to overcome a filibuster. They could eliminate the filibuster for certain categories of legislation, like election legislation, meaning that HR1 would only need a simple majority. Again, the sky's the limit in terms of how the rules can be changed, considering it's the senators who write the actual rules. But the most likely option, the option that we've heard numerous times and that all of those clips that I just played referenced, is that we'll see a return to the talking filibuster, which means that the filibuster only lasts so long as a senator is actually on the floor sustaining it, speaking.

And again, the rules depend on how they're written, but what would obviously be best is that only the senator who's raising the objection is able to sustain the filibuster. Otherwise, if they're allowed to tag each other out, there's really no limit for how long the obstruction could last. But if only one senator is responsible for sustaining his or her own filibuster, then, you know, Sure, it could go on for hours or maybe a couple days, but the onus would be on them to sustain it. Once they finish talking or, like, faint from exhaustion,

that period of debate would be closed, and the majority leader, meaning Chuck Schumer, would then be able to call for a simple majority vote on the bill. Because remember, the 60-vote threshold is to break a filibuster. But if the filibuster actually plays out in the form of a senator holding the floor, then there's no more need to garner 60 votes to break the filibuster, just a simple majority to move forward after the filibuster's finished. meaning that the kiss of death, that is the 60-vote threshold, would be gone.

And the reason that this is also important is because, yes, there is a ton of progressive legislation that enjoys overwhelming popularity across the U.S. Legislation like, like I mentioned before, the Universal Background Checks Act, and a path to citizenship for dreamers, and the Pro Act for unions and codifying protections for women's reproductive rights, all that is massively important. But the most important reason the filibuster needs reform right now is for H.R.1, the For the People Act. Why? Because our democracy is under attack by Republicans in states across the country seeking to literally legislate Democrats out of government. There are voter suppression bills in a number of states targeting young and black and brown voters, all of whom tend to vote for Democrats. Congressional districts are going to be gerrymandered to pack Democratic voters into as few districts as possible so as to maximize the number of Republicans in the House. Sunday voting is going to be curtailed to minimize the voting impacts of black churchgoers. voter purges will blatantly target voters

with non-white-sounding names or who come from Democratic-leaning zip codes the list goes on and on but all of it represents an overtly anti-democratic effort by Republicans to stop people from voting and to eliminate our impact on the democratic process so if something isn't done to block

these efforts from taking effect then forget about the rest of our agenda Democrats won't even have a chance to win elections much less pass bills everything hinges on our ability to pass HR1 first to have even a chance chance. And just like we know how important it is to stop this Republican power grab, McConnell, whose, you know, first, second, and third priority is power, knows how important it is

to make sure that this goes through, which is why his response to Democrats talking about changing the filibuster was to start issuing threats like these. As soon as Republicans wound up back in the saddle, we wouldn't just erase every liberal change that hurt the country. We'd strengthen America with all kinds of conservative policies with zero is zero input from the other side. How about this, nationwide right to work for working Americans? Defunding Planned Parenthood in sanctuary cities on day one. A whole new era of domestic energy production, sweeping new protections for conscience and

the right to life. of the unborn concealed carry reciprocity in all 50 states in the District of Columbia massive hardening of security on our southern border okay so two things here first if McConnell wanted the legislative filibuster

eliminated he'd have eliminated it the guy already eliminated the filibuster for all of his party's priorities he was able to get Supreme Court justices confirmed and passed tax cuts with a simple majority but he knows that reforming the legislative filibuster overwhelmingly favors Democrats. Which brings me to the second point. Those conservative items that he mentioned enjoy no net positive approval ratings. Like, you're going to try to cut off women's reproductive rights and then send your caucus

off for re-election, really? The fact is that if McConnell sounds desperate, it's because he knows that filibuster reform means that we can pass HR1, which means that Republicans won't be able to suppress and gerrymanger their way back into the majority in the House and Senate, and that is what McConnell is afraid of. And beyond that, what's most ironic here is that this is all Republicans' own doing. The principal driving factor behind the need to eliminate or reform the filibuster is to pass HR1 to counteract the voter suppression bill sprouting up across the country by Republicans.

If those Republicans had just an ounce of foresight instead of being so nakedly power-hungry, they could have recognized that their very efforts would be the entire basis, the entire justification for reforming the filibuster and pay. passing HR1. Like, they didn't need to do this. Recent history would show that 2022 would probably be a good year for Republicans anyway. But because that party is so shamelessly, brazenly intent on entrenching their own power, while now they may very well be in a situation where they'll lose all of it if we actually

pass federal legislation protecting the right to vote. Like, almost like their bottomless pit of greed wasn't a good strategy. So look, we are absolutely not out of the woods yet. We still need to nail down the mansion. and other moderate Democrats, but this is a good start, especially considering Republicans haven't even blocked anything yet, and we're already seeing shifting positions. So our job is to keep the pressure on

because this is the issue on which the entire future of not only the Democratic Party lies, but democracy as a whole. Next up is my interview with Chuck Schumer. Okay, today we have the Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Thanks for coming on. Great to be with you, Brian. So let's dive in. I do want to start what I think is the most important thing first, and that is that the Senate has unveiled

S-1, which is its version of H.R.1 for the People Act. Is this bill identical to the one passed out of the House? And is it your top legislative priority? It is just about identical to the one passed in the House. We're making a few technical corrections. And frankly, we are paying attention. As you know, one of the main reasons we have to pass S-1 is the despicable action, the racist, bigoted action, in fact, of Republican legislators across the country trying to change the laws and not allow poor people, people of color, students to vote. The most outrageous one is in Georgia, one of the most outrageous, where African-American people go to church on Sunday, then they get in buses and go to the polls.

There's early voting for two and a half weeks before the election. It's called Souls to the polls. All of a sudden, the Georgia legislature, right-wing Republican, says, no more absentee voting on Sunday. A few other states have said, whoa, you need a notary republic to vote by absentee. What poor person can afford to have a notary public come to their own? This is despicable and it must be stopped. It's authoritarian. It's not a democratic. S-1 stops it, but the one thing we may change, we're looking at all the state laws and making sure S-1 will stop every one of them before we pass it. That's the only kind of change we admit. Got it. Well, will this bill not be brought to the floor for a vote unless the support

to pass it is there, or is the point to bring this bill specifically so that Republicans will block it and force a conversation about the filibuster? Look, the days of Mitch McConnell's legislative graveyard are over. The House passed a lot of good things the last two years. McConnell would never let them even see the light of day. I'm going to put lots of bills on the floor. I just promised to put HR 8, the background checks, gun safety, bill on the floor. We want to see where people stand. I will put S1 on the floor and we'll see if our Republican colleagues, vote for this. Voting rights should not be a Democratic or Republican issue. When you lose an election, Brian, what you're supposed to do is win over the people you didn't win over, not tell the people you didn't win over, you can't vote. And the Washington Post actually estimated more

than 10 million people could be deprived their right of vote for these laws passed. So we will put it on the floor. We will show where the Republicans are. There are some of my colleagues, you know, who are not sure yet. They say, well, let's try to work with the Republicans. And if they all vote against it. We will put our heads in the caucus. We'll all put our heads together. We'll have caucus. We'll have discussions. And we will decide how to go from there. And what I say is, first, failure's not an option. We have to pass it. And everything is on the table in terms of how we get to pass it. So basically, I mean, I think we can all agree that this bill will be what launches the filibuster war. So can you tell us the state of the filibuster reform talks as of now?

Well, I don't have, you know, you need all 50 people to vote for it. There's the overwhelming majority of my caucus is certainly considering it seriously. There are a couple who've said they won't vote for it. But I think one of the reasons they're saying they won't vote for it is because they say we can work with Republicans. If we put bills on the floor that are so popular, the gun background check bill has the support of 80% of the public, 90% of the public, 90% of the public, percent of gun owners. This bill, S-1, has overwhelming support. And it's going to be a process. You can't just snap your fingers and make it happen. But it must happen. We must get these bills passed. And when people see, when my colleagues, even those who have some doubts see that Republicans

are blocking everything, our caucus will come together and figure out how we go forward. And failure's not an option. You know what I mean. Well, as a little bit of pushback to that for those senators who are still, you know, suggesting that there can be bipartisanship. I mean, look at the American Rescue Plan. That had support of 75% of Americans. It was for relief for Americans in the middle of a pandemic, and yet still not a single Republican voted for it. So, you know, is there any acknowledgement from these certain Democratic holdouts? It's going to be a process. I have a leadership team that meets every Monday night. Okay, it's 10 senators. We discuss what to do. Who's on the team? Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, Joe Manchin, and Mark Warner.

And we sit down and we discuss these things and we know that our unity is our strength. With 50 votes, if we don't get Republicans, we have to have unity. And so it is a process of persuasion. Not everyone sees the world exactly in the same way. But if our Republican colleagues remain intransigent, we will have no choice but to look at other options. Okay. And is that a sentiment that's shared across that leadership team?

It's widely shared, yes, throughout the caucus. Just on the bill you mentioned, this bill, I think it's worth mentioning because those 50 votes were hard. And the Republicans tried to break us away in every possible way, and we stuck with our unity. It is the most dramatic piece of progressive legislation in decades, in many, many years. It does so many things. It, you know, provides checks, $1,400 because we want to $2,000. In December, the Republicans wanted zero. We only got 600, but they were in charge then. I said, if we got in charge, we'd get to the 2,000. Everyone who makes below 75,000 as an individual,

150,000 as a couple, we'll be getting those checks. It puts vaccines in people's arms. We have a large program where the federal government will set up centers all over the country. There will be adequate vaccines rather soon. People will line up, get the vaccines. it's expected that by the early summer, there will be enough people vaccinated that we can go back to life pretty much as normal. That's a big thing. This is one of the biggest things. We close to double the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit. Half the children in poverty in America, Brian, will be removed from poverty. It's huge. It's huge to do that. And many of them, a large proportion are people of color, black and brown people who have never had a real chance. it's it's you know when a child is born into poverty they don't get fed well they don't get clothed well housed well medical care not good medical care not good education when they're 18 there's so many steps behind this is this is an investment in human capital that will not only help the kids in poverty in their families it's going to help america yeah so i'm so proud of that

we get money to open up the schools quickly but safely money to prevent people from being kicked out of their homes, $25 billion for that. And let me tell you two little things in there that people may not know. One of the things that breaks my heart, you see these pictures of children and grandchildren with their face up against that thick hospital glass starting in front of a hospital room. And they're saying goodbye to their grandparents, to their parents. Even as great and indignity, or almost as great, there's no money. for a funeral. There's no money for a burial. We put money in this bill. We put money in the

original bill for the past year. We put money in this bill prospectively. And that will really, really help. Congressman Ocasio-Cortez called me up and said when Corona or Queens was the center of the crisis, people can't bury their loved ones. We got this in the bill. It's going to be a big, it's a big thing that matters to people. So there's so much. This covers the gamut, money to get the restaurants open again, money for our arts institutions, our stages and our other places that have been closed and we'll go under. Same with restaurants. They'll get a six-month grant. I'm sorry to whack so long, but there's so many good things. No, I mean, it's, yeah, it's a, it's great. And I do want to give you the opportunity, too, to speak on one provision that's

also lesser known, and that's the future student loan debt cancellation, making that tax-free. Yes. Elizabeth Warren and I have a mission. We have a mission. We have a mission. but this is a mission. Joe Biden could forgive $50,000 of student debt with the flick of a pen. You don't need legislation. You don't need 50 or 60 votes. You can do it. It's all fair. 93% of it is either federal loans or federal guaranteed loans, which the federal government can forgive legally. We're having a big campaign to push him to do it. But one of the reasons some of the people against it said, well, it's not even tax free. We make it tax free. If the loan is forgiven, you don't pay any taxes on it like you were on a good. gift tax or something else. So that is a big deal in here. And I would urge your listeners. You have a great listenership out there. Write, call, email, President Biden, say support Schumer Warren's loan forgiveness for college students. So many people, by the way, it's a racial

justice issue. Twenty-eight percent of the wealth gap between black and white is because of student loans and a disproportionate number of people of color, young people and middle-aged, be affected by the way if your parent took over your loans it's they're eligible to get the 50,000 forgiveness yeah that's great especially because like you know you have people that that let's say let's say you know you do get $50,000 in student loan debt uh uh canceled well then all of a sudden if you're getting taxed on that 50,000 as if it's income well then you have let's say even if you're at a 30% tax bracket then you have a $15,000 tax bill after that so gone gone gone it's in our legislation they can't tax it.

So I do want to jump back over just to the general topic of the filibuster, and that is that McConnell has threatened to come back and pass conservative agenda items if the Republican Party retakes the majority. And he's spoken about defunding Planned Parenthood and sanctuary cities, implementing nationwide right-to-work laws, anti-choice legislation, nationwide concealed carry reciprocity. What's your response to McConnell's threats? Look, response is he's always trying to threaten. and he's always trying to divert attention.

He has nothing he can say about the American rescue plan because, as you said, 75% of the American people support it, 55% of Republicans support it. It affects everybody. When you get a check of $1,400, it doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or Republican. So he keeps trying to change the, divert attention to all these parade of horribles. We're not going to let him stop us. We are not going to let him stop us.

We believe, here's one of the things that makes this bill important in a big macro sense. Democrats believe government should be there to help people. We believe it's part of the solution. The Republicans believe it's part of the problem. And we have shown when we ran, when President Biden ran, we Democratic senators ran, the House Democrats ran, we said, put us in power and you're going to see some real change. And now people are seeing real change that's tangible. $1,400 checks.

vaccines in their arms. The school's opening, the kids getting out of poverty. So McConnell is desperate to change the subject. We're just not paying attention to his rhetoric. I was going to use a harsher word that began with bold. You can. I don't know if this is a family show, but anyway, I don't want to do that. And by the way, I think anything that, anything that you say about a McConnell isn't, it's not as if, it's not as if people haven't heard that or worse, 10 times worse before. But he's, he's now, you know, he's not. in charge anymore. He tried to, you know, push us around at the beginning and we said, no, we stood up, our whole caucus and, you know, it's hard with 50 votes. I don't want anyone to think

we can snap our fingers and make things happen. But we're, we're, I determine what's put on the floor and it's going to be a whole different world than McConnell's world. Well, so speaking of McConnell, one more question I do have about him is that his legacy will have been reshaping the judiciary with young ideologues to lifetime appointment. We haven't seen that yet. So what's the plan for confirming judges on the left? We are going to put, you know, there are lots of vacancies because McConnell changed the rules.

It's only two hours of debate or the district court judges. And I've already told the Biden administration, we've got to get a whole lot lined up and we will just go through them. If it's two hours, we'll go boom, boom, boom, boom. They have put such nasty right-wing people on the bench. We have to balance it and balance it. balance it quickly. And we will. We first, our first job had been to confirm Biden's cabinet. You know, we had three jobs, Brian, when we started out. People said, how are they going

to get all these done at once? Impeachment trial? I think we conducted an impeachment proceeding that was fair, but strong. Even though we didn't get enough Republicans, only seven the American people saw what a dastardly actor Trump was in this and that he was the fomenter and cause of this. Still the most bipartisan conviction vote in U.S. history. Yes, exactly. And we did it in a fair way. The second thing we had to do, of course, is pass ARP. But we also had to get the president's cabinet put in first.

And we have just about completed it by next week. Every cabinet official will be in. It's historic. Yesterday, we confirmed Depp Holland, the first Native American to be in the cabinet. That's huge. Now Native Americans who've been so left out. We'll have a voice, and that's great. And she will also make sure that the public lands, which she has jurisdiction over, which

when Trump was there, they were just letting oil and gas run roughshod over our beautiful public lands. That'll be undone. By the way, and with Native Americans, another part of this bill, they got $20 billion in aid. Never before have Native Americans done as well, including people who have been excluded from the American experiment. So now that we're finished the cabinet, we will go on to judges. we will have to work really hard and really strong and get strong, progressive judges to balance these horrible right-wingers

who he put on the bench. Great. Well, that's good news, and we're looking forward to it. So Senator Schumer, thank you so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it. Brian, I enjoyed it. I'll come on again. I really enjoyed your show. Thanks again to Chuck Schumer. That's it for this episode. Talk to you next week. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen, Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie,

interviews captured and edited for YouTube and Facebook by Nicholas Nicotera, and recorded in Los Angeles, California. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app. Feel free to leave a five-star rating and a review, and check out Brian Tyler Cohen.com for links to all of my other channels.