Filibuster

Floor Speech

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Mr. MARSHALL. Mr. President, I may be one of the Senate's newest Members, but that does not mean I don't understand the importance of the filibuster to this body or to this Nation as a whole.

Like Senators before me, I have observed the practice from the other side of the Capitol as a Member of the House and have heard the calls from a frustrated majority to eliminate it for the sake of jamming through an agenda and cashing in the political gain that would come from doing so.

But anyone who has an appreciation for our founding knows the purpose of the filibuster is indeed to frustrate the majority, to serve as an additional check in our government, and drive consensus and cooperation. Its purpose is to protect the rights of the minority and prevent the tyranny of the majority--in short, to save us from ourselves.

The Senators supporting the majority leader's effort to eliminate the 60-vote threshold seemed to once understand this too. Just a few years ago, 25 of them cosigned a letter opposing ``any effort to curtail the existing rights and prerogatives of Senators to engage in full, robust, and extended debate.''

Sadly, we are now witnessing the most blatant hypocritical policy switch we have ever seen, as many current Democrat Senators and the President have abandoned these principles.

This flip-flop appears to be all in the name of greed and power. They want to break the filibuster so they can break other institutions, such as the Supreme Court and State-run elections, to rig our political system in their favor because they can't win on their own radical socialist policies.

Without the filibuster, we will see tax laws, immigration rules, and more major policy go up and down like a roller coaster, negatively impacting our economy, creating uncertainty, and making it impossible for long-term business planning.

The filibuster is meant to force both parties to work together to come up with long-lasting policies which will help all Americans.

Take, for example, voting legislation. I want to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat--easier to vote, harder to cheat. With Nancy Pelosi's power grab act and other radical election proposals, the Democrats want to let the Federal Government take over our elections, which is unconstitutional, make it easier to commit fraud, pave the way for mass ballot harvesting, let felons vote, take integrity out of the elections process by prohibiting voter ID--something I am proud to say Kansas requires, voter identification, and it is working--and, finally, route taxpayer dollars toward funding political candidates they may not agree with.

I hope that Members of this body can come together, in a bipartisan way, to tackle the important issue of election integrity without destroying the 60-vote threshold in the Senate.

We have shown, in recent weeks, we can work together in a bipartisan fashion. The Senate voted 88 to 11 to pass the annual Defense authorization bill in December. The HELP Committee is currently working through a bipartisan bill to help tackle future pandemics. We can still tackle major issues in the Senate without abandoning our principles.

The right to extended debate for Members of this body has been preserved for two centuries, longer than the constitutional method of electing Senators via their home State legislature, which was ended when the 17th Amendment was ratified.

It is a dark day that Senators are being forced to come to the Senate floor to defend the 60-vote threshold. It would be one of the body's darkest days if 51 Senators changed the rules and removed our rights to robust debate and the right of our home States to have equal representation in this most distinguished legislative body. And it will come back to haunt them.

The answer to these partisan times is not to double down on partisanship and blow up the filibuster. I pray cooler and wiser heads will prevail, and we will maintain this important function of the Senate. Otherwise, our Nation is destined to become a winner-takes-all system, where the rights of the minority will never again be considered, and our Nation will suffer for it.

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