With Republicans sweeping to a red trifecta in last week’s elections, stunningly capturing the White House and majorities in the House and Senate, Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is cutting a different tone, compared to his pre-election hype where he posited a Democrat win in the Senate and then potentially getting rid of the filibuster, among other radical proposals.
Ending the filibuster rule – which requires 60 votes to pass bills – would have made it easier for Democrats to supercharge their agenda and essentially railroad any Republican opposition.
Schumer and the Democrats tried to kill the filibuster in 2022 when they had 50 votes – the vice president could have broken the tie – but Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema refused to toe the Democratic party line. They eventually became Independents.
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With Manchin and Sinema leaving the Senate, Schumer was confident of having at least 50 Senate seats after this year’s election with a then-potential Vice President Walz breaking the tie on a filibuster vote.
"We got it up to 48, but, of course, Sinema and Manchin voted no; that’s why we couldn’t change the rules. Well, they’re both gone," Schumer told reporters on the Tuesday during the week of the Democratic convention, according to NBC News.
"Ruben Gallego is for it, and we have 51. So, even losing Manchin, we still have 50."
The result would have essentially meant one-party rule in the Senate, with Schumer also toying with expanding voting rights nationwide by passing the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
He also discussed a potential rule change to codify abortion rights in federal law, a party priority after Roe v. Wade was overturned, which would have faced staunch Republican opposition and lacking a path to 60 Senate votes.
Schumer also posited reforming the Supreme Court by slapping 18-year term limits on justices and touted reversing the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling, which determined that presidents are immune from prosecution for some "official acts."
He has previously announced his intention to move legislation that would expand the Supreme Court from nine to 13 members.
But this week, he went to the floor of the Senate to tell Republicans to essentially go easy on their legislative colleagues on the other side of the aisle, since Republicans will have a 53-to-47 majority.
"To my Republican colleagues, I offer a word of caution in good faith," Schumer said.
"Take care not to misread the will of the people, and do not abandon the need for bipartisanship. After winning an election, the temptation may be to go to the extreme. We’ve seen that happen over the decades, and it has consistently backfired on the party in power."
"So, instead of going to the extremes, I remind my colleagues that this body is most effective when it’s bipartisan. If we want the next four years in the Senate to be as productive as the last four, the only way that will happen is through bipartisan cooperation."
Schumer’s about face wasn’t lost on Byron York, chief political correspondent for the Washington Examiner and a Fox News contributor.
"The short version of that is: Please don’t do to us what we were going to do to you," York writes in the Washington Examiner.
"Schumer is obviously concerned that Republicans might embrace a scheme to eliminate the filibuster and pass all sorts of consequential legislation with no Democratic input at all. That wouldn’t be bipartisan!"
"Fortunately for Schumer, Republicans have been more principled than Democrats when it comes to the legislative filibuster, and to the filibuster in general. Republicans realize that even though they will have the majority for the next two years, they might be back in the minority at any time after that. So Schumer will not get it good and hard the way he planned to give it to Republicans."
York writes that Schumer’s "brand of hypocrisy is particularly egregious" since he was advocating changing Senate rules on a partisan basis to eliminate the minority party’s ability to demand a higher standard of approval for controversial legislation, as opposed to advocating to get a particular bill across the line.
"He was. And then, when Schumer’s party loses, he instantly turns around and becomes Mr. Bipartisanship. For that, there should be a word that goes beyond mere hypocrisy."
Senate Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., will replace Schumer as Majority Leader and is planning to make ushering in President-elect Trump's immigration agenda the first item on his to-do list when he succeeds. He has not indicated that he intended to vote on the filibuster rule.
He said repairing the economy is also near the top of his list. As crucial elements of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 passed by Trump are set to expire in 2025, Thune said Republicans will take action through the budget reconciliation process to renew them.
The trifecta will make Trump's agenda easier to pursue without opposition from a Democratic majority. Republicans held a governing trifecta from 2017 to 2019. The GOP achieved much of their agenda, including sweeping tax reform and confirming justices to achieve a conservative majority in the Supreme Court.
But Thune said he would protect the filibuster rule, even if it stands in the way of the Trump agenda it hopes to advance.
Fox News’s Jamie Joseph, Julia Johnson and Tyler Olson contributed to this report.
