President Biden acted quickly in his early days to start meeting his agenda, signing executive orders and outlining new actions to improve the economy, fight climate change and close the racial wealth gap. But his most significant move may, in fact, be a reaffirmation of an old position – that the Senate must protect the obstruction, the 60-vote limit that has for years blocked expansive legislation, including on issues it now seeks to address.
Progressive complaints about the obstruction increased this week after Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, initially refused to agree to the basic rules of operation of the chamber, unless Democrats agreed to maintain procedural tactics. But it remained only a grumble, reflecting the progressives’ desire to avoid intraparty war at the start of Biden’s tenure and his belief, more widely shared in Washington, that his hand could eventually be forced.
Some argue that Biden and the Senate resisters will accept the idea once Republicans block a popular law, such as the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, in honor of the civil rights hero who died last year. Others feel that Biden’s desire to be seen as a transformational president will overwhelm his Washington traditionalist instincts.
“We have to acknowledge that the Senate has fundamentally changed since President Biden served,” said Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, a progressive who endorsed the removal of the obstruction. “And it made it impossible to move forward on the important issues.”
“You cannot be unrealistically nostalgic for a time that will not come back,” he added. “The Senate is not returning to an earlier state.”
Biden’s commitment to maintaining the Senate obstruction dates back to the political debates that animated the Democratic presidential primaries. At that time, candidates including Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Kamala Harris of California – Biden’s eventual candidate and vice president – expressed openness to eliminate the obstruction or directly asked for its removal.
Their logic was informed by years of congressional stalemate under former President Barack Obama and the magnitude of the challenges the country faces: Big problems need big solutions, they argued, and the obstruction was a block to progress. Biden himself expressed a willingness to rethink his position last summer, under pressure to unite the party’s ideological wings and defeat Donald J. Trump.
“It will depend on how loud they become,” said Biden of Republicans at the time.
Now in office, he appears to have closed the window – a reflection of a campaign that was centered on working beyond the lines of the party and its history as a Washington negotiator who was respectful of bipartisan civility.
With the Senate split 50/50 between Democrats and Republicans, this could enable McConnell and a small group of moderate voices to block almost any part of the legislation. This could condemn Biden to the same fate as his Democratic presidential predecessor, who blamed Republican obstructionism for blocking a more robust liberal agenda.
Markey said he is confident that if Biden starts to experience the same fate, he will support a change in the Senate procedure.
“Deal with the Senate as it exists today,” said Markey. “And I believe that when and if the key components of its agenda are blocked, the government will see how much of an obstacle is an obstacle.”
He added: “It is an obstacle to progress and justice.”
Still, groups of progressive activists and liberal lawmakers have largely contained the fire in response to Biden’s position, responding more with a shrug than a battle cry. In interviews, several leaders said it was too early to push for the removal of the obstruction. They also said Biden would change his mind as soon as his promise to “rebuild better” faced the full reality of partisanship in Congress.
Brian Fallon, the former press secretary for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, said that most activists expected Biden’s initial opposition and incorporated it into their strategies. He predicted that Democrats would link an eventual total effort to remove the obstruction to a widely supported bill, rather than facing the issue in a vacuum. And for some senators – and for the president – it is important that removing the obstruction is seen as a last resort.
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Biden’s rhetoric remains focused on unity and compromise, “said Fallon. “But he is governing in a way that makes me think that he is betting on really getting results and making a big impact.”
Fallon added that he was optimistic that Biden and his government would soon recognize the need to get rid of the obstruction.
Waleed Shahid, a spokesman for Justice Democrats, a progressive group that supports the primaries against the more centrist House Democrats, said what was at stake in this fight would define Biden’s presidency. His group did not try to pressure Biden or the Senate Democrats who blocked the removal of the obstruction.
“We have a unique opportunity in a generation to bring great improvements to people’s lives, and there is really no way to do that without allowing the majority to rule in the Senate,” said Shahid. “Democrats do have wind in their sails. If they don’t reform the obstruction, they can waste this moment. “
Like the majority party, Democrats could act to eliminate the obstructionist and force a change in the rules on simple majority voting – a move known as detonating the “nuclear option” – if all 50 of its members held together and the Harris vice president escalated the tiebreaker vote.
But many Democratic congressmen are reluctant to go that route, giving Biden broad political coverage, at least for the time being.
Moderate Democratic senators who are central to the party’s chances of holding the majority – like Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona – firmly reiterated their intention to maintain the obstruction. Asked if there was any scenario that would change his opinion, Mr. Manchin said: “None.” A spokeswoman for Ms. Sinema told The Washington Post that she “was not willing to change her mind”.
Even among liberal senators, in both battlefield states and safe blue seats, there is hardly any fervor to remove the obstruction that existed in the Democratic presidential primaries. Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock of Georgia, whose victories earlier this month gave Democrats their dreams of a united government, largely avoided the issue. Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, one of the most liberal states in the country, has often expressed her caution in ending the tradition.
The minority party often uses obstruction to block signature items from the majority party’s agenda, and some Democrats fear that without it, they would be powerless to stop Republicans the next time they control the Senate.
Resistances obscure the shifting political winds in the Democratic caucus and the growing consensus among the popular base that the party must take a firm stand against Republican obstructionism and stop hoping for a deal.
Faiz Shakir, a political adviser to Sanders who also worked for Harry Reid, the former Senate majority leader, said McConnell’s initial refusal to agree to operational rules may have helped opponents of obstruction in the long run by giving Democrats an early view of the opposition that your agenda will face.
Mr. Shakir reported on Mr. Reid’s 2013 effort to eliminate the use of obstruction in all nominees for the presidency, except those for the Supreme Court, which faced a lack of initial support even among Democrats. Building a consensus took time, said Shakir.
“I have no doubt that Schumer and his team know every Democrat who is afraid to end the obstruction,” he said. “They will spend time working on them.”
The desire to remove the obstruction was once seen as an unstable debate among Washington members, until the Republican opposition to Obama’s agenda brought the issue up. Calls for an end to the obstruction were highest during the Trump administration, when Republicans abolished it for Supreme Court nominees and confirmed Judge Neil M. Gorsuch.
In July, proponents received a huge boost from Obama, who launched the tactic as a “Jim Crow relic” during his praise for Lewis, the Georgia congressman.
Reid, who previously supported maintaining obstruction, now argues that Republicans have exploited the tactic to promote an unpopular agenda. “It will not harm the Senate,” he said in a recent interview. “The Senate will be fine. The congress will be fine. “
Some believe Obama’s move is a harbinger of the path Biden can take, although the two men have entirely different political origins. Obama was a newcomer to Washington at the time of his accession to the presidency, although he sought to show deference to Capitol rules. These rules are intertwined in the bones of Biden, a by-product of nearly half a century as a legislator.
Adam Jentleson, another former Reid aide who recently wrote a book on Senate transformation, said: “You basically have to be delusional to think that McConnell is preparing to lead Republicans in a revival of bipartisan cooperation.”
He doesn’t think Mr. Biden is.
“There will be a clear choice between reform or failure,” said Jentleson. “And I am confident that when faced with that choice, Biden will make the right decision.”