My column today in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Special to the Post-Gazette

Oct 6, 2025

4:30 AM

As I write this column, the federal government is in a partial shutdown that should not have happened. Governments should never shut down. Shutdowns are caused by structural flaws — primarily the filibuster — and poor judgment by our political leadership — this time the Democratic Party.

The current filibuster to shut down the government is the most irresponsible use of the filibuster yet. Funding the government is one of the basic responsibilities of the Congress. Threatening that is extortion, not legislating. The fact that Republicans have done similar shameful things does not make this any less shameful.

The Democrats’ irresponsibility is enhanced because Donald Trump really doesn’t mind that the government is shut down.

The main cause

The filibuster is the main cause of this shutdown. Senate rules allow a minority of senators to continue debate on certain kinds of bills and Senate actions until 60 senators vote to close debate. A vote to end debate is called a cloture vote. In effect, the filibuster allows 41 senators to prevent some pieces of legislation favored by the majority from passing.

Right now, a Democratic filibuster is preventing a vote on funding the government. If there were a successful cloture vote, there would be 51 Republican votes to reopen the government. But the Republicans lack the 60 votes needed for cloture. The Democrats successfully shut down the government.

The filibuster is not a feature of the Constitution, which anticipates only one-half plus one of the Senate to pass legislation. When the Constitution requires a super-majority — to ratify a treaty, for example — that is specified in the text.

The filibuster is only a matter of Senate rules. Both parties over the years have eliminated it for a variety of Senate actions. It can no longer be used to block most executive branch appointments, nor judicial appointments. And it no longer applies to legislation passed in what is called budget reconciliation.

Because the filibuster is now a piece of swiss cheese, with all sorts of holes, we have the absurd situation that the Republican majority in the Senate only needed 51 votes to pass the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill, which cut government services, and did not extend subsidies for medical insurance under Obamacare, in order to pay for tax cuts.

Democrats passionately opposed this bill, arguing that millions of people would lose health insurance and that rural hospitals would be forced to close. The bill was not popular, but Democrats could not stop it because Republicans have a Senate majority and a Republican President.

A weird twist

But, in a weird twist that no one could justify rationally, keeping the government running is still subject to the filibuster. The Democrats decided to express their opposition to the policies in the One Big Beautiful Bill by refusing to allow a vote on funding government operations. Then the Republicans needed at least a few Democrats to vote for cloture to keep the government running. Democrats insisted that Obamacare subsidies be reinstated as the price of their votes.

Thus, we have the bizarre situation in which only 51 votes are needed to make policy, but 60 votes are needed to pay for them. This tempts the opposition party to demand concessions. Republicans have done this in the past.

Republicans should end this farce by eliminating the filibuster once and for all for everything. The Senate is already anti-majoritarian. It gives every state two senators regardless of population. Why should a mere forty-one senators be permitted to hold the government and the country hostage?

The filibuster was never a good idea. During the 20th Century, it was used primarily by Democratic Party senators from the South to block enactment of civil rights legislation.

But at least when the filibuster applied to everything, and was only used sparingly, it could be justified as requiring compromise on really important changes to national policy. For most of American history, those two conditions prevailed.

Over time, however, partisan lines hardened and political restraint broke down. Now, both parties use the filibuster to block ordinary legislation, like government funding and spending policies, that, like it or not, the people voted for in the previous election. Both parties now filibuster practically everything the other party wants. That is why each party has gradually limited what is subject to the filibuster.

An insult to voters

This shutdown is also an insult to the voters. The people voted to install the Republican party in the White House and give that party control of the Congress. The result has been predictable: tax cuts for the rich and government service cuts for everybody else. The same thing happened in 2017.

Didn’t the people have the right to do this in the 2024 election by voting Republican? All these policies can be easily reversed if the Democrats are returned to power in 2026 and 2028. That is how democracy is supposed to work.

Of course, Republicans will then filibuster Democratic legislative efforts if they can. If the Republicans have not already abolished the filibuster by then, the Democrats can do so.

Bruce Ledewitz is professor of law emeritus at the Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University. He writes every other Monday. His previous article was “The real cause of American political violence isn’t the rhetoric.”

First Published: October 6, 2025, 4:30 a.m.