Nuclear Option Regrets, Democrats Have Had A Few

FLASHBACK: Leader McConnell Warned Democrats The Day They Went Nuclear On The Filibuster For Nominations: ‘You Will Regret This, And You May Regret It A Lot Sooner Than You Think’

SENATE REPUBLICAN LEADER MITCH McCONNELL (R-KY), 2013: “I say to my friends on the other side of the aisle, you will regret this, and you may regret it a lot sooner than you think.” (Sen. McConnell, Congressional Record, S. 8416, 11/21/2013)

After Voting For The Nuclear Option In 2013, Chuck Schumer Said In 2017 He ‘Wish[es] It Hadn’t Happened’

“Sen. Chuck Schumer lamented Tuesday the Democrats’ move to diminish the number of senators needed to confirm Cabinet picks from 60 votes to 51, because the new rule now hurts his party.” (“Schumer: I Wish We Hadn’t Triggered ‘Nuclear Option’” CNN, 1/03/2017)

• SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): “I argued against it at the time. I said both for Supreme Court and in Cabinet should be 60 because on such important positions there should be some degree of bipartisanship…. I won on Supreme Court, lost on Cabinet. But it’s what we have to live with now.” (“Schumer: I Wish We Hadn’t Triggered ‘Nuclear Option’” CNN, 1/03/2017)

• SCHUMER: “Wish it hadn’t happened.” (“Schumer: I Wish We Hadn’t Triggered ‘Nuclear Option’” CNN, 1/03/2017)

Senate Democrats Lamented, ‘Probably The Biggest Mistake I Ever Made Was Voting On The Rule Change On Judges,’ ‘That Is The Worst Vote I Have Taken As A Senator, And I Apologize For That Vote,’ ‘I Do Regret That,’ ‘I Don’t Think We Should’ve Made That Change’

“Senate Democrats are eager to make Donald Trump pay a political price for nominating staunch conservatives to fill out his Cabinet … But there is little they can do about it – and some top Democrats are now coming to regret it. That’s because Senate Democrats muscled through an unprecedented rules change in 2013 to weaken the power of the minority party to filibuster Cabinet-level appointees and most judicial nominees, now setting the threshold at 51 votes – rather than 60 … With the Senate GOP poised to hold 52 seats next Congress, some Democrats now say they should have thought twice before making the rules change -- known on Capitol Hill as the ‘nuclear option.’” (“Senate Dems, Powerless To Stop Trump Nominees, Regret ‘Nuclear Option’ Power Play,” CNN, 12/06/2016)

SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): “I’d like to see us get back to 60, it may be a decision in procedure that has to be delayed a few years, so that no side thinks they’re gaining it to the disadvantage of the other side, but I think we ought to get back to 60 so we’re going to get more bipartisan candidates.” (MSNBC’s “MTP Daily,” 10/02/2018)

SEN. JON TESTER (D-MT): “It’s [court packing] like changing the rules of the Senate. I think it’s a mistake. Probably the biggest mistake I ever made was voting on the rule change on judges.” (“2020 Dems Warm To Expanding Supreme Court,” Politico, 3/18/2019)

SEN. MICHAEL BENNET (D-CO): “[I]n 2013, out of desperation, I came to this floor and voted to change the rules so that President Obama could actually get some nominees confirmed, some judges confirmed, and some administrative appointments confirmed. I have said on this floor before that that is the worst vote I have taken as a Senator, and I apologize for that vote. I share some of the responsibility for where we find ourselves today. The majority leader said at that time: ‘You’re going to come to regret this decision.’ And I will say this about him: He was right.” (Sen. Bennet, Congressional Record, S. 2214-15, 4/03/2019)

• “My question about court packing really got [Sen. Michael] Bennet [D-CO] animated. He believes strongly that Trump won in 2016 as a direct result of McConnell blockading Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court, and he’s angry that the majority leader went nuclear in 2017 after Democrats filibustered Neil Gorsuch. But he volunteered without prompting that he doesn’t have a totally clean nose. Referring to Harry Reid ending the filibuster for circuit court judges in 2013 … which he supported at the time, Bennet said: ‘We didn’t always follow the rules. We changed the rules. People can decide whose fault it was. There’s plenty of blame to go around. My point is that we owe something much better than this to the American people.’” (“The Daily 202: Decrying Court Packing, Michael Bennet Pleads With Democrats To Care More About Electability,” The Washington Post, 3/18/2019)

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): “I would’ve liked to see 60 votes, no matter what the judge is. I don’t think we should’ve made that change, when we look back at it.” (“Sen. Klobuchar: Democrats Shouldn’t Have Gone ‘Nuclear’ On Judicial Nominees,” The Washington Post, 9/02/2018)

• “Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who sits on the Judiciary Committee, said Sunday that she regrets that her party eliminated the filibuster for approving most judicial nominees…. If the Democrats regain the majority next year, she said, she’d support bringing it back.” (“Sen. Klobuchar: Democrats Shouldn’t Have Gone ‘Nuclear’ On Judicial Nominees,” The Washington Post, 9/02/2018)

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): “I do regret that…. I frankly think many of us will regret that in this Congress because it would have been a terrific speed bump, potential emergency break, to have in our system to slow down nominees.” (“Senate Dems, Powerless To Stop Trump Nominees, Regret ‘Nuclear Option’ Power Play,” CNN, 12/06/2016)

SEN. JEANNE SHAHEEN (D-NH): “I would remind people there was a lot of interest in getting rid of the filibuster for judges and for the Supreme Court, and that has not served us well.” (“If Progressives Want To Nuke The Filibuster, They’re Going To Have To Convince A Bunch Of Democrats First,” Huffington Post, 2/06/2019)

SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA): “I would wish we wouldn’t even have started this a decade ago. When the Democratic leaders actually changed the rules, I don’t think we would have the Supreme Court we did if we still had a 60-vote margin on the filibuster, but we are where we are.” (“Warner Regrets Harry Reid's Filibuster Change: ‘I Wish We Wouldn't Even Have Started This,’” Fox News, 7/25/2021)

FORMER SEN. MAX BAUCUS (D-MT): “In 2013 I bowed to party pressure and voted for the nuclear option. I made a mistake. It was a bad idea then, it’s a bad idea now.… It’s not a good idea.” (Sen. Max Baucus, Op-Ed, “Senate Filibuster Has Helped Montana,” Billings Gazette, 12/30/2018)

• BAUCUS: “[Eliminating the filibuster would be] assuring that politics in Washington is more, not less, partisan. The 60-vote requirement encourages compromise. Without it — exercising the so-called nuclear option — the majority party will ride roughshod over the other. Politics will be even more acrimonious. There would be little need for parties to work out an agreement.” (Sen. Max Baucus, Op-Ed, “Senate Filibuster Has Helped Montana,” Billings Gazette, 12/30/2018)

Leader McConnell Is Again Warning Democrats That They Would Swiftly Regret The Nuclear Winter Left Behind By Voting To Eliminate The Legislative Filibuster

SENATE REPUBLICAN LEADER MITCH McCONNELL (R-KY): “The Senate Democrats who are pressuring our colleagues from Arizona and West Virginia to reverse themselves are not just arguing for some procedural tweak. They are arguing for a radically less stable and less consensus-driven system of government. Forget about enduring laws with broad support. Nothing in federal law would be settled. Does anyone really believe the American people were voting for an entirely new system of government by electing Joe Biden to the White House and a 50-50 Senate? That may be what a few liberal activists want. Does anyone believe that’s what millions of Americans just thought they were electing? Of course it’s not.” (Sen. McConnell, Remarks, 3/16/2021)

• LEADER McCONNELL: “Some Democratic Senators seem to imagine this would be a tidy trade-off. If they could just break the rules on a razor-thin majority, sure, it might damage the institution, but then nothing would stand between them and their entire agenda. A new era of fast-track policymaking. Anyone who really knows the Senate knows that is not what would actually happen. Let me say this very clearly for all 99 of my colleagues: Nobody serving in this chamber can even begin to imagine what a completely scorched-earth Senate would look like. None of us have served one minute in a Senate that was completely drained of comity and consent. This is an institution that requires unanimous consent to turn the lights on before noon… To proceed with a garden-variety floor speech… To dispense with the reading of lengthy legislative text... To schedule committee business… To move even noncontroversial nominees at anything besides a snail’s pace... I want my colleagues to imagine a world where every single task requires a physical quorum — for which the Vice President does not count, by the way. Everything that Democratic Senates did to Presidents Bush and Trump… everything the Republican Senate did to President Obama… would be child’s play compared to the disaster that Democrats would create for their own priorities if they break the Senate. This is not a trade-off between trampling etiquette but then getting to quickly transform the country. That’s a false choice. Even the most basic aspects of our colleagues’ agenda, the most mundane tasks of the Biden presidency, would be harder, not easier, for Democrats in a post-‘nuclear’ Senate that’s 50-50. If the Democrats break the rules to kill Rule 22, on a 50-50 basis, then we will use every other rule to make tens of millions of Americans’ voices heard.” (Sen. McConnell, Remarks, 3/16/2021)

• LEADER McCONNELL: “And then there’s the small matter that majorities are never permanent. The last time a Democratic Leader was trying to start a ‘nuclear’ exchange, I offered a warning. I said my colleagues would regret it a lot sooner than they think. And just a few years and a few Supreme Court vacancies later, many of our Democratic colleagues said publicly that they did. Touching the hot stove again would yield the same result. But even more dramatic. 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 input from the other side…. So this pendulum would swing both ways — hard.” (Sen. McConnell, Remarks, 3/16/2021)

• LEADER McCONNELL: “[W]hen our Republican majority stood on principle and refused to wreck the rules, our Democratic colleagues happily used the filibuster themselves. In some cases, they flat-out blocked legislation, like Senator Tim Scott’s police reform. In many other cases, Democrats did what minority parties always do, and leveraged the existence of the filibuster to influence must-pass legislation long before it got to the floor. There’s so much emphasis on the most extreme bills that either party might pass with a simple majority. People forget that the Senate’s 60-vote threshold is the only reason that any routine, must-pass legislation is bipartisan except during divided government. Big funding deals. Appropriations bills. Farm bills. Highway bills. The NDAA. The Senate’s 60-vote threshold backstops all of it. It’s not just about controversial items; it’s about everything we do.” (Sen. McConnell, Remarks, 3/16/2021)