What’s McConnell’s Plan for the Debt Limit?

What’s McConnell’s Plan for the Debt Limit?

The minority leader seems to be steering Democrats toward a limited repeal of the filibuster. But why?

If my recent wild speculation was correct and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell actually wants to blow up the filibuster, it appears he may get his way. The good news in that event: It’s very unlikely that the U.S. government will actually breach the debt limit and cause a crippling default. Possible, but unlikely.

The Republicans’ official position, remember, is that the debt limit should be raised but that they should also do everything in their power to prevent it from happening. Specifically, they’re not only voting against an increase (which is fine, and which out-parties have done numerous times) but filibustering any bill that would do what’s necessary. They’re advising — if that’s the correct word? — Democrats to use the fairly complicated reconciliation procedure to raise the debt limit by a simple majority. But without any assurances from Republicans that they’ll agree to streamline this process, which has a variety of potential foot-dragging options, Democrats can’t be sure that they’ll beat the Oct. 18 deadline. 

Until recently, the Democrats’ official position was that they would only proceed with a regular bill, subject to a Senate filibuster, and so Republicans would just have to back down and allow it. But by Tuesday evening, it appeared that they were at least considering the option of a “neutron bomb” or “tactical nuke” approach — that is, carving out an exception in the filibuster exclusively for raising the debt limit. There was talk of a temporary “time bomb” that would allow a majority to act for 24 hours or so. Even West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin gave a somewhat less definitive “no” on the question than he usually does.

Which brings us back to McConnell’s preferences. From 2011 to 2013, Republicans repeatedly either refused compromises that would keep the filibuster intact for judicial and executive-branch nominations, or agreed to compromises and then backed away from them. Eventually, Democrats had little choice but to go “nuclear” and impose changes by majority vote — a reform that worked well for McConnell and the Republicans during Donald Trump’s presidency.

(It’s slightly more complicated. The Democrats exempted Supreme Court nominations from the 2013 change, so it remained necessary to reach 60 votes to beat a filibuster for those confirmations. Republicans changed that immediately when Democrats filibustered Neil Gorsuch’s nomination in 2017. What’s not entirely clear is whether McConnell would’ve had the votes that year to impose the change had Democrats not acted in 2013; it seems likely, but with a 52-seat majority, it’s at least possible that three Republican senators would’ve been reluctant to act. Once Democrats overhauled Senate procedures first, the second reform became inevitable.)

So far, at least, there’s no hint that the executive branch will invoke any of the never-before-used procedures that have been proposed to avoid the debt limit altogether. It’s possible that President Joe Biden might reverse that course as the danger gets closer. But Senate Democrats may well act first. They wouldn’t end the legislative filibuster, but they might just punch a hole in it.

Why would McConnell like that?

For one thing, the filibuster doesn’t just protect minorities from legislation they don’t like; it also protects senators in the majority party from votes they don’t want to take. If Democrats vote to establish a filibuster exception for the debt limit, pressure will increase to do the same for every party priority — including those that lack the votes to pass. If Republicans win House and Senate majorities next year, they may also be able to force Biden to veto lots of things he’d rather not veto in the run-up to the 2024 election. Of course, a future Republican majority could blow up the filibuster regardless of what Democrats do now, but McConnell probably thinks it’ll be easier if Democrats act first.

That said, there are downsides. There’s always the risk that Democrats could pass more items during the current Congress than they would if the filibuster was fully intact. And if McConnell is majority leader in a filibuster-free future, he’ll lose a way to protect his marginal senators from casting tough votes themselves. It could be that McConnell really doesn’t want Democrats to touch the filibuster right now, and is just convinced they won’t do so no matter how much Republicans provoke them.

But it sure seems to me that he’s pushing them to eliminate the procedure.

1. Sarah Binder at the Monkey Cage on raising the debt limit.

2. Michele Swers on the same topic.

3. Julia Azari on the disputatious, but not dysfunctional, Democrats. Exactly correct. I’d add that even if they can’t reach an agreement on the two major bills they’re working on, it’s much more a function of their tiny majorities than a sign of inability to govern.

4. Matthew Green at Mischiefs of Faction on what happens when politicians learn things that are not true.

5. Nate Persily on regulating Facebook Inc.

6. Dan Drezner’s not-especially-friendly reaction to compliments from China.

7. Perry Bacon Jr. on the two big Democratic bills. Not sure I agree on his first point — we’ll see how successful Democratic leaders will be! — but the rest is solid.

8. Annie Lowrey on Biden and trade.

9. Adam Serwer on the war in Afghanistan.

10. And here at Bloomberg Opinion, David Wilcox on eliminating the debt limit.

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