It’s the filibuster, not the Save Act, that should have people worried

People discussing the SAVE Act are missing a very frightening possibility. 

Eliminating the filibuster—an action  President Trump appears to support if necessary to pass the controversial SAVE Act. Criticism of the act centers on stricter requirements for voter registration and photo ID for voting. 

The filibuster is a stopgap measure in the Senate to prevent a political party majority from forcing its agenda on Americans. It requires 60 votes and not a simple majority to pass legislation in the upper house. As George Washington said, “We pour legislation into the senatorial saucer to cool it.”

It would be an absolute catastrophe for America if the filibuster were eliminated. 

Why did the Big Beautiful Bill pass? No filibuster for the budget reconciliation process. Same reason the Inflation Reduction Act passed.

The former includes healthcare changes many people find odious. The latter is the Green New Deal in disguise and, according to experts, will have no real effect on inflation. 

It gets worse. Why do you think we have this hyper-conservative Supreme Court? A tag team between the Democrats and Republicans. 

The seeds for this conservative Court were sown by Harry Reid when he eliminated filibustering for confirmation of federal justices up to the Supreme Court. 

Then Mitch McConnell carried the ball forward to the Supreme Court, which is why we have the heavily conservative Supreme Court we have now. 

The filibuster prevents Congress from becoming a tyrannous majority, something our Founding Fathers feared. The fear of a tyrannous majority is why America is a republic, and it’s a republic because a pure democracy crushes the rights of the minority. 

Alexander Hamilton put the need for a representative republic best: “Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.”

Albert DeSimone

Bishop