Democrats’ blowup over funding the government isn’t just triggering a fight about the future of the party. It is reopening old wounds they had hoped to move past, too.
After an ultimately unsuccessful effort to eliminate the filibuster during former President Joe Biden’s term roiled Democrats, the party is now once again relitigating the Senate procedural move.
Internal Strife Erupts
Democrats across the ideological spectrum have sharply criticized Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s decision Friday to break a filibuster and advance the Republican-backed stopgap funding bill, illustrating a growing divide both across the two congressional chambers and intergenerationally.
“The same Dems who argue to keep the filibuster ‘for when we need it’ do not, in fact, use it when we need it,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) posted to X on Saturday.
The New York progressive was responding to a post from former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema — who was reviled by much of the Democratic base in part because of her opposition to eliminating the filibuster — who has been calling out Democrats online Saturday for their past criticism of her.
“Change of heart on the filibuster, I see!” Sinema wrote on X, referring to an article where Ocasio-Cortez said she felt a “deep sense of outrage and betrayal” at Schumer. She included an old post where Ocasio-Cortez slammed her for supporting the filibuster, calling for Sinema to be primaried.
Sinema ultimately left the Democratic Party at the end of 2022, in no small part due to major breaks with much of the party over protecting the filibuster and higher tax rates. She mulled an independent run in 2024 before ultimately retiring.
She also posted a list of Democrats who have campaigned or voted to eliminate the filibuster, but who also, in effect, voted on Friday to support one in an ultimately failed attempt to stop the GOP-led government funding bill from going through.
President Donald Trump signed the spending patch into law on Saturday.
Historical Context of the Filibuster
Senate rules allowing for a filibuster generally require 60 senators to support a piece of legislation before it can pass. The filibuster used to be rare, but it’s become a major tool for the minority party in recent years.
Then-Democratic leader Harry Reid first took a major swipe at the filibuster in 2013 with the “nuclear option,” eliminating the filibuster for virtually all presidential nominations. Republicans responded in turn in 2017 by eliminating it for Supreme Court justices.
During the Biden administration, Democrats advocated scrapping the filibuster to pass laws on voting and reproductive rights, but Sinema and now former-Sen. Joe Manchin both publicly defended the tradition, effectively ensuring its survival.
Now, many Democrats have expressed their concern with Senate Democratic leadership’s unwillingness to use it to push back against the funding bill that none of them agreed with. And they’re trading quips with Sinema about it online.
Intense Debates and Reactions
Ocasio-Cortez argued in response to Sinema that the filibuster has primarily targeted legislation proposed by Democrats, but with Republican legislation it has fallen flat.
“Could have proved us wrong,” she wrote on X. “Instead they proved the point.”
Sinema responded minutes later that “zero Senate Democrats” support the filibuster, but 38 voted to use it on Friday.
She also singled out House Democratic Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.).
In an old post, Japayal outlined legislation that could not be passed with a filibuster in place, calling to abolish the “Jim Crow filibuster,” a reference to how the maneuver was used to preserve segregation and prevent several civil rights bills from passing in the mid-1900s.
“Just surprised to see support for the ‘Jim Crow filibuster’ here,” Sinema wrote on X.
Khanna hit back at Sinema’s post, arguing the filibuster had been responsible for burying any attempts to raise the federal minimum wage and had hurt Democrats in the 2024 election.
“Had we raised the wage & delivered childcare we could have had President Harris,” Khanna wrote on X.
Sinema called it “a breathtakingly undemocratic take” that eliminating the filibuster to block Republican debate and pass Democrat-led legislation would allow Democrats to win elections.
And when asked about the 38 Democrats who voted to use the filibuster against the funding bill, Sinema said on X, “Yes dear the hypocrisy is the point.”
