The reconstitution of the Republican Party from the nation’s conservative redoubt into an instrument of one man’s will is almost totally complete.
Sen. John Cornyn has just added another line to the GOP obituary with his capitulation to President Donald Trump’s insistence that the Senate filibuster be extinguished to ensure the passage of Trump’s legislative priorities.
Trump has never respected institutions or appeared to have any understanding that these are part of the foundational support of our democracy and social order. He is a personification of ends-justify-the-means politics that flies in the face of true conservative principles.
Cornyn, who once upon a time stood for those principles, has had to accept the realpolitik of life in the Republican Party under Trump and appears to have now surrendered something he once fiercely protected — the institution of the Senate.
Opinion
There is little question that Trump’s endorsement will be determinative in the runoff between Cornyn and our ethically challenged attorney general, Ken Paxton. Trump had strongly suggested that he would endorse Cornyn and call for Paxton to drop out.
But lo, an opportunity emerged through a cynical triangulation Paxton dreamed up. Paxton promised to drop out, but only if the Senate passed a voter ID law known as the SAVE Act that Trump has been pumping up. Trump, who still lives in the fiction that he won the 2020 presidential election, has pushed the SAVE Act as a top GOP priority. But to pass the SAVE Act would require dumping the filibuster.
So Paxton, in a last-minute bid to save himself, offered a devil’s bargain. Anyone who watches Congress understands that all sorts of bad ideas, usually from the left, have run aground against the filibuster. The rule has also led to bad outcomes, stopping good laws from being passed.
But on the whole, the rule requires the Senate to be a more deliberative, cautious body. In today’s land of radicalized politics, it has been both a buffer and a barrier. But we believe that, absent the rule, whoever held the narrow majority would abuse it. By forcing compromise to reach a 60-vote filibuster-proof threshold, the rule protects the minority from the tyranny of the majority.
Cornyn was among the filibuster’s first defenders when Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., led an effort to “reform” the rule during the Biden administration. Now, looking at his political future, Cornyn says it’s time for a change.
“I believe that Democrats, with their votes and statements, have already dealt the filibuster a fatal blow: The Senate rules will change eventually, whether Republicans like it or not,” he wrote in the New York Post.
In other words, something bad will happen, so we better do the bad thing first.
Cornyn likely has no choice here politically. Trump’s will must be done, or there will be consequences.
Pity is probably the right response. But the pity would be better spent on the nation at large.
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