That very power is a reason I think there's a few hold outs on the Democrat side that don't want to get rid of it. The senate is naturally stacked against the democrats as the parties are currently aligned so a few don't want to risk giving up that power. There's also a number who (at least claim to) believe that the unlimited debate is an important part of the Senate.
Personally I think it's a relic that's getting in the way of passing the exact legislation that will make Democrats more popular (and make it easier to vote to counteract some extremely blatant voter suppression happening in red states).
[0] consider 3 senators working 8 hour shifts of 8 on 16 off. That would be maintainable for a very long time.
The power of the minority was a crappy compromise to get the less densely populated states (not coincidentally southern slave owning states) to sign on to the constitution. The original Articles of Confederation were even worse requiring basically unanimity to pass federal laws and taxes. The whole job of the Senate was to appease those same states. Do any other countries have this kind of explicit carve out for land (essentially) getting an equal weight?
I think a government where the majority party can't actually implement any kind of agenda is a fundamentally broken government.
> I dont understand why states have to wait around for the federal government to solve healthcare.
Because they're ironically forbidden by federal law. Several legislators in CA would love to bring a statewide single-payer healthcare bill forward, but funding it would require using federal Medicare dollars in ways that require permission from the US Congress. Guess how likely that'll be forthcoming?
I think this is a big sustaining source of disillusion with the US government. Cynical minorities have a pretty easy way to make people hate the opposition by just blocking everything, this was even explicitly acknowledged by McConnel as their strategy. Block everything no matter how small.
Now, it’s also possible that we’re suffering from the two party hell we’ve created and that we have an overstated (too large) minority party that doesn't reflect the wishes of any reasonable fraction of our people... I tend to think this is more of a problem than people realize. We need voting reform to bring more plurality into govt operations and lawmaking.
Republican Senators don't seem to care if an agenda is supported by a majority of registered Republican voters.
Anyhow, the Senate must be reformed or abolished. Land does not require representation. Give every state a guaranteed 2 senators, I suppose, but some reasonable formula should be implemented that apportions more populous states additional senators.
Harry Reid previously lowered cloture threshold for non SCOTUS appointments, but only after Republicans act(ed) in bad faith and refused to "Advice and Consent."
They refused to confirm 2 very important seats for 'cost savings' and claimed that the DC circuit was 'underworked.' This is in the context of anti-Obama everything and no matter how milquetoast the nominee was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option#Use_in_2013_and...
The bit about Manchin is fact, though. They can't change the rule without him, and he doesn't want to eliminate the filibuster. He did say that he would consider modifying it to make it more difficult, however.
He's being far more cooperative than, say, Liebermann was while passing the ACA, and his actual goal is to say he's fighting those out of control big city liberals by keeping the filibuster, but the changes he'll allow will make it completely different and more or less how it was in the 90s.
Sinema also wants to keep it and seems to actually be a true believer, which is dumb and not even what her voters want, so who knows what's up with that.
I don't think we can be too charitable towards Manchin considering his other stances. That said, you raise a good point: changing the filibuster doesn't really change his position; he's still an essential vote to pass any legislation in a tied senate, so he benefits from either outcome. I suppose, all other things being equal, it makes sense for him to nominally oppose ending the filibuster for the sake of his base.
With two parties both jockey for position in being as close to center as possible while still appearing unique. To leave the center is to sacrifice those voters to the opposition. This is why first past the post voting is stable yet nearly useless.
Democrats consist of actual liberals, marxists, authoritatians, etc.
Republicans consist of actual fiscal conservatives, the religious, libertarians, etc.
Both are unhappy alliances and occasionally fracture and spill one of these constituencies and the opposition rushes to appeal to them.