GOP support for eliminating filibuster picks up steam after Trump pressure

Senate Republican support for eliminating the filibuster is picking up momentum after President Trump invited members of the Senate GOP conference to the White House for a breakfast meeting Wednesday to demand they reform the Senate’s rules in order to reopen the government.

Changing the Senate’s rules with a simple majority vote to eliminate the 60-vote threshold for advancing most legislation would be very controversial — so controversial that it’s called the “nuclear option” — but a growing number of Senate Republicans are calling for a review of the matter.

As of now, there aren’t 50 Republican senators who would vote to change the rules to reopen the government and speed the rest of Trump’s agenda through Congress, but Trump’s pressure campaign is having an effect.

Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), who was elected to the Senate last year and previously served four terms in the majority-run House, said he agrees with Trump.

“I do agree with him. I understand why he’s frustrated. The government shutdown is the Democrats’ fault; it’s unacceptable,” he said. “We have a short period, window of time, to do the things that we promised our voters that we would do. The filibuster is standing in the way of balanced budgets and cutting spending, on top of other things like passing vote ID laws.”

Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) told The Hill after meeting with Trump that he doesn’t want to terminate the filibuster but asserted “desperate times call for desperate measures.”

“This is not something I want to do, but the Democrats are almost pushing us to do it. Obviously, the president calling this meeting [shows] how large of a priority it is to him, as well.”

Marshall said Wednesday’s meeting at the White House was entirely devoted to the president pressing for filibuster reform, and “nothing else.”

Trump has been running a full-court press on eliminating the filibuster for the better part of a week.

He warned on social media Tuesday that “Democrats are far more likely to win the Midterms, and the next Presidential Election, if we don’t do the Termination of the Filibuster.”

He predicted that “if we do terminate the Filibuster, we will get EVERYTHING approved, like no Congress in History” and warned that Democrats are sure to end the filibuster once they regain power to pass their own agenda through the Senate.

His entreaties have changed the minds of Republican senators such as Sen. Tommy Tuberville (Ala.), who declared during last year’s Senate Republican leadership election that he wanted the filibuster preserved by the next GOP leader.

“No. No. No. We need to keep the filibuster,” Tuberville told NBC News in November.

After meeting with Trump on Wednesday, however, Tuberville said the nuclear option needs to be on the table.

“He’s searching for ways to get things done. If that’s the way to do it, so be it,” Tuberville.

He said he now supports Trump’s call to eliminate the filibuster.

“At the end of the day, if we’re going to get anything done the next three years, we got to have some kind of path forward. Democrats are not going to vote for anything,” he said.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), said that hundreds of thousands of constituents in Missouri face going hungry because of the imminent expiration of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.

He said he would support ending the filibuster to reopen government, warning that otherwise the country faces a “humanitarian crisis” because of hunger.

“This is real suffering and it needs to end, it needs to end as quickly as possible. The president must have said that 20 times today,” Hawley said after meeting with Trump.

“We have got to end this ASAP,” he added. “I will just say this to my Democrat colleagues: If you’re going to put me personally to the choice between providing food assistance to 42 million needy Americans or defending some arcane rule of the Senate, I’m going to choose people.”

Even Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who has long resisted calls to eliminate the filibuster, on Tuesday opened the door a crack to considering rules reform.

“There’s many good reasons to preserve the filibuster,” he said, warning of what Democrats would do once they regain power if unchecked by the 60-vote threshold for passing legislation through the Senate.

He cited statehood for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, packing the Supreme Court and undermining the Second Amendment.

But he said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) “is causing some question” about preserving the filibuster because of his “intransigence” about reopening the government.

“I think we ought to consider all options,” he said. “My position hasn’t really changed but I’m willing to listen.”

While sentiment is shifting within the Senate Republican conference in favor of eliminating the filibuster, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said Wednesday there aren’t enough votes to do so.

“I think the president’s views on the filibuster have been long-held. It’s not like it’s a surprise to anybody. It’s what he honestly believes,” Thune told reporters after the meeting.

“As I’ve said before, there are not the votes there,” he said. “The main thing we have to be focused on right now, in my view, is get the government opened up again. My hope and expectation is that in the course of the next few days that we have a shot at doing that.”

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a libertarian-leaning conservative, who attended Wednesday’s meeting at the White House, defended the filibuster and said it’s an important tool to keeping the growth of government in check.

“On balance, more legislation over the history of a country restricts your liberty than enhances your liberty. Making legislation more difficult to pass, requiring a supermajority kind of helps to encourage compromise, helps to encourage solutions that aren’t too far to one extreme. I think the filibuster is useful in that way,” he said.

“Sure we could pass some things we want that would be helpful but there are many things the Democrats are proposing to do without the filibuster: Adding states to the union, nationalizing elections,” he said.

“I think if we went to a simple-majority system, we’d be very sorry,” Paul added.

Other hard Republican “no’s” on ending the filibuster include Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).

Cruz said Tuesday there’s “zero chance” that Senate Republicans will get rid of the filibuster.

“There is not the support for doing so in the Senate,” he said.

Thune and Senate Republican Policy Committee Chairman James Lankford (R-Okla.) have also expressed opposition to eliminating the 60-vote threshold for advancing legislation.

Senate Republicans control 53 seats.

Al Weaver contributed.