Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, is weighing in on President Donald Trump’s call for doing away with the Senate filibuster in an effort to end the government shutdown that began a month ago on Oct. 1.
“[T]hat’s up to the Senate. Of course, it’s their rules. As someone who worked in the Senate and has a pretty good amount of expertise in the Senate, I have always been predisposed to enjoying the ‘cooling saucer’ and the higher threshold to move legislation through the Senate,” Roy told The Daily Signal.
The term “cooling saucer” is a metaphor for the Senate serving as a moderating force for legislation passed as “hot tea” by the House of Representatives.
Roy, who has represented Texas’s 21st District in Congress since 2019, continued: “That being said, I said a couple of weeks ago that we need to take a long, hard look at a 51-vote threshold, because Democrats are clearly playing games.”
The Texas congressman has extensive experience in the Senate, having previously served as chief of staff for Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and as a staffer for Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.
Roy explained, “It’s more about reclaiming the games that Democrats are playing with the 60-vote threshold for simple common-sense things. We’re not talking about a big, complicated, new piece of legislation that really ought to have a ‘cooling saucer’ approach. We’re talking about a freaking [continuing resolution].”
“Like that’s how bad the Democratic Party has become, that they’re willing to play games, hold the government hostage, all while they’ve been holding the American people hostage to a broken health care system,” the Texas lawmaker continued.
Roy commended the president for his outspokenness on the issue.
“So, I think President Trump was right yesterday to rattle about a 50-plus-one voting option. And look, I’m happy to have that conversation,” he said, adding, “I can also tell you that I’m having strong conversations with my friends in the House about whether we should move either legislation or a constitutional amendment to force this question, because I’m tired of Democrats being the ones that play the games and go, ‘Oh, well, we’ll decide whether we’re going to break 60.’”
Roy said that the Senate could, in theory, lower the number of votes needed to overcome a filibuster so that it was still more than a simple majority, but less than 60 votes. That could potentially enable the GOP to end the government shutdown and pass more of their priorities without opening themselves up to the possibility that radical left-wing legislation gets passed if Democrats control the majority in the future. Republicans have been able to muster support from a few Democrat senators leading to 54- or 55-vote majorities to pay essential federal workers or pass the continuing resolution.
Roy said that he thought the Democrats would abolish the filibuster the next time they controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress and expressed support for senators being required to actually have to speak in order to block legislation through a filibuster.
“If you’re willing to be on the floor debating that, I’m on board, like, keep it up, but if you just got to throw an arbitrary 60 out there, then we better cement that for everybody, because otherwise, I don’t want to unilaterally disarm all my country. It’s getting decimated by liberals every time they get in office and they back-door, through reconciliation, things like Obamacare, and we’re all left holding the bag,” he said.
