Volts podcast: Adam Jentleson on how to make the US Senate work

Long-time readers know that I am a veteran hater of the US Senate, the graveyard of good ideas and progressive policies. America’s upper chamber is one of the world’s least productive and most ridiculous legislative bodies, its dysfunctions matched only by its boundless self-regard. Don’t get me started.

Instead, get Adam Jentleson started! Now there’s a guy who has earned his ire at the Senate. As a senior aide to Democratic leader Harry Reid from 2011 to 2016, Jentleson saw up close and personal how the institution’s antiquated rules (especially the filibuster) can be weaponized against reformers.

He shared what he learned in a book that came out earlier this year: Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy.

I didn’t want to have Jentleson rehash the book — it has been favorably reviewed and he has been on every podcast under the sun to discuss it — but I was quite interested in his thoughts on the current Senate standoff.

Are Democrats going to let the filibuster prevent them from keeping their promises, improving people’s lives, and getting reelected … again? Are they going to allow a small handful of conservative Democratic senators to squelch a once-in-a-decade chance at legislating … again? Can that still be prevented, and if so, how?

Basically, I asked him to explain Joe Manchin to me. Enjoy.

(Anthony Cheng)

David Roberts

Hey there, welcome to Volts. I'm your host, David Roberts.

Lots of people these days feel a deep scorn and antipathy toward the US Senate, one of the most dysfunctional and ridiculous legislative bodies in the world. I very much include myself in that number. But few people have done as much to earn their antipathy as Adam Jentleson, who worked in the bowels of the Senate as a Deputy Chief of Staff for Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid from 2011 to 2016 – the fateful final years of Obama's two terms.

Jentleson got an up close and personal look at all the ways that the rules of the Senate are stacked against reformers, especially the filibuster. He shared what he learned in a new book that came out earlier this year: Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy.

I know that this newsletter is supposed to be about clean energy; I have not forgotten that, I promise. But US democracy is falling apart around us, and it's got me rather preoccupied. So I thought it would be nice to talk to Jentleson, not so much about this in its ugly past, although we will touch on that a little bit, as much as its current politics. What's going on there today, and what can we expect? Basically, I want him to explain Joe Manchin to me.

So with that, welcome to Volts, Adam.

Adam Jentleson

Thank you so much. It's great to be here.

David Roberts

So as we speak, just a few minutes ago, we found out that the Senate Republicans are in fact expected to filibuster the creation of a commission to investigate the January 6th insurrection. This seems like a straightforwardly reactionary move. You know, as I look back on the last few uses of the filibuster, they seem straightforwardly reactionary. You go back a little further to the 60s and 70s, and it was used in pretty straightforwardly reactionary purposes then. Has the filibuster always been a straightforwardly reactionary tool? Or is there anything that a Democrat could point to and say, “Look, it works for us too!” or “Look, there are reasons for us to support it going forwards.” Has it ever worked for Democrats?

Adam Jentleson

Well, I’m going to give you a yes and no answer there. I think the filibuster was reactionary from the very beginning. It was conceived of as a reactionary tool. It was not supposed to exist – it didn't exist for the first half century or so of the Senate's existence. It came into existence largely to empower, not vulnerable minorities to protect them from being trampled by the mob, but rather to increase the power of already powerful minorities, who wanted to have even more power, and in most cases, to stop the marching progress of the majority.

The number one powerful minority that the filibuster was invented to protect was slaveholders in the antebellum period. We could talk about this more, but it was first just this talking filibuster, and there was no super majority threshold. I think something that's really important to understand, that is easy to get lost because of our bias towards the new, is that the Senate was a majority rule body for most of its existence for 200 plus years. It was really only recently that the super majority threshold, this idea that things need 60 votes to pass, started to become frequently used at all. So all that is to say, that it was reactionary in its invention.

David Roberts

So is it fair to say that all this stuff about protecting the rights of the minority and ensuring the small states have a voice and all that is sort of reverse engineered? The original Senate preceded those rationales?

Adam Jentleson

That's right. I mean, a lot of it is just straight up b******t, but some of it is linked to a grain of truth. It is true that the framers wanted the Senate to be one of the checks that they put in place to protect from untrammeled majority rule. But it was the existence of the Senate that was supposed to be a protection against untrammeled majorities.

David Roberts

It’s already minoritarian in its very structure.

Adam Jentleson

Exactly. First of all, the decision to have a bicameral legislature instead of a unicameral legislature was one of these checks. Having three branches of government that act as checks on each other was another one of the checks. And then the Senate itself in its entire democratic structure, having every state get the same number of senators was another check. And then other ones, like having senators be elected to longer terms – six years instead of two, having a higher age requirement, and having to be responsive to a broader statewide constituency, instead of just a district. These were all the ways in which the Senate was supposed to play this role as what people talk about as a cooling saucer.

So when people talk about protecting the minority, you know, they're linking back to this, this grain of truth. But, you know, as you say, it was never supposed to be as anti democratic as it is now. And what people are talking about today is an entirely different vision of this Senate. And it is a vision where the minority has a veto over the majority, which is not what the framers intended at all.

So I just wanted to say, this is the way in which it's reactionary. It hass been used for these purposes, it has primarily been a weapon to preserve white supremacy. It has occasionally come into use for progressives and for Democrats – one of the most famous filibusters was an anti war filibuster in 1917. That actually led to the creation of the rule that is now the rule that imposes a supermajority threshold. But if you look at it on balance, there's just no comparison. It has always been a tool that is far more powerful, and has had far more effect, for the right than for the left. That’s just the nature of the thing.

David Roberts

I sometimes hear Democrats say, “Well, there was that one time George