Sen. Ron Johnson: Move to End the Filibuster Now—Before Democrats Do

The 60-vote threshold stops bad bills, but it also makes it impossible for the GOP to pass good ones. I’ll admit that the 60-vote cloture threshold has prevented many bad bills from becoming law, and that without it bad bills would become law more easily. But it also prevents good bills from getting passed. Before 1917, when senators established the cloture vote in Senate Rule 22, there was no formal way of ending debate (a filibuster) in the Senate. Because unlimited debate was the tradition of the Senate, cloture was invoked only five times in the first approximately 50 years...