As the government shutdown enters its 22nd day, some Republicans in both chambers are floating an idea few in their party had ever even entertained: getting rid of the legislative filibuster to bring an end to the morass.
In recent years, Democrats have floated changing the filibuster. Former senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema blocked attempts to create a carveout to codify a new version of the Voting Rights Act. They hoped to do so again with abortion rights as the Supreme Court planned to overturn Roe v Wade in the Dobbs v Jackson decision, only to fail.
But now, some hard-right Republicans are floating the idea.
"My thought is, is that I'm not willing to see children in my state go hungry, which is literally happening now, over some Senate procedure," Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) told The Independent.
He's not alone.
"If it lasts too much longer, that's something to think about," Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) told The Independent. "One thing you could do is have it be 55, and the rules would be, you can't raise spending or taxes, yeah, so put some guardrails around it. But I don't think we're there to have that conversation."
The moment bears striking resemblance to 2013, when Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid invoked the "nuclear option" on the filibuster, the 60-vote threshold required to pass almost anything in the Senate, during Barack Obama's presidency after Republicans repeatedly blocked Obama's nominees.
Reid's choice allowed Obama's lower court nominees and cabinet nominees to move forward. But it also gave Republican Leader Mitch McConnell permission to kill the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees when Trump won the presidency.
It's why some more senior Republicans are warning that the moment they go nuclear, it could have sweeping consequences nobody can predict.
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