An Inconvenient Truth for Democratic. Presidential Candidates

. In 2009, Democrats controlled the White House, the House of Representatives and had 60 of 100 Senators. President Obama couldn’t get a public option for his health care plan. Sixty Senators could defeat a filibuster if they all voted for cloture. He couldn’t get all 60. If the next Senate does not have 51 Senators willing to amend the Senate rules to eliminate the filibuster, there will be no single payer system, or even Medicare for all. So long as the filibuster exists, 41 Republican Senators can block every piece of legislation they wish. As far as I know, only Elizabeth Warren has spoken about abolishing the filibuster.

. Getting rid of the Electoral College and reversing Citizens United both sound nice. But both require passing a Constitutional amendment — which requires an affirmative vote of two-thirds of both houses of Congress and affirmative votes in 38 state legislatures. Good luck! How about working on filibuster reform-something that could actually happen?