During his remarks at civil rights giant John Lewis's funeral last week, former President Barack Obama took advantage of the opportunity to argue that the Senate filibuster is a "Jim Crow relic" that should be abolished if it gets in the way of a Democrat-authored bill that seeks to restore a provision of the Voting Rights Act from passing. But President Obama himself has used the filibuster, most notably during the confirmation process of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.
It is true that the filibuster was invoked in the past by segregationists, but as Reason's Jacob Sullum explains, that doesn't mean the practice is inherently racist:
Just as the principle of federalism does not qualify as a "Jim Crow relic" simply because segregationists invoked it, the filibuster cannot be deemed irredeemable simply because they found it useful. Like other restraints on the majority's will—including those mandated by the Constitution, such as requiring bicameral approval of legislation and the president's assent in the absence of a congressional supermajority—the filibuster is an ideologically neutral obstacle that makes it harder to pass laws. Whether you think its net impact is good or bad is apt to depend not only on which party happens to be in power but also on your general view of the work that Congress does.
President Obama has not only used the filibuster in the past. He outright endorsed the practice in 2005:
Everyone in this chamber knows that if the majority chooses to end the filibuster — if they choose to change the rules and put an end to democratic debate — then the fighting and the bitterness and the gridlock will only get worse.
Perhaps the most alarming part of President Obama's statement was his inaccurate and dishonest juxtaposition of modern-day Republicans to George Wallace and Bull Connor. President Obama ignored the elephant in the room: former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for President and de facto head of the party, himself had a personal relationship with notorious segregationist George Wallace.
National Review's David Harsanyi writes:
It was Biden who bragged that in 1973 Wallace considered him “one of the outstanding young politicians of America.” It was Biden who wrote in 1975 that the “Democratic Party could stand a liberal George Wallace.” It was Biden who in 1981 told a black witness in the Senate that “sometimes even George Wallace is right.” It was Biden who, while campaigning for the presidency in Alabama in 1987, claimed that he’d been the recipient of an award from Wallace in 1973 (it probably wasn’t true; but what a thing to brag about!), and then boasted that Delaware was “on the South’s side in the Civil War.”
Biden also had well-documented relationships with segregationist senators James O. Eastland, Herman Talmadge, J. William Fulbright, and Strom Thurmond.
Regardless of whether you believe the filibuster is an acceptable practice, it is clear that the legislative mechanism is a neutral one. Former President Obama along with the rest of the Democrat establishment's embrace of critical theory is dangerous and is being used to push through radical Democrat-proposed legislation.