I'm not crazy about all of Biden's ideas, but they deserve votes, not filibusters

I’m a big fan of the filibuster. One of the moving principles of American democracy is that the majority should never be allowed to run roughshod over the minority. Even people on the losing end of a political debate have a place at the table. The Senate filibuster is one element of that.

But I am also a fan of responsible government. The flip side of minority power in American democracy is that the minority behave responsibly and act as a loyal opposition. This means actual engagement, and it’s the exact opposite of simply killing off any legislation your constituents don’t like.

Senate Republicans often say you can’t ignore 74 million voters. That’s true. But you can’t ignore 81 million voters, either. I’m not crazy about all of President Joe Biden’s agenda, and parts of it are really bad ideas. But, just as Biden deserves a Senate vote on his Cabinet nominations even if Republicans don’t love them, he deserves a Senate vote on the legislative program he campaigned on, whether Republicans love all of it or not. Biden won the election, and his campaign proposals have earned a full measure of congressional attention. Anything else would be profoundly undemocratic.

Filibuster should not be GOP default

If Senate Republicans want to preserve the legislative filibuster, its fate is in their hands. For the past several years, Republicans have used the filibuster as an easy way to kill proposals that they didn’t like, or that would force them to cast politically difficult votes. This has to stop. It would be unwise for Republicans to rely on Senate Democrats like West Virginia swing vote Joe Manchin to defend their “right” to block legislation simply because they can.

The filibuster must be used responsibly as a last resort rather than as the Republican default position. We can’t continue on the path we are on. When the dust settles, either the Party of No will be dead or the filibuster will be.

The $15-an-hour minimum wage is a perfect test case for this new ethic of responsibility. While there are efforts to squeeze it in under the reconciliation procedure and avoid the threat of a filibuster, Biden admits it will probably have to be passed as a stand-alone bill. And even some Democrats have their doubts about the project.

As they should, because the $15 minimum wage is a ridiculous idea. The only reason “Fight for $15!” was invented was because some organizers back in 2012 needed to come up with a good chant for a protest rally by striking fast-food workers. They could have just as easily settled on “Fight for $14!” but I suppose that doesn’t roll off the tongue as well.

Even so, raising the minimum wage is not a ridiculous idea, nor is it a liberal or conservative one. It has been raised about two dozen times since its inception in 1938, the last time in 2009 under a law signed by President George W. Bush, a Republican, in 2007. In 2021 dollars, the federal minimum wage has ranged from a low of $4.25 in 1948 to a high of $12.19 in 1968.

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In short, there’s a perfectly reasonable policy discussion to be had about raising the minimum wage. If progressives want $15 an hour, it’s up to them to pony up the analysis rather than just wave their hands about “economic justice” and “living wages.” And Republicans who oppose the idea need to argue the facts rather than using the filibuster to shut down the discussion.

Minimum wage a negotiable number

And there is plenty of room for compromise because there are facts to be argued on both sides. The Congressional Budget Office just reported that while a $15 minimum wage would obviously result in substantial wage increases for many, it would also eliminate 1.4 million jobs by 2025 and increase the federal deficit by $54 billion over 10 years.

Even Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a top proponent, wants to raise the wage over five years rather than immediately.

Unless you're coming up with protest chants, there's nothing sacred about a specific minimum wage number, and it’s not a fight to the death. The current $7.25 minimum wage was equal to about $8.80 in today's dollars when it took effect in 2009. Eventually, the involved parties should weigh the economic trade-offs and settle on a number that makes people of all political stripes minimally unhappy. That’s the way a functional democracy works.

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And that is the test. Progressives have their aspirations, as they should, but they need to be willing to work with — and listen to — Republicans on this specific issue without dragging every political fight over the past 20 years into the mix. Republicans need to do the same while accepting that, when it comes to this kind of ordinary, work-a-day business, they can’t take their ball and go home if they don’t like what they hear. Filibustering a minimum wage increase because you think the number coming to the Senate floor is 40 cents too high is irresponsible.

Once upon a time, that was the way Congress, and especially the Senate, worked. Nobody knows that better than Joe Biden, and if anybody can foster that sense of shared responsibility, it’s him. It might disappoint a lot of people on both sides, and it makes a lousy protest chant, but “Settle for $12.85 phased in over six years!” is what democracy sounds like.

Republican Chris Truax, an appellate lawyer in San Diego, is a legal adviser for The Guardrails of Democracy Project, CEO of CertifiedVoter.com and a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Irresponsible Republicans could force Democrats to kill the filibuster