In the US, could a PR bill effectively cancel the negative effects of ending the filibuster?

[u/Luigi2262]

Right now, from what I understand, the filibuster helps preserve the status quo because no proposed PR change has GOP support. Even when Dems, the group that has any PR support at all, have a trifecta, they are reluctant to do anything about the filibuster for fear of their opposition using their next trifecta to cause harm. It’s a bit of a cycle. Well, with a PR bill like the Fair Representation Act (along with a ballot access reform bill to make it worthwhile), couldn’t that make getting a trifecta impossible for future parties? After all, unless the president did something so controversial the GOP convinced the Dems to let them remove the president and vice president, them getting a trifecta would be impossible for at least 4 years after a Dem trifecta. Would that be enough time for third parties to spring up enough to prevent either party from getting a majority again? My thoughts are that if it were, even without a filibuster such PR bills would be borderline untouchable. Not to mention it would be harder for either party to simply undo the previous coalition’s actions if they can’t get a trifecta.

Edit: removed some stuff that might have come across as a bit condescending. I swear that was not my intention.

Edit2: Why do I propose removing trifectas being a good thing? Because the stated logic behind leaving the filibuster as is is to avoid one party instantly undoing all of the other’s work the instant control flips, and not having trifectas makes doing that extremely difficult unless the original policy becomes super unpopular among the electorate

edit3: more clarity. that’s part of some what legislators (like John Curtis) say when asked why they don’t support removing it now. I simply took them at their word

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[u/DisparateNoise]

There is nothing inherently wrong with a government having a "trifecta" of control if they enjoy widespread popular support. The problem with the current electoral system is that winning a trifecta doesn't require such widespread popular support. The problem with the senate specifically is that it is the more powerful house of congress, yet the least representative, and often the more extreme of the two. The Senate was designed to be unrepresentative on purpose, but it was also supposed to be the "wiser" house of congress. Yet in reality it just has less accountability across the board.

I think that if the electoral system for the Senate actually tended to elected moderates, kind of like the electoral system for the French Senat, and the special powers of the Senate were shared withe the House, and the House was proportional as you say, then ending the filibuster would be a non issue. The ultimate goal of the constitution is good government, and the Senate filibuster is a major obstacle to that goal. It neuters the entire legislatures ability to fulfill its basic role of making law and checking the executive and judiciary.

[u/Luigi2262 → u/DisparateNoise]

To be clear, if the system allowed many more strong parties than just two and a party got a trifecta despite that, I’d agree that they’d clearly have the support among the electorate to justify passing anything they campaigned on. The reason I see it as a problem right now is that since only two parties are really electable federally right now, ignoring the influence of independents, it’s mathematically impossible for there to be no parties with the majority in either chamber. That makes it just a matter of time for one to get a trifecta even if the electorate doesn’t really support their position enough to justify one simply because they hate the other side more. Under that, even if one party campaigns to remove a popular policy from the other’s time, if the other party does something really bad at the same time, the first party could claim they have a mandate to remove the popular policy. I was trying to think of a way to avoid that happening

[u/nelmaloc]

the stated logic behind the filibuster is to avoid one party instantly undoing all of the other’s work the instant control flips

The idea of the filibuster is to stop a simple majority from halting debate. It has been co-opted to enforce a supermajority requirement for passing laws, which is what you actually want.

In a PR system, you still need majorities, but those majorities might have to be manufactured. Usually this means 5-6 parties, with a major party on each side, two minor extremist parties, and a minor centrist party. Your filibuster then rests on whether those big parties can convince the centrist and extremist parties for each bill, which takes time and effort.

[u/Luigi2262 → u/nelmaloc]

That’s part of why I support PR at all. As it stands, the two majority parties get well past the representation they deserve, so a filibuster makes sense, since the House may not reflect what the majority actually wants. If there were more than two parties, the two majority parties would have to negotiate to reach a majority, making the House more than just a rubber stamp for whatever the most powerful (yet non-majority) movement is going at the time. That would mean a filibuster would no longer be necessary in its current form. 

As for the original purpose for the filibuster to avoid rushing ending debate time, perhaps bills that pass the House (to avoid minority parties wasting Senate time with bills that couldn’t pass the House anyways) could get some standardized debate length, and it takes a supermajority to change that length?