Confirmed: the Senate rule at the centre of this debate requires 60 votes to end debate on most legislation, and no party has held 60 Senate seats in more than fifteen years. Reported: two Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate take opposite positions on whether that rule should be abolished — Juliana Stratton of Illinois supports ending the filibuster, and Jamie Davis of Louisiana opposes eliminating it, according to The Center Square, which spoke to both candidates. Nothing here predicts the 3 November 2026 election result, or that either candidate will win, or that the filibuster will be abolished. Both are candidates. Neither has cast a Senate vote on this question.
The disagreement matters because the filibuster is the first obstacle any new Senate majority meets. A party can win control with 51 seats and still be unable to pass most bills, because the minority can insist on 60 votes to close debate. Abolishing the filibuster would remove that obstacle. Keeping it would leave it in place, whichever party holds the majority. That is why a question about Senate procedure has become a question about abortion, voting rights and guns — the issues Stratton herself named. For the mechanics of the rule, see the filibuster and the 60-vote Senate rule. For the election itself, see the 2026 midterm elections explainer. See also the Texas Senate race explainer.
The split, in the candidates’ own words
The Center Square spoke to Stratton and Davis about their plans for legislation if elected, in reporting published in early October 2026. Stratton, the Democratic candidate running for the U.S. Senate in Illinois, said she supports eliminating the filibuster, pointing to abortion rights, voting-rights protections and a federal assault weapons ban as issues a Democratic Senate would address if it eliminated the filibuster. “There’s so many issues that we’ve been able to tackle here in Illinois and get done that have been held up in Washington, D.C.,” Stratton told The Center Square. “I want to see us be able to move past that.”
Stratton repeated the position in fuller form in an interview with Illinois Public Media (WILL) in October 2026. Asked whether eliminating the filibuster was still her position — she had supported it the previous year — she answered: “Yes, I still believe that when Democrats take back the Senate — and hopefully that is November 3rd, 2026 — that we should end — work to end the filibuster when we get into office.” She said the filibuster “has been used to block so much progress,” and listed what Democrats could then do: “we could pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. We could restore the protections of Roe v. Wade and, uh, give women the right to decide what’s best for their own bodies and their own futures. You know, we could, um, we could pass some common-sense gun legislation.”
Davis, a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate in Louisiana, takes the opposite view. He opposes eliminating the filibuster, arguing that it encourages negotiation and compromise. “We need a government that is able to negotiate and communicate and be able to come to an agreement like the way the Constitution was made,” Davis told The Center Square. “I’m so sick of Washington playing politics.” He is also quoted as saying: “I like the filibuster because I like the fact that we are able to negotiate and come to a mutual agreement.”
The contrast is the story. One candidate presents the filibuster as a block on progress that a majority should remove. The other presents it as a spur to agreement that a majority should keep. Neither position is the position of the Democratic Party as a whole, because there is no single Democratic position. The division runs candidate by candidate, and it would run senator by senator if Democrats won a majority.
What the filibuster is, and why 60 is the number
The filibuster is a Senate procedure used to continue debate and prolong a vote on a bill, resolution or nomination. Today it rarely means a senator talking for hours. It usually means the minority signals it will not allow debate to end, and the majority must find 60 votes to invoke cloture — the formal motion to close debate — before the bill itself can be voted on. If 60 votes cannot be found, the bill stalls. That is why 41 senators can block most legislation, even though passing a bill needs only a simple majority.
The rule is not in the Constitution. The Senate’s own history, published on senate.gov, traces it to the chamber’s tradition of unlimited debate, and to the adoption in 1917 of Senate Rule 22, which first allowed the Senate to end debate by a two-thirds majority vote, at the urging of President Woodrow Wilson. For decades the threshold was so hard to reach that cloture was invoked only five times in the four decades after 1917, and filibusters were used in particular by southern senators to block civil-rights legislation, including anti-lynching bills. Cloture was not successfully invoked to pass a major civil-rights bill until 1964, for the Civil Rights Act.
| Date | What changed | Threshold after the change |
|---|---|---|
| Before 1917 | No way to force an end to Senate debate | Unlimited debate |
| 1917 | Senate Rule 22 adopted; cloture created | Two-thirds of senators voting |
| 1975 | Cloture threshold reduced | 60 of 100 senators for most legislation |
| 2013 / 2017 | Precedents changed for nominations only | Simple majority to end debate on nominations |
| Today | Legislation still filibusterable | 60 votes to invoke cloture on most bills |
The last supermajority: 2009–10, and why it still gets cited
The last time either party held a 60-vote supermajority was in 2009–10. The Democratic caucus reached 60 only after Arlen Specter switched parties in April 2009 and Al Franken was seated that July, and it lost the 60th seat when Scott Brown took office in February 2010 — a brief window, counted as 72 working days while the Senate was actually in session. That brief window is cited in almost every filibuster debate because it is the most recent proof of what a supermajority makes possible: during it, Democrats passed major legislation such as the Affordable Care Act without needing Republican support, as the same reporting notes.
What abolition would unlock — and what it would not
Stratton named three areas: abortion, voting rights and guns. On abortion, she said Democrats could “restore the protections of Roe v. Wade.” That would require federal legislation, because the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs returned abortion regulation to the states. On voting rights, the named bill is the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would restore and strengthen parts of the Voting Rights Act weakened by Supreme Court decisions. On guns, she pointed to “a federal assault weapons ban” and “some common-sense gun legislation.” She also named rolling back cuts to Medicaid and SNAP food benefits that she attributed to the Republican tax-and-spending legislation, using her phrase “the one big ugly bill.”
Each of those bills faces the same sequence: House passage, Senate cloture, presidential signature or veto override. Abolishing the filibuster would remove one obstacle, not all of them. Overriding a veto requires two-thirds of each chamber — 290 votes in the House and 67 in the Senate. Stratton herself acknowledged the veto problem in the WILL interview, saying Donald Trump “will still try to veto the things that we get passed.” Courts are a further constraint: the Supreme Court is hearing cases this term on AR-15 bans (Viramontes v. Cook County / Grant v. Higgins, argued 2 December 2026) and on proof of citizenship for registration (Republican National Committee v. Mi Familia Vota, argued 8 December 2026). See the Supreme Court term explainer. A federal law passed by Congress could itself be challenged, so abolition would not be the last word.
| If the filibuster were abolished | What would still stand in the way |
|---|---|
| A 51-seat majority could pass most bills | A presidential veto, needing 290 House + 67 Senate votes to override |
| No need for 60 votes to close debate | The House must also pass the bill |
| Party-line bills could reach a final vote | Courts can strike down a law as unconstitutional |
| Reconciliation limits would matter less | A future majority could reverse the law by the same simple majority |
Frequently asked questions
What is the filibuster in simple terms?
It is a Senate procedure that lets the minority prolong debate and prevent a vote on a bill. To end debate on most legislation, the Senate must invoke cloture, which requires 60 votes. Without 60 votes, the bill stalls even though passing it would need only a simple majority.
Who supports abolishing the filibuster among the candidates named here?
Juliana Stratton, the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Illinois, supports ending the filibuster, as she told The Center Square and confirmed to Illinois Public Media in October 2026. Jamie Davis, the Democratic candidate in Louisiana, opposes eliminating it. Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia has also called for ending it for voting-rights legislation.
Would abolishing the filibuster let Democrats pass abortion, voting-rights and gun laws immediately?
Not on its own. A bill would still need to pass the House and be signed by the president, or survive a veto override requiring two-thirds of each chamber. Courts could also strike a law down. Abolition would remove the 60-vote Senate obstacle; the veto and the courts would remain.
When was the last time a party held 60 Senate seats?
The Democratic caucus held 60 seats only briefly in 2009–10 — from Al Franken’s seating in July 2009 until Scott Brown took office in February 2010 — the last 60-seat supermajority held by either party. No party has held 60 seats since.
Updated: 29 October 2026. Candidate positions are as reported in October 2026; check for newer statements before relying on them. No election outcome is predicted in this article.
SOURCES
- The Center Square (Andrew Rice), “Democrats divided on filibuster’s future if they take control of U.S. Senate”, early October 2026, via Horsham Now — https://horshamnow.com/national-news/democrats-divided-on-filibusters-future-if-they-take-control-of-u-s-senate/
- Illinois Public Media (WILL), “Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton on Iran war, ICE accountability, and her campaign for U.S. Senate”, October 2026 — https://will.illinois.edu/21stshow/story/lt-gov-juliana-stratton-on-iran-war-ice-accountability-and-her-campaign-for-u-s-senate
- U.S. Senate, “About Filibusters and Cloture | Historical Overview” — https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/filibusters-cloture/overview.htm?
- USA TODAY, “What a Democratic Congress would mean, in spite of Trump’s veto pen”, 20 October 2026 — https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2026/10/20/midterm-elections-congress-agenda-democrats-trump/92235759007/
