PA Sen. Fetterman says he was 'horribly wrong' on the filibuster, wants to keep it intact

(The Center Square) - During John Fetterman’s successful bid for U.S. Senate in 2022, he was a vocal critic of the upper chamber’s 60-vote threshold to advance legislation and called for the elimination of the filibuster.

On Monday, he shifted gears, saying that he was “horribly wrong” for this position.

“Halfway through my first term, I now recognize how important the filibuster is and the state our country would be in without it,” Fetterman wrote in an op-ed for the Washington Post titled “Why I changed my mind about the filibuster.”

“I thought ending the filibuster was necessary to deliver results for working families. I thought it was unlikely for Republicans in the minority to find common ground on legislation Democrats were proposing,” Fetterman wrote. “I thought Democrats were not being ruthless the way Republicans were, and we needed to be on that level if we were going to relieve the anger that voters were feeling.”

Fetterman, the state’s senior senator, explained that at the time of his campaign, most Democrats serving in the U.S. Senate attempted to end the filibuster to advance more of then-President Joe Biden’s agenda. As a candidate, he supported the effort, which was unsuccessful.

“Upon reflection, the pursuit of those short-term wins clouded the bigger picture and lasting impact of a Senate without the filibuster — a Senate that ignored the voices of the minority and everyday people,” Fetterman wrote.

Fetterman lauded two former senators whom he previously heavily criticized for opposing this effort, Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, saying that “history has vindicated” them and that he agrees with the latter’s assessment that scrapping the filibuster is part of “extreme election-year politics that put party power over everything else.”

“The rule is a critical line of defense that prevents President Donald Trump from having a fill-in-the-blank government with new laws, deregulation or procedures of its choosing,” Fetterman wrote.

In defending his position, Fetterman said the U.S. Senate “cannot become a smaller version” of the US House and said Biden and Senate Democrats were still able to achieve legislative victories with the filibuster intact, specifically pinpointing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and legislation that helps veterans exposed by toxins in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Senate Democrats could not have passed these important pieces of legislation along party lines and had to work across the aisle,” Fetterman wrote. “We find ourselves in the same situation now with the power dynamic flipped.”

“Trump’s victory and Republicans taking control of both chambers of Congress quickly showed how chaotic a simple majority vote could be in the Senate,” Fetterman continued. “Media outlets and political pundits are routinely alarmed and outraged over the constant churn of new policies from the current administration. And if Americans are horrified now, imagine what could be law today if Democrats had eliminated the filibuster.”

Trump has repeatedly called for eliminating the filibuster to pass portions of his agenda, even re-upping his call on social media on Monday morning.

“John Thune should not allow the United States Senate to ‘leave town’ until it passes The Save America Act or, far better still, TERMINATES THE FILIBUSTER, where Republicans can then quickly pass everything they ever dreamed of,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Monday.

Fetterman said if the filibuster had been eliminated, he believes the Save America Act would have passed, which he does not support.

“We could have extreme policies such as nationwide abortion restrictions, backpedaling on LGBT rights, repeal of birthright citizenship and limited voting rights across the country,” Fetterman wrote. “With a government trifecta firmly in place, many provisions of Project 2025 would have easily been enacted. Republicans could fundamentally change the entire government and country with a simple majority vote.”

“The one thing that has stopped many unpopular policies since the beginning of 2025 isn’t the Democrats — it is the filibuster,” he added.

As control for the US Senate will be on the line in November, Fetterman said that if Democrats win back a majority, they still wouldn’t have enough votes to override the 60-vote threshold needed on their own and called on lawmakers from both sides of the aisle to find common ground on those issues.

“Some of my colleagues, including myself, have been frustrated when engaging with the minority. But that process isn’t a bug — it’s one of the best features of the Senate,” Fetterman wrote. “We have a great democracy that is imperfect, but it requires working together.”

“If we don’t do that willingly, the filibuster will force us to,” he added. “That’s the way it should be.”

Fetterman’s op-ed is the first time he’s expanded at length about his recent change of position, but it’s not the only time he’s expressed his opposition to the filibuster.

NOTUS noted that Fetterman talked about his thoughts last month with Katie Miller, conservative podcaster and wife of White House senior adviser Stephen Miller.

However, just last year, Fetterman was on the record supporting the elimination of the filibuster when he said he’d back Republicans bypassing the 60 votes needed and approve a GOP-backed continuing resolution to fund the government.

While Fetterman called for eliminating the filibuster during his 2022 bid for office, Dave McCormick said he wanted to keep the 60-vote threshold in place during his 2024 campaign for US Senate.

Last year, McCormick told reporters that he did not back a proposal for Republicans to abandon the filibuster to pass a spending plan to fund the government.

“And the reason I wouldn’t is because I wouldn’t support that in the case of the Democrats being a majority or the Republicans being in the majority,” McCormick said in October 2025. “I think once you set the precedent, then you don’t have to check on needing to build some level of bipartisan consensus.”

“I think you’re going to say that you have to live with the consistency on both sides of it,” he added. “In other words, you say whatever your view is on the filibuster, it should be your view regardless of whether you’re in the majority or not.”

McCormick also claimed that “if the roles were reversed” and there was a Democrat in the White House with majorities in both chambers, he would still vote to keep the government open.

However, as Trump continues to apply pressure to Republicans to abandon the filibuster, McCormick may be shifting his tone.

McCormick, according to Fideri News Network, said he understands Trump’s frustration with the SAVE Act not having the 60-votes needed and said that “Republicans have to have 51 Republicans vote to overturn the filibuster and there’s just many Republicans, at least 10 or 14 that wouldn’t do that.”

When asked by the news outlet last month if he was one of them, he said “well, I don’t know.”

“When I was on the campaign trail, I had said we should never eliminate the filibuster. I was particularly worried about Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico [becoming states] and stacking the Supreme Court. So that’s why I would oppose ending the filibuster,” McCormick said.

“I would not support eliminating the filibuster unless I could see that we are going to do some really big, consequential things, because it’s that kind of thing. Once you do it, you can’t undo it,” he continued. “So it would have to be more than the SAVE America Act. It has to be permitting reform. It has to be a really big agenda because to do that would undo a precedent that has created checks and balances on the majority and the minority.”

“It’s tempting but practically speaking, it’s not going to happen,” he added.

McCormick’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Center Square on Monday.

Monday’s op-ed was not the first one Fetterman authored in the Washington Post to clarify a position.

In May, he wrote for the publication that he had “no plans to leave” the Democratic Party, despite a series of votes and statements he’s made that have alienated him from fellow Democrats.

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