Texas Senator-elect James Talarico is calling for eliminating the Senate filibuster as Democrats prepare to take control of the chamber Republicans refused to overhaul under President Donald Trump. Talarico defeated Republican Ken Paxton in Tuesday’s election. His position puts the procedure back in contention after Senate Majority Leader John Thune resisted Trump’s demands to scrap it during the GOP’s majority.
Talarico discussed the issue in an interview with NBC News correspondent Ryan Chandler. He connected his support for abolishing the filibuster to efforts to lower household expenses, including groceries, gasoline, utilities, and health care. His argument applied to either party winning a majority, rather than reserving the proposed change for legislation advanced by Democrats.
The procedural fight concerns how senators bring legislation to a vote. Most bills face a threshold of three-fifths of senators duly chosen and sworn to end debate, normally 60 votes in the 100-member chamber. A party can therefore win enough seats to control the Senate’s leadership and committees while still needing opposition votes to overcome a filibuster.
As The Daily Wire reported, Democrats won the chamber without reaching that 60-vote threshold. Talarico endorsed removing the obstacle, describing the filibuster as a “Jim Crow relic.” He also said, “I believe that the majority has the right to govern in this country.” Trump had urged Republicans to eliminate the procedure while they held power.
During the November 2025 shutdown, Trump pressed Republican senators at a White House breakfast to end the filibuster and reopen federal agencies, Reuters reported. Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson argued that Democrats would abolish it once they regained control and urged Republicans to act first. Thune rejected the push: “I know where the math is on this issue in the Senate, and it’s not happening.”
The Senate’s historical overview describes earlier changes to the procedure. In 1917, senators adopted Rule 22, creating a threshold of two-thirds of senators present and voting for invoking cloture and limiting debate. The chamber first used that mechanism in 1919 during the fight over the Treaty of Versailles. In 1975, senators lowered the threshold to three-fifths of senators duly chosen and sworn, establishing the standard that generally applies to legislation today.
Watch Talarico discuss the filibuster in his NBC News interview here:
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Nominations have already undergone a separate overhaul. The Senate’s historical account explains that precedents adopted during the 2010s allowed a simple majority to end debate on nominations. Legislative filibusters remain available, meaning the chamber operates under different procedures depending on the business before it. A majority’s ability to advance a nomination consequently doesn’t give it the same ability to advance an ordinary bill.
Democrats would need a simple majority—51 votes if all 100 senators vote—to establish a new precedent through the nuclear option, as Roll Call reported. That requires assembling sufficient support before they could change how legislation moves through the chamber. Asked Wednesday, November 4, about eliminating the filibuster, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer instead addressed his party’s immediate agenda, saying: “Look, we are focused — the first thing we’re going to do is reduce people’s costs and work the legislative process.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video.