Election bill defeat revives fight over the filibuster

The filibuster is here to stay, for now.

And that’s posing a challenge to President Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress confronting a wall of Republican opposition led by Senate leader Mitch McConnell’s “100%” focus on stopping their agenda.

This week’s defeat of an ambitious elections bill showed how far lawmakers and advocates have come in focusing attention on the cumbersome Senate rules, in place for decades, that require 60 votes to advance most legislation. In a short while, they’ve lifted the filibuster out of the procedural backwaters into the political mainstream, changing senators’ minds...