The filibuster is unbearable, odious and infuriating. We better not get rid of it.

President Biden and Senate Democrats have a special gift in mind for what would have been the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 93rd birthday: declaring hyperpartisanship an insurmountable reality and capitulating accordingly.

Specifically, in order to advance voting rights legislation, Democrats are on the brink of eliminating the Senate filibuster, a 60-vote threshold for moving legislation forward, to make it possible to pass bills with a simple majority of 51 votes. It strikes me as both ironic and cynical that this craven surrender to partisanship is attached to King, a leader who never flinched when faced with adversity.

Most certainly, Congress is called upon to protect every citizen’s ability to cast a vote, and a healthy debate can — and should — be had on the many provisions contained in the Freedom to Vote Act as well as the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. In an earlier column, I argued that there should be no difference between a Texas voter’s ability to participate in a national election and a voter from Massachusetts or California. With several hundred election-focused bills making their way through state legislatures across the country, this clearly is a time when Congress and the courts need to pay close attention to voting rights and need to step in to protect this most fundamental component of participatory democracy.