Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who is challenging Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to be the next Senate majority leader, said Friday he wants to abolish the filibuster and ruled out a potential presidential run in 2028.
Van Hollen, speaking to reporters at the What’s Next conference in Denver, argued that legislation should pass the Senate with simple-majority votes and that the filibuster, which requires senators to muster 60 votes to pass most legislation, is “undemocratic.”
“My personal opinion is that we need democracy in the United States Senate and that means allowing ultimately a majority of senators to answer the call of the American people, so that means 51 votes,” Van Hollen said.
“My personal view has been all along that the filibuster is an antidemocratic — small ‘d’ — provision. It’s not in our Constitution. It was put in there by senators to enhance their power over the power of the people,” he added.
Rural regions are inherently conservative and have disproportionate representation in the Senate by design. A short-term fix to balance out the blatant partisan advantage would be to admit Puerto Rico and Washington D.C. as states, but residents of less-populated states would still have a representative advantage.
You’re acknowledging that rural areas tend to be conservative but making an unsupported leap in assuming small state = rural. Rhode Island, Delaware, and Hawaii are small states whose populations are predominantly urban. If DC were admitted as a state, it would be the most urban state in the nation, but would also be only the 49th most populous state.
While small, low population, progressive eastern states partly balance out large, low population, conservative western states, there is still a moderate conservative bias in their distribution.
Of the 25 least-populous states, 15 states have had two Republican senators and 9 two Democratic senators for the 2025–26 Congress, with one state being split. Even after the blue wave, the 2027–28 Congress will have 11 dual-Republican states, 10 dual-Democrat states, and 4 evenly-split states from the bottom 25.