Republicans killed the Supreme Court filibuster. But maybe they shouldn’t have?
All they have to do is change the rules back before the next election.
Won’t this encourage the Dems to do the same thing when they get control of the Senate?
Not when, but if.
So you don’t think the Dems will ever regain control of the Senate?
In the short term, 2016 was the best opportunity for the Dems to retake the Senate. Have you seen the 2018 Senate map? That’s what I’d call a “Dems lose 5 seats” map. 2020 looks good for the Dems, but not good enough to come back from a deficit that big, so the earliest they need to worry about that is 2022. In the meantime, Republicans almost have enough legislatures to start monkeying with the Constitution directly, and repealing the 17th Amendment has always been a dare-to-dream Conservative longshot wishlist item. Once that’s done, the Dems can win all the votes they want in 2022 (and beyond) and still can’t take the Senate. It will be just like the House today, where all the pundits just assume it doesn’t matter how well the Dems do with the voters, the Republicans will retain control.
I think it unlikely that the 17th Amendment will get repealed. Remember, in order to do so, you have pass another amendment. To do that, it needs to pass no only Congress(where 2/3rds is needed), but also 3/4ths of the state legislatures(which means 38 of the states would have to pass it). Even if it were to pass. It would mean that the state governments themselves would pick the US Senators. Each state could decide to allow the voters to elect them or the state legislature could pick them(is the Dems controlled the majority of said state legislature, they would no doubt pick Dems to be that state’s US Senators). The Dems could still gain control of the Senate.