So I’ve come to the conclusion that I would vote to get rid of the filibuster hook, line and sinker. But it happens in a particular place and time. Smith said: “Well, I think that decisions about what we need to do, and how we need to change the rules – if we need to change the rules – are decisions that need to happen in their own way. “The people who want to get rid of the filibuster are precisely the people the Founders wanted to protect us from!” DeMint wrote.īut even as support for doing something about the filibuster is growing, Democrats haven’t decided on exactly what yet. The former senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, a firebrand conservative Republican, recently wrote his own op-ed arguing that the importance of the filibuster for small states. Top Senate Republicans have argued that the Democrats’ move to change the legislative tool is simply a grab to snatch power from lawmakers in the minority. Smith’s comments come as Republican senators go in the opposite direction from Democrats on the filibuster. She added: “The more I realized this is so undemocratic, and every other governing body I’ve ever worked with has fundamentally operated on the rule that the majority gets to decide, I came to the conclusion that the filibuster was contributing to a broken Senate.” And the more I looked at that, the more I looked at the damage it was doing to our democracy.” The filibuster was making it easy for any member of the Senate to say no. “The filibuster wasn’t encouraging compromise. But that wasn’t happening either,” Smith said. “I often thought that it’s important that the minority view is heard in the Senate, and that there should be an opportunity for people to come together across lines of difference to get things done. In an interview with the Guardian, Smith argued that contrary to how the filibuster is portrayed by its advocates – as a tool to make the minority heard – it simply gives a minority of lawmakers outsized power. Smith, a former lieutenant governor of Minnesota who came to the Senate via an appointment from then governor Mark Dayton in 2018, initially saw value in it. Similarly, Smith laid out her own rationale for coming around on some kind of major change on the filibuster. Senator Angus King of Maine, in a recent op-ed, laid out his shift on the filibuster. They’ve had enough, these senators say, and want to see a substantial change to the filibuster – either workarounds for certain legislative proposals like voting rights, or modifications so the threat of a filibuster doesn’t bring Congress to a standstill. Behind the loud voices of the Senate Democratic caucus calling to either dramatically scale back or gut entirely a tool used to obstruct legislation, there’s a usually quieter set of senators, like Smith, who are finally speaking out. She now believes that without reform, the filibuster – a rule by which the minority party in the Senate can block legislation – will do serious “damage” to American democracy, she told the Guardian. She is captivated by a pursuit of beauty in all its forms, the great outdoors, and getting lost in a good story.But for Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota, the need to shift her position on one of the most crucial issues facing the Biden administration – reform of the filibuster rule – has become too strong to ignore.
In 2021, she returned to the Rocky Mountains and now lives in Denver, Colorado. She also creates lettering and typefaces in her studio practice with education from the program. As a multi-disciplinary creative, she has created brand identities, lettering, editorial designs, campaigns, books, websites, and packaging for clients such as Target, Harper's Magazine, Warby Parker, A24, and Etsy. She brings a thoughtful, typography-driven approach to her work, with an eye for detail and elevated visual forms. She now has an independent design and art direction practice. After moving to New York in 2015, she worked at the branding studio Partners & Spade (now called Mythology), The New York Times Magazine, and Google Creative Lab. Originally born and raised in a rural Montana town of 200 people, she graduated with a BFA in graphic design from Montana State University.
Tina Smith is a graphic designer and art director focused on typography. Hometown: Divide, Montana Current City: Denver, Colorado