Sen. Ron Johnson wants Republicans to stop pretending the Senate filibuster is sacred and start treating it like what he says it has become: a tool Democrats use to block homeland security funding while the government stays shut down and airport lines stretch for hours.
The Wisconsin Republican told Fox News's "Sunday Morning Futures" that he supports ending the 60-vote threshold entirely, arguing the chamber cannot function when Democrats refuse to fund the Department of Homeland Security unless Congress accepts their proposed reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.
Johnson's position puts him squarely at odds with Republican colleagues who still view the filibuster as an institutional guardrail. His answer to them was blunt.
"My colleagues say, 'We don't want to be responsible for breaking the Senate.' How could it be much more broken?"
The question is not rhetorical. A partial government shutdown continues. Travelers at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport faced extensive wait times on March 22, 2026, because TSA lacked funding. The agency tasked with screening passengers at the nation's airports cannot pay its workers, and the stalemate over DHS funding shows no sign of ending.
At the center of the dispute is a straightforward power play. Democrats are refusing to allocate money to ICE unless Congress adopts their proposed reforms to the agency. The same condition applies to Customs and Border Protection. In practice, that means the agencies responsible for enforcing immigration law and securing the border are being held hostage to policy demands that have nothing to do with keeping the government open.
Johnson called Democrats "obnoxious" and "obstructionist." The label fits the tactic. Most major legislation in the Senate can be delayed or blocked by a filibuster unless 60 senators vote to end debate. With the current partisan split, Democrats have the numbers to prevent any DHS funding bill from reaching the floor on a simple majority vote, and they are using that leverage to reshape immigration enforcement agencies from the outside.
The deepening DHS funding deadlock has already drawn sharp criticism from President Trump, who has called out Senate Republicans for failing to break through the impasse.
Rather than wait for Democrats to come to the table, Johnson laid out a concrete path forward. He urged Republicans to move toward reconciliation, a special budget procedure that allows Congress to bypass the filibuster and pass certain fiscal changes with a simple majority.
His proposal: pass a reconciliation bill focused on DHS funding through fiscal year 2029, then prepare a second reconciliation package to fund the rest of the government starting in October.
"Let's get as much DHS funding as possible, move to reconciliation, pass a reconciliation bill focused on DHS funding through fiscal year 2029, and then be ready for another reconciliation to fund the rest of government, starting in October, when Democrats obstruct the regular order appropriation process."
That timeline would give DHS and its sub-agencies, ICE, CBP, TSA, stable funding for years rather than lurching from one continuing resolution to the next. It would also strip Democrats of their ability to use the filibuster as a chokepoint on border security spending.
The House GOP has already approved a rival DHS funding plan, daring the Senate to act as the shutdown approaches historic length. Johnson's reconciliation push would give Senate Republicans a procedural vehicle to match the House's urgency.
Johnson acknowledged he does not yet have enough Republican votes to eliminate the filibuster outright. That admission matters. Changing Senate rules requires a majority willing to take the political risk, and several GOP senators have resisted the idea on institutional grounds.
Johnson framed the internal divide in stark terms.
"The split in the Senate, in terms of a filibuster, is between those of us who believe that Democrats will get rid of it next time they have the power, and those who are hoping beyond hope that they won't."
His argument carries a hard logic. If Democrats will abolish the filibuster the moment it suits them, and recent history suggests they are willing to change Senate rules when they hold the majority, then Republicans gain nothing by preserving a norm their opponents treat as disposable. They lose time, lose leverage, and leave agencies like DHS unfunded while the debate grinds on.
This kind of intraparty friction has surfaced repeatedly in recent months, as Republicans in both chambers have struggled to maintain a unified front on spending, immigration enforcement, and executive priorities.
Johnson escalated his case by linking the funding fight to direct threats against the homeland. He pointed to the possibility of Iranian-linked sleeper cells operating inside the United States.
"When we're at war with Iran... they might possibly have sleeper cells here in this country. We can't even fund the very agency designed to keep our homeland safe. I don't see how it could get much worse. So I'm for ending the 60-vote threshold and ending the filibuster."
That framing moves the debate beyond procedural niceties. The Department of Homeland Security exists to protect Americans from exactly these kinds of threats. When the Senate cannot fund DHS because 41 senators object to how ICE conducts enforcement, the institution has failed at its most basic function.
Johnson, a member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, spoke during a committee hearing in Washington on February 12, 2026, weeks before the airport disruptions made the shutdown's consequences visible to ordinary travelers.
Johnson has not been entirely rigid on tactics. In a separate appearance on Fox Business, he indicated he would accept a piecemeal DHS funding approach, covering agencies like TSA and FEMA individually, if it came attached to legislation addressing the broader shutdown problem. He referenced two bills he sponsors: the Shutdown Fairness Act, which would ensure federal workers are paid during shutdowns, and the Eliminate Shutdowns Act, which would end government shutdowns permanently.
As Breitbart reported, Johnson told Fox Business he would "accept that as long as they would attach it to the Shutdown Fairness Act so we never have to face this again, or even better yet, the Eliminate Shutdowns Act."
That willingness to deal on short-term funding, provided it comes with structural reform, shows Johnson is not simply grandstanding. He has a clear hierarchy: fund DHS now, fix the process so this cycle does not repeat, and eliminate the filibuster if Democrats continue to weaponize it against border security.
The pattern of Republican internal revolts on major legislative fights is not new. But the DHS funding standoff has raised the temperature because the consequences are immediate and personal, felt by travelers stuck in security lines, by ICE agents operating without full appropriations, and by border communities watching enforcement capacity erode in real time.
Johnson's push forces a choice that Senate Republicans have spent years avoiding. The filibuster protects the minority party. Right now, that minority is the Democrats. But Republicans know they will not hold the majority forever, and killing the filibuster means living without it when the roles reverse.
Johnson's counter is simple: Democrats will kill it anyway. Every year Republicans preserve the 60-vote threshold out of institutional loyalty, they hand Democrats a tool to block border funding, ICE operations, and homeland security priorities. The courtesy is not returned. The restraint is not mutual.
Meanwhile, the shutdown continues. TSA lines grow. DHS agencies operate in limbo. And Democrats hold the filibuster over the Senate's head, demanding changes to immigration enforcement as the price of keeping the government open.
At some point, preserving a Senate tradition matters less than funding the agencies that keep Americans safe. Johnson seems to have reached that point. The question is whether enough of his colleagues will follow, or whether they will keep hoping Democrats play by rules that no longer exist.
