Senators swore to support America, not the filibuster. Kill it to save the January 6 commission.

If “bad faith” were a religion, it would perfectly describe the piousness of the Republican leadership's approach to creating a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

House Democrats offered multiple concessions to Republican negotiators picked by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. But after former President Donald Trump gave the thumbs down last Tuesday night, McCarthy not only opposed the proposal but had his team working to get Republican members to turn against it. Even Rep. Greg Pence – brother of former Vice President Mike Pence, the man some in the Jan. 6 mob wanted to hang – voted no. Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell went from undecided to no after Trump’s kibosh.

Trump is still running the GOP

For the baldest political reasons, it makes sense for Republicans to oppose a Jan. 6 commission. No rational human being would argue that the attack would have happened had Trump not called his fans and followers to a rally and then sent them to the Capitol. And Trump is still running the Republican Party. Don’t believe me? Ask Liz Cheney.

While there have been arrests and indictments of hundreds suspected of actually breaching the Capitol in order to disrupt the orderly finalizing of Trump’s defeat, the ex-president has suffered no consequences for launching the most direct attack on democracy in American history. And he receives taxpayer subsidies for his family and businesses.

Meanwhile, huge questions remain about the insurrection. These include why the Pentagon delayed sending out the National Guard even as the entire nation was watching the Capitol being breached on television and what contact Trump’s closest allies had had with groups like the Proud Boys, who apparently plotted and executed the incursion.

Americans still have no real sense of the scope or the Trump White House role in an attack that should “burned into the American mind as firmly as 9/11, because it was that scale of a shock to the system,” as once-staunch Republican George F. Will said. We need a 9/11-type commission so, at the very least, the multi-year efforts of Trump and his allies to undermine our elections are written in the history of Jan. 6.

Instead, Republicans are not only giving Trump encouragement to plot another assault on our Constitution, they’re engaged in a national voting suppression effort to make sure that if he runs in 2024, he can take power again – whether he wins the election or not. And as part of this effort, some Republicans have been trying to exonerate those involved in the Jan. 6 attack as “tourists” or “peaceful patriots.” A majority of Republicans now claim to believe the attack was led by left-wing protesters trying to make Trump “look bad.” Seems like the kind of thing you’d want to investigate!

Mark your calendar: January 6, 2025 could be the date American democracy dies

If the Republican Senate minority filibusters the creation of the Jan. 6 commission, they’re joining Trump’s insurrection, right on the floor of the U.S. Senate. And if they do that, Senate Republicans will have effectively forced the Democratic majority to choose between democracy and an arcane Senate rule designed to undermine democracy.

That choice should be easy.

The Big Lie that fed that Jan. 6 attack has metastasized since insurgents who carried Confederate flags and wore a shirt that said “Camp Auschwitz” invaded the temple of our freedom and smeared feces on its wall. It’s now a crusade that simultaneously salves Trump’s seething ego and supercharges the GOP’s decades-old effort to maintain political power by limiting access to the ballot.

A circuit court judge, ruling on a North Carolina law in 2016, described it as targeting “African Americans with almost surgical precision" to "impose cures for problems that did not exist." Add other Democratic-leaning voters to the mix and that's the Republican strategy in a nutshell.

Save democracy, not the filibuster

The Big Lie is not just a lie; it’s a cookbook. And the recipes are all about fileting anything that represents fair elections anywhere that Republicans can’t or don’t want to compete.

The filibuster and minority rule it enforces on the American people are making sure the Big Lie prospers, just as it did for slavery and segregation before it. The filibuster will likely prevent an up or down vote on H.R. 1, the Democrats' sweeping election reform bill, or any fix to the Voting Rights Act, which has been gutted since 2013.

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One of the fiercest defenders of the filibuster on the Democratic side, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, says he's disheartened by GOP plans to filibuster the commission and as of last week was still hoping for "10 good solid patriots" among the 50 Republicans in the Senate – the number the chamber's 50 Democrats need to stop a filibuster and move to a vote.

If 10 Republicans can’t support a commission to investigate a violent mob that invaded their own workplace and wanted to lynch their own vice president, there’s no reason to invite them to participate in democracy, let alone have the power to cinch it in a vise.

The word “filibuster” never appears in our Constitution. Our founding document does say senators are "bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution," and thus our country and the rule of law. If Republicans break that oath, Democrats must break the filibuster. Forever.

Jason Sattler, a writer based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors and host of "The GOTMFV Show" podcast. Follow him on Twitter: @LOLGOP

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Kill the Senate filibuster, not the January 6 Capitol riot commission