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After Biden Says We Must ‘Act Swiftly’ on Voting Rights, Progressives Respond: ‘Abolish the Filibuster’

“It’s simple,” said Rep. Barbara Lee. “It’s either uphold the filibuster or uphold our democracy.”

By Kenny Stancil

The chrous of progressive voices calling for the elimination of the U.S. Senate’s 60-vote filibuster rule grew louder on Wednesday after President Joe Biden said that “we need the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.”

“We’re witnessing an all-out assault on our democracy—and we need to act swiftly to protect the sacred right to vote,” the president tweeted on Wednesday morning.

Within hours, numerous progressive lawmakers—including Democratic Reps. Barbara Lee (Calif.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.)—responded to Biden’s call to protect U.S. democracy by demanding, yet again, that Senate Democrats “abolish the filibuster.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Friday announced that the chamber will vote on S. 1, the For the People Act, later this month.

Reforming or eliminating the filibuster is, as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and others have made clear, a prerequisite to passing the voting rights and campaign finance reform bill that progressives argue is necessary to protect U.S. democracy in the face of the GOP’s nationwide assault on the franchise and the rule of law. Schumer, however, has not yet committed to doing so.

Pressure is mounting on Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin (W. Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), two of the party’s most conservative lawmakers, both of whom have voiced opposition to the For the People Act and filibuster reform. According to the Washington Post, Biden on Tuesday “accused a pair of unnamed senators of aligning too closely with Republicans and stalling efforts to pass sweeping voting standards.”

Sinema, for her part, doubled down on her opposition to getting rid of the filibuster on Wednesday.

Schumer’s announcement about this month’s vote on S. 1, which is expected to happen between June 21 and June 25, came immediately after Senate Republicans employed the legislative filibuster to block the establishment of an independent commission to probe the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters.

According to progressives, the near-unanimous opposition of Senate Republicans to an investigation of the deadly insurrection provided some of the strongest evidence yet of the GOP’s growing antagonism to democracy, which more than 100 scholars on Tuesday said is “now at risk” due to right-wing attacks.

Although the January 6 coup attempt failed—and despite a total lack of evidence of electoral fraud last November—Trump’s “Big Lie” that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him has fueled a wave voter suppression bills nationwide.

As of May 14, Republican lawmakers in 49 states had introduced at least 389 bills that would either make it harder for millions of Americans, especially Democratic-leaning constituencies, to vote, or empower right-wing state legislatures to overturn election results they don’t like, according to the Brennan Center for Justice’s latest tally.

The Brennan Center noted that 22 laws restricting ballot access have been passed by GOP-controlled legislatures and signed into law by governors in 14 states this year, and 61 bills are currently moving through 18 state legislatures.

Voting rights advocates say that Senate Democrats can “thwart virtually every single one” of the GOP’s voter suppression bills by passing the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

Without the support of a single Republican, House Democrats passed H.R. 1, the lower chamber’s version of the For the People Act, in March.

Soon after, progressives told Senate Democrats to “end the filibuster and pass” S. 1., which would increase ballot access nationwide by implementing automatic voter registration, limit states’ ability to purge voters from the rolls, require states to adopt independent redistricting commissions, set up a publicly financed small-dollar donation matching system for candidates who reject high-dollar contributions, and enact other democratic reforms.

Because passing the For the People Act depends on scrapping the filibuster, progressives’ message remained the same on Wednesday.

“It’s simple,” tweeted Lee. “It’s either uphold the filibuster or uphold our democracy.”

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‘You Stole a Supreme Court Seat’: Critics Pan McConnell Threat to Sabotage Senate If Democrats Target Filibuster

“Blocking needed relief for Americans has nothing to do with ‘consent and comity’ and everything to do with destroying democracy.”

By Jake Johnson

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell threatened Tuesday to grind the workings of the notoriously sluggish upper chamber to a complete halt if the Democratic majority attempts to scrap the legislative filibuster, a warning that was met with immediate derision given the Kentucky Republican’s elimination of the 60-vote rule for Supreme Court nominees less than four years ago.

In a speech on the Senate floor just hours after he dropped his demand that Democrats commit to leaving the legislative filibuster intact as part of a must-pass organizing resolution, McConnell cautioned that “destroying the filibuster would drain comity and consent from this body to a degree that would be unparalleled in living memory.”

“The filibuster is a Jim Crow relic. It represents everything wrong with Washington. Abolish it.”
—Rep. Ilhan Omar

“Taking that plunge would not be some progressive dream. It would be a nightmare. I guarantee it,” added McConnell, who said Republicans could obstruct Senate business by denying a quorum, the number of senators required to be present for the chamber to operate.

As Daily Kos political director David Nir pointed out, “if Republican senators refuse to show up for a quorum call, Democrats can direct the Senate’s sergeant at arms to arrest them and compel their attendance.”

“That’s how radical a threat withholding quorum is—you can be arrested for doing so,” Nir noted.

The minority leader echoed the message of his floor speech in a tweet Tuesday evening, declaring that nuking the filibuster “would drain the consent and comity out of the institution” and leave the Senate unable to function.

Democratic lawmakers and commentators responded by pointing to McConnell’s refusal to allow a vote on former President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee and subsequent elimination of the judicial filibuster to confirm right-wing Justice Neil Gorsuch in April of 2017—and clear the way for later confirmation of two additional Trump high court nominees.

“You lost all credibility when you stole a Supreme Court seat,” tweeted Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). “The filibuster is a Jim Crow relic. It represents everything wrong with Washington. Abolish it.”

“By the way,” the Minnesota Democrat added, “Senate Democrats represent 41.5 million more Americans than Mitch and his caucus. Blocking needed relief for Americans has nothing to do with ‘consent and comity’ and everything to do with destroying democracy.”

Ari Berman of Mother Jones said it is “truly maddening to hear Mitch McConnell warn of ‘nightmare’ if Dems abolish filibuster when he already killed it to put three Trump justices on the Supreme Court and confirmed Amy Coney Barrett eight days before an election.”

McConnell’s threat to gum up the works of the Senate even more than he already has came as the chamber’s new Democratic majority began taking steps to advance President Joe Biden’s proposed coronavirus relief package through the special budget reconciliation process, a move made necessary by vocal Republican opposition to the new aid measure.

The Washington Post reported late Tuesday that “Democratic leaders in both chambers are tentatively planning to introduce a budget resolution on Monday that could come to a vote later in the week.”

“The resolution would instruct committees to write legislation codifying Biden’s $1.9 trillion pandemic relief plan,” the Post reported. “Under special rules governing the budget resolution, the resolution could pass the Senate with a simple majority vote, and the subsequent Covid-19 relief bill could also pass with a simple majority—even without eliminating the filibuster.”

While a coronavirus relief package could clear the Senate with the filibuster intact, former Senate staffer Adam Jentleson said in an interview with The.Ink Tuesday that Democrats “will never be able to use reconciliation to pass things like civil rights, democracy reforms, statehood, gun control, or many climate change solutions” due to rules restricting the kind of legislation that can be passed through the expedited budget process—meaning the urgency of abolishing the archaic 60-vote rule remains.

“Pulling our punches now will mean that we fail to reform our democracy and get climate change under control, for starters,” Jentleson said. “Then, when McConnell is back in power, he will chuckle and nuke the filibuster himself the first time it serves his interests.”

In a series of tweets Tuesday, Jentleson argued that the minority leader’s threat to defend the filibuster by plunging the Senate into chaos “is the worst he can come up with and it’s vastly preferable to letting McConnell block Biden’s agenda.”

“Unintentionally,” Jentleson added, “McConnell is revealing how his power relies heavily on the filibuster.”

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Source: ‘You Stole a Supreme Court Seat’: Critics Pan McConnell Threat to Sabotage Senate If Democrats Target Filibuster | Common Dreams News