Jane Mayer New Yorker Article Spotlights Filibuster’s Role in Blocking For the People Act
Washington, DC — A Jane Mayer New Yorker article highlights leaked audio from a January call between strategists from the Koch brothers’ network and a Senate aide of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, revealing that they intend to rely on the filibuster to block the popular For the People Act.
Noting the incredible popularity of the For the People Act, even among conservatives, the Koch strategist concluded:
"...the legislation’s opponents would likely have to rely on Republicans in the Senate, where the bill is now under debate, to use “under-the-dome-type strategies”—meaning legislative maneuvers beneath Congress’s roof, such as the filibuster—to stop the bill, because turning public opinion against it would be “incredibly difficult.” He warned that the worst thing conservatives could do would be to try to “engage with the other side” on the argument that the legislation “stops billionaires from buying elections … Unfortunately, we’ve found that that is a winning message, for both the general public and also conservatives.” He said that when his group tested “tons of other” arguments in support of the bill, the one condemning billionaires buying elections was the most persuasive—people “found that to be most convincing, and it riled them up the most.”
The following is a statement from Eli Zupnick, spokesman for Fix Our Senate:
"This is a perfect encapsulation of how the filibuster is used to perpetuate injustice and block progress on legislation to strengthen our democracy and expand and protect civil and voting rights.
The choice is clear: Senators can protect the filibuster, an outdated and abused Senate rule that President Obama called a ‘Jim Crow relic’ – or they can protect our democracy and the right to vote in the face of surging voter suppression, gerrymandering across the country, and this coordinated obstruction from conservative billionaires and Senate Republicans. They won’t be able to do both.”