Washington, DC — Following the Senate’s passage of the overwhelmingly popular American Rescue Plan that was unanimously opposed by Senate Republicans, more and more Democrats in Congress are acknowledging the need to eliminate the filibuster. As long as the filibuster remains in place, Sen. McConnell will use it to obstruct anything that can’t be jammed into a reconciliation bill, and progress will be impossible on voting rights, gun safety, the DREAM Act, increasing the minimum wage and so much more.
Here is some recent coverage and commentary on the filibuster:
- Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN): “I would get rid of the filibuster...I have favored filibuster reform for a long time and now especially for this critical election bill.” (Mother Jones).
- Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV): “If you want to make [filibustering] a little bit more painful, make him stand there and talk, I’m willing to look at any way we can. But I’m not willing to take away the involvement of the minority.” (Meet The Press).
- Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA): “Major changes to the filibuster for someone like me would not have been on the agenda even a few years ago. But the Senate does not work like it used to. This idea that we’re the Senate of old doesn’t make sense anymore. We’ve got an unyielding partisan ideological foe in the Republican party and they won’t allow major issues to come forward. We have to get to voting rights, we have to get to common sense gun measures, we have to deal with climate change.” (MSNBC).
- Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN): “The Senate needs to abolish the filibuster. Right now, the Senate has 50 Republican senators. They represent less than 44% of America. And yet they still have the power to stop us from passing laws that a majority of America wants. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this, and to be honest I started out believing we should keep the filibuster. Without it, I reasoned, what would stop a conservative president and Congress from doing terrible damage to women’s health care, voting rights and civil rights. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the filibuster has long been the enemy of progress. In fact, it’s been a highly effective tool to thwart the will of the people.” (Facebook).
- Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC): “There’s no way under the sun that in 2021 that we are going to allow the filibuster to be used to deny voting rights. That just ain’t gonna happen. That would be catastrophic...If Manchin and Sinema enjoy being in the majority, they had better figure out a way to get around the filibuster when it comes to voting and civil rights.” (The Guardian).
- Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT): “We’ve got to figure out whether leadership on both sides wants to have obstruction or if they want to come together and try to get some things done.” (the Washington Post).
- Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT): “I think we do need to go back and take a look at it. But I think we ought to give this Congress a chance to screw up before we change it.” (Real Time with Bill Maher).
- Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA): “As a US Senator my focus is solving issues for the American people with good public policy, but we cannot accomplish what must get done without fixing our democracy. To get there, we must first end the filibuster, enact the For the People Act, and restore the Voting Rights Act.” (Twitter).
- Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA): “If we continue to see obstruction from our Republican colleagues as we saw through this COVID relief package, then I think the patience is going to wear thin, even on moderate Democrats...In the meantime we’ll exercise as many options as we can, whether it’s through straight legislation, budget reconciliation or otherwise, to continue to make progress.” (CNN Inside Politics).
