Biden says he supports filibuster carve-out for voting rights
Source: CNN
President Joe Biden says he supports making an exception to the Senate filibuster rules in order to pass voting rights legislation.
"If the only thing standing between getting voting rights legislation passed and not getting passed is the filibuster, I support making the exception of voting rights for the filibuster," Biden told ABC News' David Muir in an interview that aired Thursday morning.
It's the most direct answer Biden has given on his position on the filibuster and voting rights.
CNN's Anderson Cooper asked Biden at a CNN town hall in October, "When it comes to voting rights, just so I'm clear though, you would entertain the notion of doing away with the filibuster on that one issue, is that correct?"
"And maybe more," Biden responded.
Since Democrats won a slim majority in Congress, Republicans have blocked several Democratic-sponsored bills that seek to expand voting access and aim to end voter suppression, arguing that the proposals are a federal power grab. That's led some progressive Democrats and activists to demand an end to the filibuster rule, which requires 60 votes to advance most legislation, in order to pass federal voting rights protections. But Democrats also don't have the votes they need in the Senate to change the filibuster due to opposition from members of their own party, including from Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/23/politics/joe-biden-filibuster-voting-rights/index.html
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Let's run with this.
Bring it to the floor and invite Manchin and Sinema to vote in favor of an outdated administrative relic of the Jim Crow era. Let them rail about their commitment to the Constitution (which seems to have forgotten to mention the filibuster). If it comes to the floor and fails, it's no different than if it never comes to the floor. This BS of managing the agenda via press releases and TV appearances is nuts.
Make.
Them.
Vote.
...I don't buy into the logic that Reid carving out presidential nominations except SCOTUS led to McConnell killing it for SCOTUS. I'm not sure that's what you were saying but it's an argument I often hear...the only reason Mitch did it was because Reid did it.
Mitch would have eaten ground glass to get his SCOTUS votes through and I don't think anything was going to get in his way...including that pesky little filibuster.
So...dump it while Schumer is leader cuz I predict with 1000% certainty that Mitch will dump it the day they take over the Senate.
By Matt Flegenheimer
April 6, 2017
WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Thursday engineered a dramatic change in how the chamber confirms Supreme Court nominations, bypassing a Democratic blockade of Judge Neil M. Gorsuch in a move that will most likely reshape both the Senate and the court. After Democrats held together Thursday morning and filibustered President Trump’s nominee, Republicans voted to lower the threshold for advancing Supreme Court nominations from 60 votes to a simple majority.
In deploying this so-called nuclear option, lawmakers are fundamentally altering the way the Senate handles one of its most significant duties, further limiting the minority’s power in a chamber that was designed to be a slower and more deliberative body than the House.
The move, once unthinkable among senators, is a testament to the creeping partisan rancor in recent years, after decades of at least relative bipartisanship on Supreme Court matters. Both parties have warned of sweeping effects on the court itself, predicting the elevation of more ideologically extreme judges now that only a majority is required for confirmation.
Senate Democrats in 2013 first changed the rules of the Senate to block Republican filibusters of presidential nominees to lower courts and to government positions. But they left the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees untouched, an acknowledgment of the court’s exalted status. On Thursday, that last pillar was swept away on a party-line vote, with all 52 Republicans choosing to overrule Senate precedent and all 48 Democrats and liberal-leaning independents pushing to keep it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/06/us/politics/neil-gorsuch-supreme-court-senate.html
It's an "argument" that actually came out of his mouth referencing "the precedent set in 2013" in his legislative point of order remarks - i.e., the intention to remove the filibuster for "any nominee". Having the majority at the time when they also had the Presidency, made it a no-brainer slam dunk and fast way to get there.
I would say that had Clinton won in 2016 instead, he would not have done it and would have left the 60 vote cloture Rule in place so they could block any Democratic SCOTUS nominees.
I only bring this up because that has been the argument by those Senators who have expressed reservations regarding changing the Rule (although again, most, but not all, are now willing to push for a new "carve out" ).
States need time to undo gerrymandering which I believe it kills.
