Democratic nominee Kamala Harris this week came out in favor of “eliminating” the filibuster – a longstanding U.S. Senate precedent – to pass a bill that would make the overturned Roe v. Wade decision nationwide law.
“I’ve been very clear,” Harris said during a Monday appearance on Wisconsin Public Radio. “I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe.”
The proposed law, which is expected to be supported by virtually all elected Democratic lawmakers, would legalize abortion nationwide and wipe out the dozens of pro-life laws passed by many states across the country.
Eliminating the filibuster would effectively decrease the threshold to pass such a sweeping pro-abortion bill from 60 to 50 Senate votes – in a hypothetical situation where Harris’ running mate Tim Walz becomes vice president and serves as the tie-breaking vote.
The Democratic caucus currently controls a total of 51 Senate seats.
Nuking the filibuster “would be what we need to actually put back in law the protections for reproductive freedom,” Harris stated.
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Retiring Independent West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who recently left the Democratic Party, sharply criticized Harris’ remarks on Tuesday. “Shame on her,” he said. “She knows the filibuster is the Holy Grail of democracy. It’s the only thing that keeps us talking and working together.”
Manchin suggested that the traditional practice makes the Senate unique, noting that without the filibuster, the body would instead “be the House on steroids.”
Manchin, a Catholic, was a lifelong registered Democrat until he left the party to become an independent in May. He still caucuses with the Democrats, and his open seat is widely expected to be won by the Republican candidate in this year’s election.
At the same time, the senator clarified that he is not endorsing Harris in the November election.
Harris previously served in the U.S. Senate from 2017 until she resigned to become vice president in 2021. While she was in the chamber, she supported a number of controversial policies generally associated with the far-left-wing of the Democratic Party.
In 2019, legislative tracking website GovTrack called then-Sen. Harris the “Most Liberal” U.S. Senator at the time. However, GovTrack removed this label from its entry sometime after – causing some critics to accuse the website of hiding the now-nominee’s more left-wing past.
Earlier this month, Rep. Colin Allred, D-TX, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Texas, said he would support “reforming” the filibuster for abortion if he succeeds in upsetting incumbent Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in November.
“The filibuster has to change, because it’s broken,” Allred told a podcaster. “We do have to reform it or we have to fix it. And that is also why we will codify Roe v. Wade.
CatholicVote reported on September 12:
During last month’s Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, implied that if Democrats gain a “trifecta” in November, he “would seek to end the filibuster for purposes of passing voting rights and abortion legislation,” Rich Lowry noted in an August 21 New York Post op-ed.
A “trifecta” occurs when a party has control of the presidency and both houses of Congress.
Republicans are currently the slight favorites to retake the Senate in November. In order for the Democrats to retain control of the chamber, they would have to win in Florida, Montana, or Texas – where Allred is their nominee. Republicans are favored to win all three of these races.
LifeNews Note: Joshua Mercer writes for CatholicVote, where this column originally appeared.
