Eric Shawn: Busting the filibuster
Christopher Bedford on the hotly debated U.S. Senate parliamentary rule… and the politicians who hate it
The Democrats in a full-out campaign to get President Biden to agree to eliminate the filibuster are hypocrites because the party used it 327 times 2020, Ronna McDaniel, the head of the Republican National Committee tweeted late Thursday.
The filibuster issue became front and center in Washington when Biden told a CNN town hall that the elimination of the filibuster would “throw the entire Congress into chaos and nothing will get done.”
Biden’s comment came after Republicans mounted a filibuster to reject the effort to begin debate on the massive, bipartisan infrastructure bill, saying there are still unresolved issues.
Progressive Democrats have framed the filibuster issue as an opportunity for Biden to save democracy itself. Rep. Pramil Jayapal, D-Wash., the chairwoman of the Progressive Caucus, tweeted Thursday, that Republicans “have already introduced over 350 MORE bills across the nation. The solution is clear: End the filibuster. Pass the For the Peoples Act. Save our democracy.”
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Republicans in June blocked the For the Peoples Act with a filibuster, claiming the sweeping election law represents a federal infringement on states’ authority to conduct their own election without fraud. Some Republicans called the bill the “Screw the People Act.”
Progressives see the clock ticking for Biden to enact major policies and say the president should move without any Republican support. The president appeared to have a slight change of heart on the filibuster because just months ago he called it a “relic of the Jim Crow era.”
The 327 filibuster number is likely based on Sen. Mitch McConnell’s move to invoke cloture 327 times in the 2019-20 session.
On Wednesday, he said, What I also want to do, I want to make sure we bring along not just all the Democrats. We bring along Republicans who I know, know better. I’m trying to bring the country together. And I don’t want the debate to only be about whether or not we have a filibuster or exceptions to the filibuster or going back to the way the filibuster had to be used before.”
Fox News’ Jessica Chasmar and the Associated Press contributed to this report
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