Stacey Abrams Urges Lifting Filibuster for Election Reform Bill

👤Stacey Abrams, an influential figure in Democratic circles, called on Sunday for the U.S. Senate to exempt election reform legislation passed by the House of Representatives over Republican opposition from a procedural hurdle called the filibuster.

“Protection of democracy is so fundamental that it should be exempt from the filibuster rules,” Abrams, a former senior state legislator and gubernatorial candidate in Georgia who helped Democrats win two U.S. Senate runoff elections in her home state in January, told CNN’s “State of the Union” program.

The Democratic-led House on March 3 passed a bill intended to reform voting procedures, increase voter participation and require states to assign independent commissions the task of redrawing congressional districts to guard against partisan manipulation.

There is a debate among Democrats, who narrowly control the Senate thanks to the two Georgia victories, on whether to modify or even eliminate the filibuster, a longstanding fixture of the Senate that makes it so most legislation cannot advance without 60 votes in the 100-seat chamber rather than a simple majority.

The filibuster already has been scaled back and does not apply to judicial or Cabinet appointments and some budgetary measures, Abrams noted, so it should be suspended for the voting rights legislation. Abrams, a former minority leader in the Georgia House of Representatives, has emerged as a leading Democratic voice on voting rights.

Democratic President 👤Joe Biden has said he would sign the election legislation into law if it is passed by Congress, but also has indicated opposition to completely eliminating the filibuster.

The House-passed bill faces long odds in the Senate under current rules, where all 48 Democrats and the two independents who caucus with them would need to be joined by 10 of the 50 Republican senators to overcome a filibuster.