Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday expressed support for ending the Senate’s filibuster rule in order to pass legislation codifying “abortion rights,” prompting independent Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia to withhold his endorsement from the Democratic nominee.
Harris said she would eliminate the filibuster for the purpose of bringing back the protections afforded in Roe v. Wade, which would lower the Senate voting threshold from 60 votes to a simple majority of 51 votes, according to a Tuesday interview on Wisconsin Public Radio. The Democrat-turned-independent Manchin said he was withholding his endorsement of Harris over her comments on Tuesday after previously signaling that he may endorse the vice president.
“I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe,” Harris said during the interview. “And get us to the point where 51 votes would be what we need to actually put back in law the protections for reproductive freedom and for the ability of every person and every woman to make decisions about their own body and not have their government tell them what to do.”
Manchin pushed back against Harris, arguing that getting rid of the filibuster would make the Senate like “the House on steroids.”
“Shame on her,” Manchin said in the Capitol. “She knows the filibuster is the Holy Grail of democracy. It’s the only thing that keeps us talking and working together. If she gets rid of that, then this would be the House on steroids.”
“I think that basically can destroy our country, and my country is more important to me than any one person or any one person’s ideology,” Manchin said. “I think it’s the most horrible thing.”
Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona also expressed her discontent with Harris over her proposal, calling her stance a “terrible” and “shortsighted idea.”
“To state the supremely obvious, eliminating the filibuster to codify Roe v Wade also enables a future Congress to ban all abortion nationwide,” Sinema pointed out in a Tuesday post on X. “What an absolutely terrible, shortsighted idea.”
Several senators pushed back against Harris’ remarks in a letter addressed to Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday.
“Senators have expressed a variety of opinions about the appropriateness of limiting debate when we are considering judicial and executive branch nominations,” the letter reads. “Regardless of our past disagreements on that issue, we are united in our determination to preserve the ability of Members to engage in extended debate when bills are on the Senate floor.”
There are currently 47 Democratic Senators and 49 Republicans who hold office as well as four independents. By abolishing the filibuster, lawmakers would be tasked with gaining a simple majority as opposed to rallying 60 Senators to pass legislation.
Manchin and Sinema, who both changed their party affiliation from Democratic to independent, are both retiring at the end of their terms.
After Roe v. Wade was overturned in January 2022, President Joe Biden said he would support changing the Senate filibuster in order to pass a federal law to codify abortion access. Last month, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer also echoed Harris and suggested that he would consider eliminating the filibuster on certain votes to uphold abortion access.
The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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