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Biden calls for filibuster reform

President Biden, speaking at a NATO event in Madrid on Thursday, called for changes to the filibuster in order to protect abortion rights.

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David Meyers
By David MeyersJun 30, 2022
David Meyers

David Meyers is the Executive Editor of The Fulcrum. Before launching The Fulcrum, David spent more than two decades at CQ Roll Call, a leading publisher of political news and information. During his time there, David served as managing editor of Roll Call (“the newspaper of Capitol Hill”) and as managing editor of member information and research, which included co-editing the definitive biographical directory of Congress, “Politics in America.” David went on to lead all of CQ Roll Call’s congressional research teams as vice president of research and content development before shifting to a revenue and strategy role as vice president of business operations for Roll Call, working with the advertising and editorial teams to develop new revenue models and expand the company’s events business. David lives in Fairfax, Va., with his wife, two daughters and rottweiler. A graduate of Tufts University, David is a past president of the Tufts University Alumni Association. He is also a past president of the Washington Press Club Foundation, which works to celebrate and advance the role of women and minorities in the media. David currently serves on the board of directors for Temple B’nai Shalom in Fairfax Station.

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For the second time this year, President Biden has called for changing Senate rules in order to pass legislation that has deeply divided the country. On Thursday, Biden announced his support for carving out an exception to the filibuster in order to codify Roe v. Wade.

Following the Supreme Court decision undoing Roe, which protected abortion rights at the federal level, trigger laws banned abortion in more than a dozen states with more likely to follow. And with 60 votes required to overcome procedural blockades in the Senate, advocates for women’s right to choose lack a legislative solution barring a change in rules.

In January, after Senate Republicans blocked passage of the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, Biden called for the Senate to change the filibuster rule in order to pass the legislation.

He made the same demand Thursday morning if Congress cannot find another way of passing abortion rights legislation.

“And if the filibuster gets in the way, it’s like voting rights,” Biden said at a news conference in Madrid. “We provide an exception for this.”

The filibuster, which is not enshrined in the Constitution but rather a rule established by the Senate, allows an individual lawmaker to prevent a vote on the bill. The only way to break a filibuster is through a procedural motion that requires 60 “yes” votes. In a highly partisan, evenly divided Senate, that will not happen.

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While a change in rules requires a bare majority, two Democrats – Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona – have repeatedly declared their opposition to a change in rules.

A poll conducted for CBC News by YouGov in January found that about one-third of Americans want to scrap the filibuster and another third want to keep it. (The rest needed more information.) Within those totals is a partisan divide, with 58 percent of Democrats wanting to eliminate the filibuster and 65 percent of Republicans wanting to keep it.

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