From Huffington Post:
Leading Democratic Senate candidates from around the country are open to at least reforming the filibuster, according to a HuffPost survey, with at least two supporting wholesale elimination of the Senate’s 60-vote hurdle.
The candidates uniformly argue that the filibuster has empowered obstructionists and prevented the country from making needed progress on issues like gun control and health care. Republicans currently have a 53-47 majority in the Senate, and Democrats are counting on the candidates in these targeted races to defeat incumbent Republicans and help the party win back control of the chamber.
So far, Democratic groups have reserved airtime for ads in Senate races in six states with incumbent Republicans: Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Montana and North Carolina. In all six states, the leading Democratic candidate is open to eliminating the filibuster if the party wins control of the Senate in November.
“She supports getting rid of the filibuster so the Senate can function more productively and make a real difference for Mainers,” said Maeve Coyle, a spokeswoman for Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon, who is expected to win the Democratic primary to take on GOP Sen. Susan Collins.
Use of the filibuster, which essentially requires a three-fifths majority to pass any major legislation through the Senate, has spiked in recent years, with Republicans using it repeatedly to stymie legislative progress during the Obama administration. Progressives, in particular, argue that the practice must be eliminated if key Democratic policy goals are to be passed into law.
During the Democratic presidential primaries, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and a host of other candidates lined up behind ending the filibuster, while several candidates called for more modest reforms to the practice. Former Vice President Joe Biden disagreed, and his eventual victory seemed to extinguish hopes of eliminating the legislative maneuver.
But the possibility of a Democratic Senate reforming or junking the filibuster was seemingly revived this past week by an unlikely source. Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, an avowed dealmaker and longtime defender of the filibuster, told Politico that he would be open to scrapping the 60-vote threshold.
“I will not stand idly by for four years and watch the Biden administration’s initiatives blocked at every turn,” said the Democratic senator, who is personally close to Biden. “I am gonna try really hard to find a path forward that doesn’t require removing what’s left of the structural guardrails, but if there’s a Biden administration, it will be inheriting a mess, at home and abroad. It requires urgent and effective action.”
The Democrats mentioned in the article that favor eliminating or reforming the filibuster include Steve Bullock (D. MT), Theresa Greenfield (D. IA), Cal Cunningham (D. NC), Mark Kelly (D. AZ), John Hickenlooper (D. CO), Andrew Romanoff (D. CO) and Jon Ossoff (D. GA). Senate candidates Barbara Bollier (D. KS) and Raphael Warnock (D. GA) are mentioned in the article as still looking into the issue. MJ Hegar (D. TX) said she was open to changing the rules but is concerned about Republicans taking advantage of such rules change. That’s a fair concern but I think she will need to come to terms with the fact that the Senate is going to have to act fast to get much needed legislation and relief passed in order to get the country back onto the road to recovery considering how badly it’s been hit by the coronavirus pandemic. But first things first, let’s win the Senate big time. Click below to donate and get involved with these Senate Democrats and Joe Biden’s campaigns:
Joe Biden
Sara Gideon
Steve Bullock
Theresa Greenfield
Cal Cunningham
Mark Kelly
John Hickenlooper
Andrew Romanoff
Jon Ossoff