During an interview with Wisconsin Public Radio, Kamala Harris announced that she intends to eliminate the practice of filibuster with the aim of codifying the Roe v. Wade law, which was overturned in June 2022 by a Supreme Court ruling; this was made possible by the conservative dominance of the Court since former President Donald Trump appointed three justices during his first term.
To put it in context, the practice of filibuster is a procedural tactic often used in the U.S. Senate to delay or block legislative action, typically by prolonging the debate so that the bill gets derailed.
These statements by Harris are the latest evidence of how the Democratic presidential nominee seeks to differentiate herself from former President Trump on the issue of abortion, which in addition to being an extremely polarizing topic, is also considered a vulnerability for the GOP.
Until now Harris, as a candidate, had never publicly stated whether she would be in favor of overriding the filibuster rule, which requires 60 votes to pass most major legislation, to guarantee abortion rights in federal law.
“I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe,” Harris told the radio station in an interview that aired Tuesday. She then added the fact that: “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”.
Senators Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), both strenuous defenders of the filibuster practice, reaffirmed their positions Tuesday after Harris’ statements. But what is important to denote is that both of them will retire from the Senate in January, giving Democrats a glimpse of possibility and optimism about eliminating the filibuster by next year.
Sinema wrote a post on the social platform, X, claiming that: “To state the supremely obvious, eliminating the filibuster to codify Roe v Wade also enables a future Congress to ban all abortion nationwide, what an absolutely terrible, shortsighted idea”.
Manchin himself also expressed his opinion by saying that he will not support Harris after her comments. “She knows that the filibuster is the holy grail of democracy,” he said.
“It is the only thing that makes us talk and work together. If she got rid of it, this would be the House on steroids”.
As the race for president tightens more and more, it is obvious that the issue of abortion will become increasingly central, especially in the wake of these statements by the Democratic nominee.
