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WASHINGTON – After another failed vote to advance voting rights legislation last week, Democratic lawmakers are debating the merits changes in the filibuster rule that many in the party see as essential.
“The most important vote right now in the Congress of the United States is the vote to respect the sanctity of the vote, the fundamental basis of our democracy,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“If there were one vote that the filibuster could enable to go forward, that would be the vote,” Pelosi said.
In a CNN town hall Thursday, President Joe Biden said: “I also think we’re going to have to move to the point where we fundamentally alter the filibuster. The idea, for example, my Republican friends say that we’re going to default on the national debt because they’re going to filibuster that and we need 10 Republicans to support us is the most bizarre thing I ever heard.”
The shift in attitude toward the rule comes after Senate Republicans filibustered the Freedom to Vote Act, a pared-back voting rights package pushed by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who aggressively courted Republican votes for the bill. The failed vote was the third voting rights package filibustered by Republicans this year.
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